I'll admit that for a lot of my life my parents' way of handling arguments felt normal to me - well, the calmer parts. I knew the screaming rages were wrong. I've made a lot of effort to not be that way. I don't like to raise my voice even when my tone makes it clear that I'm mad. But, the other parts, the nasty, critical, sarcastic put-downs, ( Read more... )

There was also other thought that came to mind as I read that over about the modeling. Most people assume there would be a lot of negative things about the experience. The concern is usually that it will make us feel that our only worth is our bodies. However, I spent so long at the other extreme, completely separating myself from myself from my ( Read more... )

Wow. I just realized how long it has been since I last wrote here. My original purpose in keeping this journal was to have an anonymous place to get all the things I don't usually talk about out of my system. Yet somehow despite being completely anonymous I still found myself starting to hold back. I wonder why that happens. I need to push ( Read more... )

I went to one of Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal workshops years ago. One of the exercises involves writing the "steppingstones" of our lives. Then, there is another one specifically for the body and another one for spiritual steppingstones. I did this exercise again today and thought I would share.

( Because of the nature of the subject, there is adult content )

Living in the past is no good, unless it shows you what you need to do in the future ( Read more... )

( Cut because it goes to dark places )

One of my favorite books is Replay by Ken Grimwood. It's about a guy who has a heart attack and dies when he's 43 only to wake up as his 18-year-old self and have to live his life over again from that point, with full memory of the life he has already lived. The same thing happens over and over and he lives multiple versions of his life. The ( Read more... )

Maybe, I started to repeat my mom's pattern when I was younger. After all, I moved to another state with a guy I barely knew based on a momentary feeling that I assumed had to be how you "just knew". (I now know that it's a characteristic of his type that they are very intense. During the good phases, it will seem like they love you more than ( Read more... )

I had a conversation recently with some people who are angry about the attitudes towards sex they were raised with. Despite all the things I can legitimately be angry at my mom about, I can't be angry about that one. It was just what she herself had been taught. Her generation did believe sexual purity was important for finding a husband and ( Read more... )

I've heard that girls' self esteem is shown to dramatically drop when they hit puberty. I've been speculating on why ( Read more... )