#nobody needs to be having negative emotions in public keep that shit to yourself thanks

[slippery-minghus]

ough. really wanted to take a panic pill but i don't have any in my bag. guess i'll just have to keep it together the old fashioned way ;)

[katecarteir]

L.A Devotee | Chapter 3

Richie looked Eddie’s outfit up and down, and wrinkled up his nose. “Do you own anything that didn’t come from Aeropostale in 2009?” 

Eddie gave him a equally disgusted look in return. “Not really.” 

[or: child actor Richie Tozier was raised in The Industry, he knows how to play the game. He knows exactly how to keep his head down, and make his way through the famous life without attracting any extra drama. Until his management branch takes an up incoming band under their wing, and enlist Richie to publicly date the lead singer, and that all falls to shit.]

Richie was woken up by a heavy weight bouncing onto the bed beside him. He yelped, gripping angrily at the edge of his mattress as he nearly tumbled off while Audra continuing bouncing on her knees.

“RICHIE! GET UP! RICHARD!” Audra shook Richie’s shoulder until he groaned angrily and swatted at his best friend.

He hunched his shoulders up towards his ears and glowered at her. “You better not be waking me up because of that fuking recording studio shit.It’s not until 11, and I have an alarm set! Let me live!”

Audra yanked the blanket away from Richie’s body and tossed towards the bottom of Richie’s bed. “It’s not about that, but I do think you should take it a little bit more seriously. Nobody’s going to believe it, if you don’t start acting like it’s real.”

Richie rolled his eyes. It had been nearly four weeks since his management had demanded that he parade around with some pretty little songbird on his arm as though they were madly in love, and Richie could admit that he hadn’t seen much of the guy at all. After the awkwardness at the bar between them, he’d been giving Eddie a wide berth. There had been a few arranged meetings- enough that Eddie’s face showed up in tabloids and people Googled who Eddie was. His band’s YouTube channel and SoundCloud had skyrocketed in the last couple weeks, and the management felt now would be a good time to start dropping their singles. Richie was, of course, was expected to be present at the final recording today, if only to be spotted going in and out of the building with Eddie. He was still looking for a way to get out of actually having to sit through the recording process, simply because he’d gone this far without hearing Eddie Kaspbrak sing and he’d like to keep that trend up as long as possible.

Audra hit him with a pillow, and he tossed his hand out to whack at her shoulder. “Richard.” She said, an absolute overjoyed smile covering her face. She held her phone out-stretch towards him, wiggling it in his face. “They nominated you for an Oscar!”

Richie felt as though he went through twenty emotions all at once and didn’t seem to express any of them. He blinked once, and rolled to sit up in his bed. “Guess I’ll take a shower since I’m up anyway.”

He watched how Audra’s face fell and instantly felt bad. He supposed that he should have tried a little harder to act enthusiastic- or tried at all, really- but with the amount of things he was going to have to pretend to feel today, this just wasn’t something he could bring up the strength to do. “Look, I’ll send out a Tweet about being thankful later, I promise. It’s not like I’m going to win it.”

Audra made a wounded noise sound as Richie stood and moved past her towards the bathroom. “That’s so negative! You can’t go into this with such bullshit opinions of yourself! You’re a good actor, Richie!”

Richie rolled his eyes, and yanked his boxers down. He reached into the shower, and pulled the water on. Holding his hand under the stream to feel it warm up to his preferred temperature, he looked back over to Audra. “Okay, first of all- we both know this isn’t about having talent.” Richie continued to rush through as Audra opened her mouth to speak. “And also? That movie was absolute shit. If I had been up for like… Rage… then maybe I could see it. But Secret Window? Ohhh dude kills his wife, big fucking plot twist. We know that if it had been anything less than written and directed by Bill Denbrough that it would have been some trash ass straight-to-Netflix shit.”

“That doesn’t mean your performance was bad.” Audra challenged, but Richie could tell the words were weak. Richie had barely even bothered to memorize the lines for the movie, convinced that it was going to flop whether he worked for it or not. He’d only agreed to do it as a favour to Bill, who had given him so many good roles that he figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a bad one. He remembered being shocked how breaking the film had been and was now even a little bit insulted that it was the role he was being nodded over.

“I haven’t been up for an award since my Teen Choice days.” Richie chuckled. “Most people don’t jump straight from the surfboard to the golden statue. No matter how many years have passed in between.” Audra was still glaring at him and Richie sighed. “Are you done lecturing me? I’m getting in the shower.”

“I am absolutely not done!” Audra said firmly, grabbing the ends of her nightshirt and heaving it over her head. Richie rolled his eyes, stepping under the water and feeling Audra slide in behind him. They settled under the spray and Audra placed her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. ”You’re not giving yourself enough credit, Rich. As usual. You were good in the movie, you played crazy really well! I think it’s one of your best roles, personally. You deserved to be nominated. Take it for the compliment that it is.”

Richie huffed out a breath, pouring some of Audra’s pomegranate shampoo into his hands and reaching to rub it into her hair.  “But I don’t take it as compliment. This is just something that is going to make my life more complicated. An excuse to push me into doing more bullshit publicity- and I have enough of that going on.”

Audra raised one eyebrow at him, likely trying to look intimidating but falling flat with the her hair piled up top of her head in a white foam. Richie tried not to laugh. “Not everything is a big scheme with ulterior motives. You’re paranoid as fuck.”

Richie pushed his thumbs against Audra’s chin and encouraged her to tilt her head under the spray. “I don’t know how you aren’t more paranoid, honestly. You really just take things at face value.”

“Not everything,” Audra said, rubbing the soap into Richie’s face a little more aggressively than he felt was necessary. “But sometimes I think it’s okay to believe that something is just a nice thing. No strings attached.”

“There’s always strings.”

Richie waltzed into the recording room, trying to ignore Beverly’s other excited chattering in his ear. Like Audra, she seemed to believe that this nomination was a good thing. What wanted nothing more than to never hear the word “Oscar” again- all apologies to people with the name. He had already resigned himself to having a long couple of weeks, but he was already close to snapping when he noticed Kay perking up at the sight of him.

“Richie! Congratulation-” She hadn’t even finished getting the words out before Richie was waving her off impatiently and dropped himself into one of free cars in the room. He pulled his phone out, but simply scrolled mindlessly through his own photo gallery because the last thing he wanted to do was look anywhere near his social media.

“He’s in little bitch mode,” Beverly said, coming into the room and immediately going to fuss over Ben’s hair. “Just let him stew in it. Auds probably woke him up and you know how he gets when he doesn’t get at least ten hours.”

Richie held his middle finger high above his head and clenched his jaw as he heard the laughter bounce through the small room.

“What are we congratulating Richie for?” Eddie’s voice came then, and Richie couldn’t help glancing up at him. He was wearing a pair of seemingly fitted beige khakis and an actual pink polo shirt, complete with a collar and everything. He looked the perfect boyfriend to some Disney Channel Mary Sue, and it made the back of Richie’s neck burn. “Did he finally find a thrift store that accepts thousand dollars bills?”

God, he barely knew him and yet Eddie Kaspbrak could get under his skin like nobody ever had before. It seemed that he knew just the exact right words to make Richie bristle, and his soul was trained for the exact right moment to toss them out.

“He was nominated for his first Oscar,” Beverly answered, even just sounding like she was rolling her eyes. “And he seems to think that it’s the end of the world.”

“His first?” Eddie’s face seemed confused as he turned to look over at Richie. Richie held his gaze, daring Eddie to piss him off. Eddie just hummed, and turned back to fiddling with his headphones. “I’d have thought you already had at least one.”

Richie narrowed his eyes, brain still trying to decide if that was an insult or not when Stan stormed into the room. “I’m not doing this fucking song. I’m not.”

“Stan you wrote the song, babe.” Ben said softly, Beverly still nit-picking at individual strands of Ben’s hair as though he was going to be on camera at all outside of potential pap pics.

Stan glared at his boyfriend, but the look he cast in Eddie’s direction immediately after was much colder. “I wrote it three years ago, and I didn’t even want to record it for the album. It doesn’t match our sound.”

“It’s a good song, Stanley.” Eddie said sharply, sounding more irritated than Richie had ever heard him before. “It’s strong lyrically, and we’re all well practised in it. And it’ll be a good hook to get people to start listening to us seriously.”

“I don’t want to hook people in by releasing a song that doesn’t sound like any of the rest of the album, Eddie.” Stan’s voice was cold. “Unless, of course, you want to change that, too. We’ve made so many compromises this far, why not?”

Eddie’s shoulders went stiff, his eyes shutted shut and his jaw clenched. Richie marvelled that Eddie Kaspbrak was actually kind of hot when he was pissed off. “The record needs the finished product by midnight, Stanley. We’ve put this off long enough- we’re doing the song.”

Stan looked for a moment like he might keep arguing, but Ben came over and guided him into their booth. They, along with Mike, started mingling around inside with their instruments and Eddie stared blankly at them for a long moment before sighing and moving inside to join his bandmates. Richier couldn’t help staring after Eddie’s departure. Once he was sure that Eddie and his friends had been behind the soundproof area, he turned to Kay and shook his head. “You’re blowing a lot of money on this band. They aren’t going to make it.”

“You haven’t even heard on them yet.” Kay said simply, leaning over the music techs and pointing at certain keys on the board.

“I don’t need to hear them,” Richie said with a shrug. “They could be the most talented band since Queen, and they still aren’t going to make it if they can’t find a way to get along.” Kay pursed her lips and he watched as Beverly turned away nervously. He knew he was right, and he didn’t need an verbally confirmation. He’d told them as much when they’d talked in the bars all those weeks ago- if they conflict this early on, they were doomed to fall apart. It certainly seemed that the drift between Stanley and Eddie had only grown larger since then. Whether Stan was still mad about this little stunt, or if Eddie had done something else since then, Richie wasn’t sure. But he knew it wouldn’t spell anything good for them, if they didn’t work it out soon.

Kay gave Richie a quick signal to shut up, and pressed down on the SPEAK button. “Okay, guys. We’ve burned a lot of time, so we’re going to get right into it. On your four count.”

The other three men all pushed their instruments into place, as Eddie wrapped his hands around the hanging mic and leaned towards it. Some music that might have passed for punk, but definitely leaned more towards pop, came from them as Eddie took a deep breath.

“Used to keep it cool, used to be a fool, all about the bounce in my step… Watch it on the news, whatcha gonna do, I could hit refresh and forget...”

Richie tried not to look impressed, staring stubbornly at his phone. Eddie definitely had the voice for this, and he’d been right about the song being good lyrically. He remembered that when Kay first mentioned them, she’d called them an alternative band… and this was no alternative song. It would do well in the Top 40s- which was no doubt their management’s intention, and what was making Stanley so distressed. It was a sell out, for sure, but if they stuck with it then nobody except them would ever know. That was the way to do it, but it seemed that Eddie’s bandmates might put up a fight about it.

Richie let himself look at Eddie, seeming so Ken-Barbie like in his preppy clothes. It certainly didn’t fit the sound they wanted to sell, and barely fit that in which it seemed like were going to sell. Eddie looked like some Jesse McCartney, 2009 Justin Bieber ass mother fucker. He couldn’t believe Beverly had let it fly for this long.

“Watch me stand in the line, you’re only serving lies, you’ve got something to hide…”

As they wrapped, and the band came fumbling out of the soundbooth, Richie mimicked gagging loudly as Eddie exited. Eddie looked wounded for a moment, before seeming to realize it was Richie mocking him, and quickly flipped his fake boyfriend off. Richie chuckled and pushed to his feet. He patted Stan between the shoulder and nodded at him. “It is a good song, man. Take it as a compliment that they chose it, even if it’s not the one you wanted.”

He was hyper aware of Beverly muttering something about him being a fucking hypocrite, and smirked as he turned to face Eddie. He looked the boy up and down, and wrinkled up his face.”Do you own anything that didn’t come from Aeropostale in 2009?”

Eddie gave him an equally disgusted look in return. “Not really.”

“We’ll have to change that.” It had been a general “we”. It had been such an general we. The most general of we’s. We as in Eddie and somebody who was not Richie. Then Beverly took it upon herself to walk up to them, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing! Eddie really needs a new look!” Beverly cheered, looking overly smug. “It’s so nice of you to offer to take him, Rich!”

“What?” Richie gasped as Eddie’s mouth dropped open in matching shock. “No, I- I didn’t- I-” But Beverly was already winking at him and walking back to talk to Kay. No doubt to tell her all about how Richie was going to be taking Eddie out to buy new clothes, leaving Richie with no choice but to actually do so. Eddie clearly couldn’t be trusted to purchase his own clothes- hence what he was wearing now- but Richie genuinely hadn’t been expecting to be thrust into that terrible responsibility.

Eddie, to his own credit, looked rather horrified. “You want him to pick out clothes for me? Him? Look at him!” Eddie gestured towards Richie’s outfit, was which- admittedly- rather wild today. He’d paired the skinniest jeans he could find in his closet- a bright, hot pink- with a green shirt covered in cactus’. If you looked closely enough to it, you could see the words don’t be a prick written all over it. “Dude looks like a kiwi!”

Richie huffed. “Look, man. I’m not thrilled about it, either. The less time I have to spent with you the better.”

“I’m a fucking delight, I’ll have you know!” Eddie snapped, Richie watching how his jaw clenched and his eyes flashed. Richie tilted his head to the side, smiling slightly. Eddie’s cheeks began to flush and Richie’s soft smile turned into a wolfish grin.

“Let’s just go, yeah?” Richie said, trying to keep his tone light and friendly. This would be unbearable if Eddie spent the entire time in a funk. “Everybody likes shopping, and you have an endless supply of company money to do it with.”

Eddie was still eyeing him warily. “Promise I’m not going to end up dressing like you?”

“Sweetie. Nobody dresses like me.”

xx

Richie took hold of Eddie’s hand as soon as they stepped into the open parking lot. He felt the way the other boy stiffened, and squeezed as he feared Eddie would pull away. “We have to look like we’re dating,” Richie whispered to him, leaning close enough that their bodies rested together. “There’s going to be a hundred fucking teen bops here, your single drops tonight, and I was just nominated for an award. Eyes are going to be on us.”

“Maybe we’ve picked the wrong day to do this,” Eddie said lightly as he and Richie began walking into the fluorescent light mall.

Richie laughed, small and seemingly genuine. “Kid. From here on out, there’s never going to be a good day to do things. Didn’t you get the you’re-gonna-be-famous crash course? You’re never going to be doing anything again without eyes on you.”

Eddie was quiet for such a long time that Richie eventually had to turn and look at him. Eddie’s hand felt so small in his own, and when he looked at Eddie- he looked small, too. Young. Richie knew they were the same age, give or take a few months, but he supposed that Eddie hadn’t had to grow up the way Richie had. There was still lingering youth in him, confusion about the world he was entering. Richie needed to remind himself that maybe Eddie Kaspbrak was a person under all that attitude.

“Hey, listen.” Richie said, swinging his and Eddie’s joined hands to-and-fro. “It comes with the job. Today is going to be your first day when you absolutely don’t need to worry about money, like at all. I remember the first time I was handed a credit card and let loose in a mall. It was a religious experience.”

Eddie looked Richie up and down, and Richie fully expected another comment about Richie’s choice in clothes but Eddie just frowned. “And you were what? Ten? Even younger?” Richie gave a non-committed hum. He’d been seven when his mother had handed him his first credit card with his own name on it. “I feel bad for you. You have all this stuff, but you’ve never really been allowed to live.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Richie said, wondering if he was convincing Eddie or himself. “I just get in trouble when I do something wrong.”

“I’d wanted to be an actor, when I was little.” Eddie said. “I begged my dad to let me go to auditions, and he told me if I really wanted to be famous- I could wait until I was an adult. He said if you wanted to put your kids into show business, you might as well skip the show business part and stick them right in rehab.”

Richie pursed his lips, wondering how much about his life Eddie actually knew. Somethings could easily be found online, but those facts were never quite right. Even if they came from direct sources. “Your dad sounds like a smart guy. How’d he let you get into a situation like this?”

“He died when I was eleven. Cancer.” Eddie said it so nonchalantly, and Richie felt he might have given himself whiplash turning to look at him. “It was just me and Ma after that, and she wouldn’t hear anything about being famous. Wanted me to stay in Maine, working at some pharmacy downtown, until I died. Made me want it more.”

“So, you’re becoming famous out of spite.” Richie said lightly, always one to dodge any emotional conversation that he could. “I can dig that.”

“I’m trying to become famous because it’s what I’ve always wanted.” Eddie pointed out, clearly trying to control the annoyance on his face. He was already smart enough to know that pictures of them seemingly having a fight shouldn’t be circling so quickly into their relationship. “My Ma was just a big push factor.”

Richie nodded, and then pressed a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head for good measure. Eddie’s eyes went a little wide, but he seemed to manage his shock well otherwise. “We’re going to start here,” Richie said, gesturing towards the Turtle Shack.

Eddie eyed it a little apprehensively. “Do you show there?”

Richie actually laughed, gesturing his free hand towards the store full of blues, blacks and grays.  “Does it look like I’d buy anything from there? No, Eddie. If you’re going to be the frontman of some emo alternative band, you can’t walk around looking like Chad Michael Murray.”

“Who?” Eddie asked, frowning. Richie just rolled his eyes, and tugged Eddie into the store. He didn’t have the time or patience to deal with how it seemed that Eddie Kaspbrak had been raised under a big rock in Maine. Were there mountains in Maine? If so, Eddie was probably raised in one. With wolves. Wolves that wore cardigans.

Richie grabbed several shirts and hoodies off the racks and tossed them at Eddie, hardly giving them a full glance. He was firm believer, right now, that anything was an improvement. Eddie didn’t seem convinced, judging by the way he was turning up his nose at them. “Why am I doing this? I don’t get why I have to change my clothes. It feels like lying.”

“Oh, what?” Richie laughed, brushing his hand along his jawline. “Now you’re worried about lying? Try the clothes on, Edward. I was told to take you shopping, and we’re getting you clothes. I don’t care if you ever wear them after this. But you will.”

Eddie scowled, then seemed to remember himself. He came forward and kissed Richie’s cheek quickly, smiling shyly up at him. Batting his eyelashes, and even seeming to blush somehow. “Thanks, baby.”

Richie watched Eddie duck into the change room, shaking his head and knowing his expression was perfectly awestruck. Eddie could have done well, if he’d stuck with his first dream of going into acting. Richie fiddled around with the long racks of pants, fitted and ripped, picking out six or seven. He knocked on the door. “I’ve got pants for you.”

“You’re trying to get me out of my pants, too?” Eddie called over to him through the door. He opened it, already wearing one of the dark Tees. It was a Nirvana shirt, that Richie was sure that he had a matching hiding somewhere in the back of his closet. Taking his shirt off, and placing another on, had left Eddie’s hair flopping out of it’s usually primly styles swoop. He could see the natural curls that Eddie’s hair held, and it was a little endearing.

“Your hair looks good like that.” Richie said, dropping the pants into Eddies hands. Eddie raised his eyebrows and frowned. “Women love the messy look. You could do for that sort of extra boost in popularity.”

“I don’t really care what women find attractive.” Eddie said, smirking. He was joking, probably, but Richie wasn’t in the mood to let Eddie make dumb mistakes right now.

“You should care.”Richie said seriously. “Whether you want to admit it or not, women are going to support your career. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay- they’ll love that, too- but most straight women are still going to want to imagine they could date you.”

Eddie lowered the clothes and suddenly seemed exhausted. “Richie, is anything even real? Everything I’ve done since signing our label has been changing myself, changing my stuff, and pissing off my friends. What’s the point?”

Richie pushed at Eddie’s shoulders and guided them into the dressing room together, knowing that was going make fun headlines. “Kid,” he said seriously, putting the clothes and hanging them up. “You’re too new at this to be so cynical about it. If you’re already not enjoying it, drop out now before it’s too late. But can I give you some advice and you promise not to let it make you think we’re friends?”

“We’ll never be friends,” Eddie answered immediately, but with none that Kaspbrak sass that Richie had already come to recognize. He just sounded tired.

Richie gave him a small smile. “There’s nothing wrong here.  You’ve maybe had a bit of a rough beginning, but once your stuff starts circulating and you smooth things over with Stanley, it’s going to be worth it. Just push through.”

Eddie gave him a long, unreadable look then sighed. “Do I still have to get the clothes?”

“Yes.” Richie said with a firm nod. “You need them.”

[my-emotional-self]

Let Me Protect You Chapter 13/?

Pairings: Chris Evans x OFC Emilia

Word Count: 1,765

Warnings: Fluffy goodness

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Self-Harm

Rating: PG-13

Summary: After Emilia’s fiancé cheats on her, she moves to California to live with her brother Eric, who just so happens to be good friends with Chris Evans.  Follow Emilia and her roller coaster life through heartbreak, love, and emotional trauma. Will Emilia choose to let Chris into her heart, or will she remain broken and alone forever?

 Chris wanted to protect you. He wanted to protect you from everything.  From the harm you do to yourself, from the emotions and feelings that overpower you. He actually wanted to protect you. It was as if those words were the magical words you needed to hear.  All negative thoughts and feelings slipped away from you in that moment.  It was just you and Chris, embraced in each other’s arms.  

At this moment, you wanted nothing more than to call Chris yours.  You wanted him for yourself, and only for you.  You wanted to shower him with affection; with love.  You only hoped he felt the same way, even though he’s already told you as much.  

Fuck it, actions you speak louder than words, so you decided to take the plunge.

Looking at his lips, they were perfect.  The perfect shape to kiss, to nibble on, to suckle.  You wanted those lips on yours.

You glanced back up to his eyes, only to see he his were glanced down to your lips too.  You waited, until he raised his eyes back to yours to speak.

“I want you to protect me Chris”, you say with happiness in your voice.

He puts forth a small smile, but it’s his eyes that really say it all; relief.

You slowly start leaning your head towards his, eyes darting between his eyes and lips.  

Your lips finally reach his, and it’s as if fireworks are exploding in your chest.  The kiss is pure emotion; not rushed or hurried, but soft and sensual.

Your hands roam his chest and grip onto his shirt for support, while his thread into your hair, pulling you even closer.

You both break away panting, trying to regain your breathing.  Chris leans his forehead against yours as he asks, “does this make it official between us” with a laugh.

You can’t help but let out a small giggle at his words.  “Yes Chris, it makes us official.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for another relationship so soon?  I seriously don’t mind waiting until your ready Ems.”

“Chris, if you want to be here for me, then I’m not letting you do it as my friend.  I need you to be more than that if you are willing to help me”, you say running your fingers through his beard, loving the way it feels on your fingers.  “Plus, I’ve never felt so strongly for someone before and if I’m going to be getting help, I don’t want to have to suppress these feelings I have for you.”

He gives you a full faced smile, the kind that reaches all the way up to his eyes.  He leans in to capture your lips with his again.  

This kiss was different from your first.  The first kiss you shared was sensual and soft, this kiss was all passion.  Your lips were moving in synch with his; as if you two were matched for each other.  

You felt him part his lips and took it as the perfect opportunity to grab his lower lip with your teeth and nibble lightly.

The noise that came from his throat sent a shiver down your spine, and you wanted to hear it again. Deciding to be a bit bold, you trace your tongue along his lower lip, asking for entrance.  

Chris gladly accepts, but you immediately lose your dominance as his tongue starts to massage yours.  

A moan came from deep within you, letting Chris know just how amazing this felt.  

The kiss had started to grow increasingly intense and you were lost within it.  One of his hands moved from your head and started trailing down your body until he cupped your ass.  You broke apart the kiss with a groan, loving the feelings of his hands on you.

“Now this is the kind of distraction I could get used to”, you say with a sly smile as you lean in to peck him on the lips one more time.

“I told you I could help you”, Chris says giving you that boyish grin.  

“Don’t get too cocky babe, not everything is going to be as easy as this.”

“Babe huh?”

You playfully shove his chest, “you called me baby a few times!” you exclaim.

“I know I know.  In all seriousness now, can I make a suggestion?”

“Depends” you answer him, your eyebrow quirking up.

“I don’t want you to be spending the night alone here with what happened yesterday.  I want to stay here with you, at least until Eric comes back to town”.

You mull his idea over for a minute, trying to find any consequences, but come up short.  It would be nice for him to be here with you, seeing as it probably wouldn’t be best for you to be left alone with your thoughts.  But then you remembered, what about Dodge?

“Shit Chris!  You need to get home to Dodger!  When was the last time you let him out?? Fed him??” you ask, becoming frantic over the poor dog.

“Relax Ems!  I dropped Dodger off at a buddy’s house two nights ago. I knew the photo shoot and interview would take all day.  He’s being taken care of” he reassures you.

“Can Dodger come stay here too?” you ask as you bat your eyelashes, hoping it would work.

 Chris gives you a slight chuckle, “of course he can come stay here too.  Unless you want to stay at my place instead?”

“Your place?  You would be alright with me staying there for a few weeks?”

“Baby of course I would! I wouldn’t have asked if I thought differently.  Plus, my house is bigger than this guest house, so if you needed a little space or quiet time, there is plenty of room for you to do so.”

You give him an adoring face while reaching up to place your lips to his again.  The warmth rushing over your body is everything you had ever hoped for, but never felt, until now.  You hum in complete bliss as you break the kiss.  

“I guess I will go pack a bag so we can head out.”

“I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

You grab the duffel bag from the back of your closet and make your way to your dresser.  You grab a few bras, panties and socks and head back to the closet.  You figured things were going to be casual so you stuck with packing t-shirts and jeans for the most part.  You knew Chris had a pool as he mentioned it during one of your many talks last week, so you decided to pack your swimsuit also.  If you needed anything else, it was only a five or ten minute car ride back here.

You head into the bathroom and grab your essentials; toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, hairbrush and makeup.  You hardly ever wore makeup, but it was always nice to have it handy.  

Before you head back out to the living room, you make your way to the cabinet and reach towards the back, grabbing your trusty razor.  You hoped that you wouldn’t need it, but you knew it could help you in a pinch if needed. You got out a pair of jeans from the bottom of the duffel and hid the razor in the back pocket.  Satisfied, you walk back to the living room to meet Chris.

“Ready to head out?” you ask as you make your way to the kitchen to grab your purse.

“All set.  I’m having my friend drop Dodger off right now so we don’t have to make any stops,” he says as he takes your duffel from you.

After locking up the guest house, the both of you make your way towards Chris’ car out front, hand in hand. As you reach his car, he opens the passenger door for you.

“Your mother raised a true gentleman.”

Chris chuckles at your statement, “I’ll make sure to tell my mother that.”

You had been wondering how your relationship would work with Chris, with him being in the public eye and all.  Hell, you’ve thought about it for the past week, practically ever since you met him. Relationships that were open to the public involving celebrities barely lasted, and you didn’t want that fate to be bestowed upon the two of you.

“So how does this all work?” you ask pointing your finger back and forth between you two.  “How does this relationship work with you being in the public eye and all?”

“I’m kind of a private person when it comes to my personal relationships.  And I would of course like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind?”

“No I don’t mind at all. I’m more worried about your status and losing fans more than anything.”

“What do you mean my status?” he asks a little bit confused.

“Well Eric brought it to my attention that they will probably find out who I am sooner or later, and they will probably be able to dig into my past and staying in a psychiatric ward and all.  I just don’t want to tarnish your image is all” you state.

He leans his right arm over and gently caresses your knee as he begins to talk, “Ems, fuck what they think. I don’t care if I ever get a movie deal ever again.  They are not my priority, you are.”

You couldn’t help the few lonely tears that escaped your eyes.  But this was a different type of tear.  These were happy tears.

“Thank you” you sniffle out.

“What for? Wait, baby don’t cry!”

“No!!!  They’re happy tears.  Nobody has ever made me feel important before.  I’ve never experienced someone tell me I was a priority to them.”

Chris grabs your hand and brings it up to his lips, giving it a kiss.  “You are important Ems.  I know you’re important to Eric.  But fuck, you are so important to me.  I’ve felt this need to protect you and be with you from the minute I saw you sleeping on your brothers’ couch.  It was as if there was this magnetic pull that kept pulling me towards you.”

Chris had barely put his car into park in his garage before you quickly unbuckled your seatbelt and attacked his face, kissing him hungrily.  You were becoming greedy with his kisses and you didn’t want to stop.  You two were like horny teenagers making out in a car, window fogging up.  You both finally pulled away, chests panting.

Chris smirks at you as he says “lets go see Dodger.”

Tag List: @evansfanficweekly @ssweet-empowerment @always-an-evans-addict @patzammit @iamwarrenspeace @tacohead13 @valentinesbird

[ember373]

Damn Hormones...

I have been very emotional lately. Crying more. Feeling hopeless more. Feeling very very...stuck. I’m still able to control my emotions for the most part when I’m out in public or around people (thank god), but my eyes have been leaking more and more of late when I’m alone. For awhile I felt numb and it was hard for me to cry. It was like I was all cried out and had no more tears to give. But the last month or so it’s like I can’t control it sometimes.

Take Mother’s Day. It was a long weekend anyway given that I was with in laws the last two days. I was mentally exhausted and knew I had to muster one (or two) last hurrah(s) for the two mothers. But dammit, it was my day too and I was going to do something for myself. So I slept in. I wanted to sleep more but was awoken with ‘When are you getting up because we need to leave for my mom’s soon’. Fine. I hadn’t forgotten that this day really isn’t for me as long as the mothers still live. (No, I do not wish them dead. It just is what it is). But apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough because the exasperated sighs came and the ‘How much longer?’s. I finally just told him to take the kids and leave so they wouldn’t be late and I would be there later. Are you sure? Yeh. Before they leave-is something wrong? Nope, I’ll see you there... Ok. See you there. :)

As I carefully put gifts together for the in-laws, I fought to remain calm. But when I heard the crunch of the gravel from the car leaving the driveway, it started. Slow tears at first as I maneuvered my small chubby fingers to delicately arrange everything just so. Then a bit more shaky as I placed the bits of color in. Everything was arranged in little glass balls. So pretty and colorful. Just like my life. How wonderful it must be to be an outsider looking in. Everything just so. I wonder how they’d react if it reflected how I really felt? I stopped myself from violently shaking the globes to match how I felt inside. After all, they weren’t for me. This day wasn’t about me. :) By the time I placed them in their bags I was sobbing. But I had a time crunch. Ain’t nobody got time for useless crying. So I moved on to wrapping the Mil’s gifts in tissue paper. After the second one I gave up and shoved the rest of her presents in bags with tissue paper haphazardly shoved around them. Shit, I forgot cards. Oh well...waste of paper anyway to give words that can never actually convey the complex feelings I have for this situation.

After I was done with the gifts, I hesitated. Should I just get ready or head straight over so I’m not too terribly late? Fuck it. It’s my day too. I’m getting ready. I feel like shit and I’m fat. Might as well try not to look like I feel. Everybody looks more kindly on a well put together fat person than a fat person who doesn’t take the time to make herself more presentable. Tears still streaming out of my eyes, I go and plug in the straightening iron. I usually put moisturizer on my face at that point, but I’m such a mess that I just skip that step and go straight to sectioning my hair. Unfortunately, I have to look in the mirror for that part and I can see my big ugly crying face. For the love-get it together woman!! How the hell am I going to do my makeup? I turn on some music on my cell phone hoping it will distract me. It doesn’t. So the whole time I’m straightening sections, trying to sing, and blubbering every 5-10 seconds. Lovely.

Hair done, I look in the mirror at my mess of a face. Suck it up. This is your life. You chose to let yourself live it for other people. Too late to be selfish now. GET...IT...TOGETHER. I take a deep breath. The honesty of this moment-of how my face looks in the mirror-the utter truth, despair, sadness, and hoplesness-I decide to capture it on camera. Then I take a deep breath and wash my face. It’s as if, by capturing it, I put it away and neatly locked it in my cell phone. I do light make up. There. Better. Nobody will ever know. Smile. No, not the fake one. Come on, you can do better than that. There you go. Make your eyes sparkle. Act like you mean it or they’ll see right through the ruse. That’s better. Now you’re ready for the world. I take a picture of my ‘happy’ face too. The way I feel inside all the time and the mask I present to the world. For some reason, I wanted to document them that day. Then I loaded up the car and went to live the rest of the day for other people.

And that has been my overwhelming feeling of late. That I am living my life for other people. That I could care less whether I continue to exist or not, but some of those other people-my kids namely-might be worse off if I stopped existing. As messed up as I am, they do need the good parts of me still. Maybe always. Even tho I’m sure my big fat ugly mess of a self embarrasses my kids, I’ve done some good things for them and so they still want me around. For now. Maybe for always.

Thinking about it all makes me want to cry again. I guess this is just another down turn and I just need to ride through it until it fades away into the background and is liveable again. Keep getting up every day and find something to be grateful for. A roof over my head. Food to eat. Money from my job to go to the salon and get sushi. A husband with a job that pays enough that my money can go to salon visits and sushi. Kids. Warmth. AC. All the other stuff is gravy. I got the basics covered. No need to cry. My life could be much much worse. I’m rather spoiled if you think about it and should be very grateful. Gratefulness begins within. Find some spark of joy and hold on to it with all your might. Nobody likes a Debbie Downer. People will just get pissed off at you for being so ridiculous when you are surrounded by so much. Like it really matters how you feel. How you feel is ridiculous. It’s selfish. There are people who depend on you. Take care of them. You signed up for this, now follow it through. It’s your fault for wanting more. My life looks so great to people on the outside. There must be something wrong with me that I can’t enjoy it. Quit being so sensitive. Marriage is hard work. You just have to keep trying. Keep trying to understand him. To help him. To support him. To listen to his frustrations. To constantly redirect him and show him the truth when he gets in that negative space. He’s not built like you. He’s not able to return that. Nobody is built like you. To expect there to be anyone else that can do that for you (besides the people you pay) is just stupid. You were put on this earth to love on people, nothing was ever said that you would get that kind of love in return. So do it and quit complaining. Go get your hair done and eat some sushi to recharge. Fill that emptiness with things because that’s all that matters. You need to be grateful for the things. All the things. You have so many things. You silly girl. People would love to have all your things. You’re just selfish and unreasonable. You don’t deserve more. You don’t even deserve what you have. Remember that. Always. Now pick your ass up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, plaster that goddamn smile back on your face and do what you know you’re supposed to. Good girl. If you do it enough it will begin to feel right. It will...fulfill you? Who cares if it fulfills you. It’s what is right. Repetition makes neural pathways and when the pathways are formed the newly learned thing becomes easier. This is just like that. Keep at it. Keep accepting. Keep taking it all in. Keep giving. Give more. That neural pathway should set any day now and life will get easier. You’ll accept everything a lot more and be able to breathe and feel satisfied. Put your needs aside. They aren’t worth anything anyway. Keep building that pathway. With time comes acceptance. It will come. Someday. It will come, just keep at it.

I started my period today so I think I’m going to blame all these intense emotions on that. Damn hormones.

[violetsystems]

#personal

For the record the time change hit me like a brick in the face.  But life itself hasn’t been all that kind lately.  I never did see that kid again.  I think two days in a row was enough in retrospect.  I remember the look on people’s faces when he threatened my mom and I.  Just like I remember being the only one to stand up to a bully on a New York Subway train years ago.  The sinking feeling in your gut that you are the one in control of the situation.  One false move or interaction can spiral further out of control.  You have to be aware of your emotions at all times out here.  People get the wrong impression about everything.  People step on other people’s toes constantly.  Every city has their unique footprint rooted in an expression of attitude.  Style and fashion is an extension of that.  Street wear in theory is a brand moderated signal boost of aesthetics and lifestyles.  That has it’s positives and negatives depending on what you are tuned into.  The feedback from the streets is deafening at times which is why I spend a lot more time at home.  I wake up in a city daily.  I work and commute on public transportation.  I live a fairly front facing and public life and yet I keep to myself.  I am my own brand and I don’t particularly have anything for sale.  I do keep making money through the Auction House in World of Warcraft.  I do keep saving money in real life too.  Since this discussion with my new neighbor there have been some ups and downs.  I ended up having to send back the thermostat.  The last two neighbors never spoke a word to me.  I’ve come to find out that instead of approaching me about the heat they simply left the windows open all winter.  I discovered this looking at all my utility bills from this month and finding them to be thirty percent less than normal.  I also got a small refrigerator.  Not too small.  Everything else is the same as it was if not better.  Including me.  I think it’s just in the way I handle the situations these days as they unfold.  I wake up Saturday morning and have something to share.  Ways how I coped.  Ways how I think I succeeded.  Ways to show you how people still don’t get it.  Ways to show you how people still do.  The only way to do that is to live it.  And it’s hard to wake up after everything I’ve been put through and doubt myself.  I am unfortunately the only person I can rely on to control my side of the story.  After all these years there’s people I barely know that tune into what I write and mean much more to me than someone in passing.  The harsher reality becomes that sometimes you have to stand your ground no matter how lonely it is.  Which begins my dark journey of self discovery on the internet every weekend when I wake up to a new haircut and sore muscles.  How many winters have I spent alone at this point?  How many medical dispensaries will sell recreational marijuana in Chicago after January 1st?  Enough.

I’m confident I’ll survive another winter here alone.  More confident these days than in the past.  I have a lot of space to work out in my apartment.  The heat is finally comfortable at a stable sixty eight degrees.  Things are more affordable though people always try to sell you on spending more.  I do eat lunch by work on occasion.  But I’m mostly fine with a sandwich I made from home.  I subscribe to my favorite coffee and drink two twelve ounce bags every two weeks.  I weigh my pour overs on a digital scale and listen to jazz in the kitchen.  I read comics in the sunlight and feed cats at my door step in the morning.  I don’t think anybody could capture this or sell it in a magazine.  And yet I have my own space on the internet to describe my aesthetic.  The secret art of staying alive.  Rule number one is to keep breathing.  These days it’s expensive to breath.  We are all so anxious subconsciously justifying our right to be in spaces where we don’t feel welcome.  I’ve come to know that I’ve created a welcoming space around me.  Sometimes that’s annoying as fuck.  Especially when nobody wants to give you actual credit for being a decent human being.  I’ve never been the kind of person who seeks out fake validation.  I’m transparent to a fault and yet this is about as intimate as I get.  An open book for all to read.  That’s a Motley Crue lyric and I’m far less metal than anyone cares to realize.  People in the streets out here know.  People out in the streets of New York know too.  I run into enough skate videos to know what’s up.  You can’t run away from yourself.  The things you attract are for better or for worse.  You would think people would get me by now.  I’m sure there’s an artificial intelligence somewhere siphoning off my very lifeblood and crunching numbers based on my digital imprint.  I like to crunch my numbers in a personal spreadsheet.  You see results after time.  And then there’s always ways to improve,  Like taking your contacts out before you go to bed.  I was such a shit head about that for years.  I don’t know why it occurred to me.  Maybe I started to love myself a little bit more.  Take better care of myself.  It’s scary to think how less in shape I was a year ago.  It’s scarier to think what I’ve grown into.  It’s something I have no choice but manage.  There are a lot of things I steer clear of.  By now I would hope people on the internet would understand why.  It’s not that people are necessarily evil or conspiratorial.  I think that’s giving what they do too much power.  People don’t confront the truth because they fear failure and isolation.  Ironically failure and isolation was just what I needed to try a different approach to my life.  Do I mourn the death of my social life openly?  I don’t know how anybody could get the idea that I’m antisocial.  I deal with society like a brick to the face daily.  If they want to sell it in a magazine and give me no credit that’s fine with me.  You can’t buy love.  The clock on the oven may have changed but I’m still burning for you.  Far more efficiently this year thanks to proper insulation.

You either survive or you don’t.  You can survive gracefully through trial and error.  I have enough winters under my belt to know I enjoy staying inside.  I still go out and run.  People talk less in the cold and yet you still can’t avoid it.  I live in a city to be free and be left alone.  Freedom isn’t free.  Freedom in America is a mosh pit of ideas that clash and churn.  Style and attitude evolve from this gaping void.  Navigating the gravitational shifts of unseen power is exhausting.  But nobody wants to hear me complain about it on the internet.  They want to see solutions.  They want to hear me try.  And I have tried over and over again.  I’ve come to realize there is no try.  You just do it.  Do you want to live the best you can be or do you want to let it slip away?  That’s asking a lot these days.  People don’t even recognize you at your best.  They simply look to the past and fixate on something you once were.  Only I really know where I am at in my head at this moment.  I know all the people closest to me want to hear is that I’m good.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve got it covered.  That I’m working on myself and seeing the right results.  Everything around me is still pretty fucked up.  It doesn’t really effect me.  When it does I handle it openly and honestly.  Most of the times when people make me feel awkward I just ignore them.  I don’t secretly hate you.  I also am sick of being tricked for the benefit of somebody else’s enjoyment or agenda.  I don’t think these targeted actions or protests really work when they don’t include me in the conversation.  Everybody is judged silently and nobody has their say in the court of public opinion.  I don’t mind being judged and holding myself accountable.  I have a reputation of that on the internet I uphold weekly.  I’m not exactly the happiest I want to be right now.  I am happier than I have ever been.  Mainly because I understand the reasons why I make the sacrifices I do.  The space I make for my dreams is personal and private.  It is not inaccessible.  People on here know that probably the most.  But people also know I’m not a doormat by now.  People hate me because I’ve said no.  Because I didn’t play along with bullshit I didn’t agree with.  I just walked away.  I live in the world’s most corrupt city.  I chose to live by my own rules.  Sometimes I have to change them.  Grow up a little more.  I trust the results because I’ve stayed focused.  I know the trajectory is positive.  I know the same people are with me through thick and thin behind the scenes.  It’s not a hallucination or a conspiracy.  It’s my life and my choice as to who I include in it.  In that the same people are close to my heart.  The same view from my kitchen over the same mug of coffee.  Come January 1st far more legal options to smoke weed.  Take that seasonal depression.  Until next year NYC.  <3 Tim

[rachelthompsonauthor]

Know how some days you just don’t want to people? Peopling is a verb, you see. As in:

Peopling is hard. 

I don’t want to people today. 

I’ve reached my peopling quotient for the day.

I’m pretty sure that’s how my cats go through life, once their humans have fed, watered, and pet them.

Online Peopling 

Like the other day, when I shared some tips on how to make blogging easier and someone told me I was being ‘ableist’ because my tips didn’t take into account their personal inability to market books due to pain (which granted, totally sucks). I feel bad for them and shared that I have chronic pain issues also and don’t give as much attention to this blog as I want to.

Or when I explained what exactly #MondayBlogs is all about and a lady told me that by not sharing her repeated quotes about the wonders of Trump, I’m discriminating against her (never mind that the hashtag is for blog posts, not quotes — lady, it’s right there IN the hashtag — and as I spell out right on the @MondayBlogs bio, pinned tweet, blog post right in the bio, various visuals, and throughout the day each week).

Or when a darling survivor friend of mine finally shared in a post that she is a survivor and some guy trashes her immediately about one aspect of the piece he disagreed with. In fact, she was ready to pull the piece, even though it’s beautiful, honest, and wonderfully insightful, all because his #NotAllMen ego doesn’t like her perspective. (A bunch of us talked her out of that, thank goodness.)

The good news about peopling online is that you can shut off all that mental noise and walk away, open up a program and write a blog post about how annoying people are.

We like being able to turn off interactions and it’s healthy to do so. You can calm down, breathe, remove yourself from that virtual world and get back to your real one.

But what about those people who can’t? Who stay on and argue online for hours and hours? Who can’t differentiate their online world from their real one? Who believe their online world IS their real world? What if the only company people have is online (a real issue for many people)?

An interesting study shows how our brains react differently to real-life interactions versus online interactions. While we may think we are emotionally invested in these online connections, the areas in our brain that control emotion show otherwise.

“Interaction with human partners requires more emotional involvement, and thus more cognitive effort, than interacting with a computer. (Rilling, Sanfey, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2004‏). The study also shows a difference in activation strength between our reactions to human beings and computers. This is because when we interact with another human being, we cannot control our emotional involvement invested in the interaction process. The activation of specific brain areas is automatic once our mental radar detects another person.” (Source: Psychology Today 2014)

What’s Missing When Peopling Online 

This begs the question my friend asked and what many of us experience with online interactions that go south: why are people often so mean online?

Pretty basic: non-verbal communication.

When we interact in real life, our brains interpret non-verbal clues (unless one is autistic). For example, if the #NotAllMen dude saw my friend’s distress in response to his brutally mean commentary, how would he feel? Would he have been as likely to say those things to her face? No way. Perhaps he would have asked her about her motivations, experiences, and why she felt the way she did (totally hypothetical and idealistic on my part), opening a dialogue to understanding.

Without those non-verbal clues, online communication fails to meet these emotional needs and is ripe to become tit for tat, back and forth, and mean-spirited. People can become whoever they want to be, projecting an image (often toxic).

“Hence, it is easier to hide our emotions behind an email, a Facebook post or a tweet. These platforms help people project any image they want; they can be whoever and whatever they want to be. Without the ability to receive nonverbal cues, their audiences are none the wiser.”

The emotions we feel during these interactions feel quite real, and can negatively affect our mental health, self-esteem, and overall well-being.

The other phenomenon that takes place online which freaks us out is the lack of control.

Humans have a need for control – this is built into our evolutionary psyche. We need to know what’s going to happen next. We’re planners. Online communications provides constant surprises – we have no idea what someone we are communicating with is going to say, when they’re going to say it, or how they’re going to say it (if at all).

Plus, the communication is unsynchronized (people respond whenever they want), whereas real-life comms are synchronized (you speak, then I speak, etc). There’s a flow.

Positive Online Peopling 

Not all communications online are negative, clearly. I’ve met some of my best friends in real life online. I even met my guy that way!

Online groups and chats are incredible ways to form meaningful, helpful relationships that can benefit all kinds of folks. As a writer and businessperson, I can attest to this – social media is a crucial part of any author’s platform. Support groups are often the only thing keeping many people alive and can be incredibly validating, particularly for survivors.

Virtual comms can be a relationship surrogate for many people, full of satisfaction and enjoyment and for some, that may be enough.

I’ll share a little story with you: at one point, back before I published my Broken books, a writing mentor suggested I join her online critique group, so of course, I jumped at the chance! I greatly admired her and figured this would improve my craft. After a few sessions, however, I felt so defeated by her feedback and also critical attacks by other members of her group, I not only quit, I fell into a deep depression.

Was my writing that bad? Would nobody read it, as she said? Was I really “not ready for publication?”

After wallowing in their hurtful comments for a few weeks, I sent my manuscript off to my former screenwriting brother-in-law who gave it to a screenwriter friend who had done some script-doctoring for Spielberg. Yea, I know. She read through Broken Pieces and emailed me, “Honey, this is the real deal. You even made me cry and I never fucking cry. Publish it.”

Which I did.

Peopling Is What You Make It 

As I always say with social media, blogging, and any other online media, it’s what you make it. To grow your social, you must interact and build relationships. However, you don’t need to engage with trolls or negative people unless you feel it’s somehow helpful or necessary to your well-being.

Ask yourself this question before you begin to madly respond to someone:

Is talking with this person good for you? If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t. Simple.

Besides, how else could you be spending that time?

Part of my own personal growth is to choose a yearly watchword (or focus word, as some people call it). This year my word is Power. The power to enforce my boundaries is a big one for me. Do I need to respond to people simply because they engage me online? I do not. I’ll be writing my next post all about how to go about using your watchword.

For now, what I want to express to you is that while peopling can be hard for some of us online, we wouldn’t have social media without each other. Make it work for you. And if it isn’t working, take a break. Take a break anyway – we spend too much time online, don’t we?

Be the people you are. Be you, wonderful, messy, you. Write, read, kiss your lover, play with your kids, get crafty, sing, dance, cook (well, not me because you know, I burn everything), pet your cats, dogs or stroke a furry wall, watch a movie, sleep (oh, how I love to sleep), exercise…be the you that you want to see in the world.

Non-verbal that shit.

  Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available now on Amazon.

The post This Is Why Peopling Is Hard appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

[almajonesnjna]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2q3iCVv

[neilmillerne]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2q3iCVv

[johnclapperne]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2q3iCVv

[ruthellisneda]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2q3iCVv

[joshuabradleyn]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

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[albertcaldwellne]

3 Ways to Stop Judging Others

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post on one of my favorite body image “tricks.”

My super-secret trick was, in short, to stop judging the bodies of other people.

What Makes This Trick so Effective?

Every single time you make a negative judgement of someone else for something, you re-affirm for yourself the fact that you live in a world where everyone judges each other all the time, and that you’re in constant danger of messing shit up without realizing it.

You also affirm that there is a “right” and  “wrong” way to be a woman, to have a body, to dress, to look, to exist.

This is a shitty message to keep affirming for yourself, and the more you do it, the more paranoid and self-conscious you get about all the possible ways you could be doing things wrong. This habit is bad for confidence, peace of mind, and yes– body image.

Hence, the less you think judge-y thoughts about other people, the easier it is to relax and stop judging yourself. I mean, think about how you feel when someone you’re spending time with says something judgy about another woman.

If you’re like most people, you have two responses.

The first response is a little thrill of exclusivity, because your friend has chosen you to confide her judgement in, thereby exempting you from the judgment. This means you’re momentarily safe. Also, being the judger instead of the judgee is like feeding your ego a cookie. It wakes up and gets all excited, like YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, I’M SPECIAL!

This feels good, because being special brings with it a particular kind of pleasure. Unfortunately, the second response is often a bit more subtle, and a lot less pleasant.

The second response is a constriction, often felt in the form of an unpleasant emotion like disgust or anger. Have you ever noticed how judging someone brings up something not-very-nice inside us? That’s because the ego feeling special is always a zero sum game: you can only be special if someone else isn’t, you can only be right if someone else is wrong.

Sometimes the thing that gets awakened when you’re being judge-y is the same nasty “ugh, ew” part of us from middle school, or sometimes it’s outrage disguised as concern, like “I just don’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight!”

Either way, you’ll usually feel an emotion that brings with it a tightness, an unpleasantness, or a defensiveness.

This is because you have just affirmed for yourself that everyone is constantly judging each other, and that the world is a place of scarcity and competition, in which you must always be striving to be different and better in order to get your due. If you (an obviously good person) are so judgmental, then everyone else must be as well. Deep in your subconscious, this fact feels yucky.

Somewhere deep down you tighten your grip on making sure nobody can judge you. Something inside you resolves a little harder to be likable, and reasonable, and to do everything RIGHT so that you can’t be the target of judgement.

I assure you, everyone does this. Judgement is the result of an evolutionary gift– thanks to our evolved brains, we get to decide for ourselves what we think about everything, which is cool! Because of this however, humans are constantly coming up with stories about everything, as though it was our job to decide if every single moment is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. We want to categorize everything into either “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

When it comes to body image and self-esteem, judging everything this way leads to nothing but fear, pain, and unhappiness.

But you probably know this already.

Maybe you’ve read articles on TinyBuddha and the spiritual path has convinced you to stop judging other people. Maybe you want to lessen anxiety, or you’re coming at this from a body image perspective, and want to love yourself more. Maybe you just want to be a more compassionate person.

No matter what your reason for trying to stop being so judge-y, the obvious next question is… how?

Your Path to a Judgement-Free Life

What I’m about to tell you is incredibly simple, but I assure you it’s not easy. If you’ve been practicing judging other people your whole life, then it’s going to take an absolute ton of practice, patience, and dedication to create a brand new habit.

But that’s exactly what you need to do. Instead of just trying to quit cold turkey, you need to replace your old habit with a new one:

the habit of checking in with what’s going on inside you that caused you to judge someone.

Simple, right? Sure. But let’s take a look at how that actually works in practice:

Step 1: Become aware of when you’re judging someone.

You’re not going to be able to succeed at step 2 or 3 until you manage to identify and catch yourself every time you judge someone. Sometimes keeping a judgement journal can be extremely useful for this step, where you write down every single negative judgement you make about anyone throughout the day.

Step 2: Interrupt the pattern.

Our brains are good at doing what they’ve practiced doing. If you’ve been judging people a lot, you’re going to have to interrupt that mental pattern in order to stand any chance of changing it. This interruption is called cognitive dissonance, and can take place the moment you notice yourself judging someone, as long as you do something– anything— different.

Some people have luck saying the word STOP outloud, or picturing a big red stop sign, as soon as they catch themselves having a judge-y thought. Other people prefer to do something completely random and weird in order to interrupt the mental pattern, like reciting the alphabet backwards, or doing a weird dance, or picturing a purple elephant.

Whatever works for you is fine. The goal is to simply interrupt the old mental pattern. By interrupting it, you create the space for something new to happen, and new (non-judge-y) thoughts to show up.

Step 3: Bring it back to yourself.

Take total responsibility, and bring the judgement back to yourself.  Ask questions that take responsibility for your judgement, like “what about me right now is making me feel this way?” or “what’s going on with me that I’m judging this person for this thing?”

The truth is, when you judge someone it’s always about you; it’s never about them.

Explore your role in the judgement with curiosity instead of judgement. We often judge the stuff we wish we could do but don’t, for whatever reason, and there’s a lot to learn from the stuff that triggers judge-y thoughts.

If you have kids for example, and you spend a lot of energy making sure they don’t bother other people in public, then seeing a mom who lets her kids run around and cause mayhem might be a huge judgement trigger for you. Or if you decided a long time ago that you “can’t” wear mini skirts with your big legs, then seeing another big-legged woman wearing a miniskirt might make you feel real judge-y.

By gently questioning what’s going on for you that’s causing your judginess, you have the opportunity to learn a ton about yourself– possibly even including some ways in which you’d like to act differently! Try these three steps and see how it goes. You might not like how it feels to be under scrutiny at first, but I promise that by habitually taking responsibility for your role in your judgement, you will both improve your own life through better self-awareness, and you’ll find yourself judging other people less.

Which in turn means you’ll feel safer, more comfortable, and more relaxed to be yourself: win/win!

I’m passionate about helping women learn to love and accept both their bodies, and their authentic selves. That’s why I created the Love Your Body Workshop live event! If you’re interested finally breaking free from body image issues, self-criticism, judgement, and comparison, this unique workshop is coming to two different cities in June:

Love Your Body Workshop San Francisco, June 18th

Heal your heart. Find your truth. Remove your armor. Love Your Body Workshop

and

Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop  NYC, June 24th & 25th

Healing Body Image through Biology, Authentic Movement, and Self-Compassion Love Your Body *Special Edition* Workshop

Secure your spot in one of these workshops to get the actionable tools, practices, and education that will help you finally learn to love your body, embrace your authentic self, and expand your life.

Sign up now for either workshop, and receive the early bird discount, PLUS the first five people to register for each workshop will receive Body Image Alchemy Blueprint, a 6 week e-course designed to help you explore your personal inner blocks to self-love ($97 value) for FREE!

The post 3 Ways to Stop Judging Others appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2q3iCVv