#take the pledge

[postitforward]

Mental Health Spotlight: Jasmine Marie, Founder of black girls breathing®

Jasmine Marie is a speaker, breathwork practitioner, and the founder of black girls breathing®. Her work is innovating the wellness, healthcare, and research industry by making mental health services accessible to Black women while filling in the gaps of data and research available on this underserved and underrepresented demographic. Marie plans to impact one million Black women and girls with her work by 2025. She is a serial founder with a past life in global haircare brand marketing and an alum of NYU Stern. The impact and range of her work to date is expansive—ranging from underserved minority communities to stressed-out college students and executives. She’s brought her expertise to elite colleges such as Harvard Business School, Columbia University, and Cornell University, and her client list includes corporations such as Estée Lauder Companies, Under Armour, Capital One, Ford Motor Company, Facebook, and Twitter. Marie has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America, VOGUE, Forbes, Harper’s Baazar, Marie Claire, Glamour, Nylon Mag, Wall Street Journal, and Black Enterprise, to name a few.

What is black girls breathing®? And why was it created? black girls breathing® is a safe space for Black women to manage their mental and emotional health and heal trauma in their bodies with breathwork and community.

I created black girls breathing® after finishing my breathwork training and seeing so few facilitators that looked like me yet knowing how much chronic stress and trauma (generational, societal, etc.) and decided to create it. I used my background in business to help me develop a model where we could provide this work accessibly.

Do you have any secret hobbies, skills, or interests?

I don’t think I have any secret hobbies but for a while, I would always feel embarrassed whenever anyone asked that question, as a lot of my hobbies can maybe seem boring to others lol. But I love to read. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I love having quiet time…any activity that allows me to feel refreshed, sit with my own thoughts and enjoy my solitude. I think because I deal with so many people’s energy that in my spare time, I just like to spend time with self. I love to cook though…it’s a very meditative activity for me that allows me to unwind from my day.

How did you get started in this work? And why is it important to you?

As mentioned above, after my breathwork training, I realized there were so few Black breathworkers. But before that, I found breathwork while being stressed out after graduating from business school at NYU and working in beauty in NYC. My nervous system was so fried I began having physical symptoms…rashes and an inability to sleep. The doctor would see me and always say, “This is stress. How can you reduce your stress?” Fast forward to me finding my first breathwork class and falling in love with the way it allowed me to just feel more space in my mind and body.

WOW — ONE MILLION Black women and girls breathing by 2025 what an ambitious goal! What impact do you see this having?

It is an ambitious goal, but in 2020, we fundraised $55k to make our work accessible for one year. After the year was done, it was so clear that we couldn’t stop there. So many Black women needed this work, and we would hear that over and over again. So I decided if I was going to do this work, I was only interested in creating real impact and a goal that would signify that. Imagining 1 Million Black women using breathwork as a tool to regulate their nervous systems, heal from compounded trauma and reduce the effect that chronic stress has in our community (health challenges linked to chronic stress: heart disease, high blood pressure, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, fertility issues, and the list goes on) will not only affect them but our community as a whole. Ending the passing down of generational trauma and normalizing healing.

What would you suggest to people who feel like they cannot find the time to breathe or practice mindfulness?

I would first affirm that it’s okay they feel that way. Western society has done a great job of making us feel that anything outside of productivity is not only a waste of time but the least important thing we should make space for. Making time for yourself for any mindful activity can be eased into and it can start with being more aware of the present moment and practicing that action on a daily. Maybe you create a routine where every morning for 3 minutes right when you get up, you take a moment to be still, notice your breathing pattern and focus on each and every inhale and exhale.

Why is Black representation important in this industry?

The wellness industry isn’t unlike other industries where Black representation is lacking. I think it’s important to see other Black women caring for themselves because, historically, we’ve been taught to do the opposite for oh so long.

Where do you find joy?

I find joy with my family and my loved ones, in intimate moments with friends, in good food and conversation, and in being able to create something and see it grow, shift, and evolve.

Want to learn more about black girls @blackgirlsbreathing?

Check out their website!

Breathe with us on March 27th @12pm EDT during their Mindful Monday Breathwork for Anxiety session on Tumblr Live

Ask black girls breathing all the questions on your mind for IssueTime on Navigating Anxiety in an increasingly digital, lonely world

Take the pledge with black girls breathing®

[duckprintspress]

Urgent: Help Us Not Get Screwed

Anyone who follows us has seen us screaming from the hill-tops about our current crowdfunding campaign for Aether Beyond the Binary (17 aetherpunk stories! Outside the gender binary main characters!). We've only got 50 hours left...and we just got screwed.

Our Anthology Kickstarter is being scammed.

About two hours ago, with us still roughly $1,500 from our goal, we got a junk pledge for almost $2,000. This pushed us into being marked as "funded" but there is zero chance it's a real pledge, it's from a shell account marked as being in Turkey. This kind of money doesn't just fall like a miracle into the laps of small business like ours.

The timing on this attack is devastating. The final 48 hours of a campaign are absolutely critical, especially for one as close to meeting our goal as we are. We were very likely to hit our target, but doing so was going to require appeals to y'all that started with "hey, we're so close, please help spread the word." Further, the campaign has hundreds of followers who will get a notification at the 48 hour mark, and many who might have backed to help get us to the finish line will now think "oh, they're there, they don't need me," and not back. Meanwhile, one of two things will happen with the spam pledge: either it will get removed by Kickstarter, which could take hours or a day+, totally nuking us during this crucial window, or it won't get removed until the payment bounces post-campaign, at which point we won't actually have enough money to do fulfillment.

Either way, we are fucked.

Please, please don't let these dipshits ruin the love and passion that 30+ people have poured into this project for over a year.

Our campaign IS NOT FUNDED, and it won't be without help. I'm begging, help spread the word about how we're getting screwed, and help spread the word about Aether Beyond the Binary (visit the link for so much info!) so that we can get enough real pledges to fund this project we've poured our hearts and souls into.

SUPPORT THE QUEER ANTHOLOGY KICKSTARTER FOR AETHER BEYOND THE BINARY (with your pledges or with signal boosts!)

[ryzanecrow]

I want to make a fic where Billy Batson gets struck by lightning when he first gets the powers of Shazam, and suffers all the effects of a normal lightning strike to a human... And Danny Phantom just watches Billy remember his trauma and comforts him while he's like: same.

Matching lichtenberg scars anyone? 🥲

[armoralor]

Why do I want Bo-Katan Kryze to be Mand’alor? Thank you for asking, I hope this helps ✰ reminder that T*RFs can fuck off, only interact if you love trans & nb folks ♡ Bonus wife below (specifically Bo-Katan’s wife).

[nights-at-crystarium]

Y'know, every once in a while someone manages to make a laser-precise observation about the comic, and this time it's tumblr user starlightstripes 😤🖤🖤🖤

I could never tell if I managed to draw a complex expression just so, unless you tell me, so thank you, this's so emotionally rewarding for me. This definitely isn't the sharpest Vivi's looked, no thoughts are found in this elezen head. But it's okay, he's okay, genuinely, ShB gives him everything he's ever needed (sans the Light corruption but he shakes that off with no issue)

Hopefully his behavior in previous episodes makes more sense now.

Feo Ul sorta happens to be around most of the time when he's chilling, they turned out to be a reliable new friend and a repellent for the other humans :'>

[lunarharp]

da love zone △▲

[differenteagletragedy]

aaaaaaaa now i see why you said the true ending for bunny bond didnt happen

idk what i was expecting but it wasnt that-- *sobs*

What? What is this "true ending"? The only true ending I know is the one at the end of each route where you and your chosen boy fall madly in love and live together happily ever after for the rest of your lives?!?!

**** is FINE. He's fine. Totally fine.

(gonna use this as an excuse to push aside new games and play with Bunny Boys again tysm <3)

[fandomlockedfan]

SPOILERS EPISODE 5!!!!

These shots feel basically like a wedding. And instead of for "better or for worse" speech they're instead given the risks of them raising Miri.

And in these two shots you can see instead of the words "I do", you can tell by the look on their faces that they are determined to still take care of her. As if that's their way of confirming that they are prepared to face those risks.

And finally the end scene shot. This is a wedding for their commitment to Miri.

Fuck I love this show

[the-owl-tree]

Not to bring up the Mapleshade discourse again but your takes are so refreshing to see

I swear people are incapable of having nuanced takes about her/her book. It's either "Maple did nothing wrong" or "Everything is Maple's fault."

Like yes Mapleshade made bad decisions and wasn't justified in killing people, but the death of her kits was not solely her fault.

Thank you!! I get the Mapleshade defense posts got annoying and yes the whole "she would be the guardian angel of all children despite abusing a child for a whole book" was annoying but man. i am not interested in pretending like appledusk is interesting and that i wasn't excited for mapleshade to fucking Get Him.

I think the discourse surrounding itself around "who was in the right vs. who was wrong" kind of distracts around the broader writing issues that MV has (not to say i haven't fallen into that trend but come ON we do not need to pretend oakstar was reasonable to exile three children because mapleshade lied to protect her three VERY ILLEGAL CHILDREN). What is the message of this novella? Sure, it's a character piece meant to tell me more about her...but what does it actually say? What is the message I'm supposed to glean from this?

@/feathermedics is the one who pointed this out and his tags helped me reframe MV in my mind as less of a backstory/morally gray tale or whatever and more of a cautionary tale. The actions of the individuals, specifically those breaking the code, are the ones given the most scrutiny; the system that encouraged the exile of three innocent children is never to be criticized.

[maryse127]

Hoping to do a summer school in Japan and while looking into specifics I found that by taking part in the program I must pledge not to purchase or drive a vehicle including bicycles. So then I looked into it further and found out that they have a strict policy that students need a registration before they are allowed to cycle on campus. And as a Dutch person this whole concept is Wild to me. When I was 14 my class had an exchange program with German students and they made us take our German exchange students on an unsupervised bike ride to the next town over for an activity. A lot of those kids had very little experience cycling. Also we are Dutch. Only little kids and sports cyclists wear helmets. I do realise that this was kinda irresponsible from my school but it does illustrate the cultural difference very well. Like I will respect the rules and sign the pledge and not ride a bike if I go there but pledging not to cycle for 5 weeks really feels like denying part of my identity

[ranilla-bean]

I would like more detail on spymaster sokka please!

well you and me both buddy 😭 this fucken white whale of mine

“But,” said Zuko, “you’ll need an excuse for coming here.” He coughed. “What is it?” Sokka prompted. “Well, the Council thought you ought to pretend to be courting me.” He looked so embarrassed that Sokka had to honk out a great big laugh. “Man,” he said, “that’s the best thing I’ve heard in years.” “What does that mean?” said Zuko, eyes flickering nervously. “Will you do it?” “Sure,” said Sokka. “When do I start?” “You can come anytime. You can take the ship back with me.”  “I,” said Sokka, “am going to court the shit out of you. Those assassins won’t know what’s coming for them.”

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! Could you please specify? If I limit Vexteria & Evan Tier on Patreon to one charge, will you still sent the merch every 5-6 month or is it once a year or how does is it work? Thanks!

Hi anon,

If you limit Vexteria&Evan you will still get access to merch every 5-6 months! That's totally okay.

I would have definitely told folks if that wasn't the case <333

[shih-coulda-had-it]

ally choosing to cut tomas & pib’s conversation off for a humorous bit they’ve been pulling since episode two could be my villain origin story. please let the sweet little cat have a moment. that’s his sweet dumb prince whose cross-dimensional corpse he defended from being scavenged by the fox.

[stroebe2]

[bat-in-the-machine]

In my fantasy nation, they make the children swear an oath of fealty to a highly symbolic piece of cloth, with the nation itself as an afterthought, in a single run-on sentence so long and clunky it's broken up into phrases of three to five words. Then they go on to teach the children that run-on sentences are bad.

[pochapal]

hey remember when