Tag: self-judgement

Shine on, you crazy diamond

On By MezzoSherriIn Be Your Own Beautiful, Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

I’m gonna be a little bit emotionally honest tonight.

One of the main reasons I posted my reading challenge list last night is ‘cos I was still too embarrassed to share my word for 2021.

[Quick catch-up for anyone who needs it: I’ve chosen focus words for a few years now, which is something a number of folks in the self-development world do. And, as I mentioned in the run-up to New Year’s Eve, my word organically came to me somewhere early-to-mid-December.]

Now, that unbidden emergence is the way all my successful word-of-the-year experiments happened,* so odds are that unbidden word is the right choice for me in 2021. And I have enough trust in my intuition that I haven’t been actively seeking a different option. But, alas, I also have enough self-judgement that I’ve not been willing to share this word with anyone.

And what is this super-embarrassing term that has me in such a tizzy?

Shine.

A close-up picture of a sparkler.

(Kinda silly, right?)

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Wasting time wisely

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

(Yes, I’ve been tracking the election count, and yes, I’ll have more to say here about that. Later. ‘Cos every time I think about commenting before the race is called, I hear Toby Ziegler in my head: “You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?” So mum’s the word—for now.)

Anyhow, on the domestic front, I’ve got a day off today. In fact I have a few 3-day weekends coming up during November and December. We can thank COVID for that: Mr. Mezzo and I were planning two fun getaways during the spring (1 to DC in March and 1 to Boston for May) but neither of those happened—of course—on account of the world shutting down.

Those 2 cancelled trips add up to more than a week of vacation time I didn’t cash in, and since my company has a strict policy regarding how many days you can carry over from year to year, I’ve got some time to burn. So: 3-day weekends galore!

Close-up of a mirrored disco ball.
Celebrate good times, come on!
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Raising a RUHCUS

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

So last night, I mentioned that I was embarking on a project that was inspired by Sonya Renee Taylor’s body of work.(1) Me and some of my fellow Sister Goddesses(2) from Mastery are embarking on a RUHCUS—a structure Sonya created for a 30-day Radically Unapologetic Healing Challenge 4 Us.

Obviously, you’ll get a better explanation of a RUHCUS over on TBINAA, including how-to guides you can download. But the Sherri-level summary of the process is this: you choose some place of woundedness that you want to give attention. Maybe it’s a specific area of body shame, or old trauma, or emotional pain. Whatever it is, you choose to spend 30 days actively addressing this area of hurt every day. You also promise to do this in community, sharing your experiences, insights, and observations along the way.

Now, it feels a little scary to be so vulnerable and honest with people, but one thing that has been so meaningful to see during my first two weekends of Mastery is the healing, transformational impact of us bearing witness to one another. And so, even though it feels like an edge for shy/isolationist little old me, I absolutely get why the RUHCUS structure is built around being in community, and I am on board to push my edges in this valuable way.

So here we go.

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The Victorious After

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Self-Acceptance, Stuff about Stuff, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

So yes, I made good use of Patriots’ Day Weekend to get my home office/goddess room in good order. I’ll toss in one glossy “After” shot right here.

IMG_4105

For the “Before,” you can just go back to my whiny post from Friday night. However much courage it took to post that picture 4 days ago, I do not have enough extra bravery lying around to post that embarrassing picture again….

So: rather a big change. I’m a little bit proud of myself for pulling it off.

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I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Memoir, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

QUICK HIT: I should be digging back into my work deadlines, but I wanted to knock out a quick blogpost first. And then, instead of writing anything, I’ve been going down the Youtube rabbit hole for the last 45 minutes or so.

Most of what I’ve been watching is various dance-themed videos. Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing “Rhythm Nation” on Lip Sync Battle; Ms. Mojo’s list of the top 10 best-choreographed music videos; Shirley MacLaine explaining (and demonstrating!) different choreographic styles. And lots and lots and lots of Fosse.

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More from the Floor

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Flagrantly Feminist, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Self-Acceptance2 Comments

I’ve been staring at the computer screen and listening to Beethoven for I’m-not-sure-how-many minutes now, trying to figure out what to write about here on JALC (or even if I was going to write at all).

Ultimately, I decided to give it a try—in part because I want to postpone the wheels-falling-off-the-cart moment I feel almost inevitably coming down the pike at me. It’s gonna be an intense few weeks at work with various deadlines to meet, so I foresee a number of missed blogposts in the near future, as I will likely have to set JALC aside in order to devote my evening writing time to job-related stuff.

I’ll be doing some of that tonight, but first: a super-quick post with some more yoga observations I forgot to include last night.

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The View from the Floor

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

I’m already trying to “level up” my renewed yoga practice: not only did I follow through on my intention to attend class last night, I also went straight from work to attend a 6 PM beginner’s class tonight.

Now, in a perfect world, I’d up my class frequency while still having some recovery time between sessions. But these are the two nights that beginner classes are scheduled on, so this is the structure I need to work within–at least until I build enough skill/stamina to take on additional class types.

So here we are. After two classes in a row, I expect to sleep well tonight. I also half-expect to be sore tomorrow. And, in the interest of continuing to reflect on and honor my journey getting back to the mat, I’m going to share some of the impressions and observations that have come to me during this week’s classes.

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Good Fatty, Bad Fatty

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Self-Acceptance2 Comments

As I continue coming to grips with last Friday’s diagnosis, I’m facing up to some uncomfortable emotional realities around the Venn diagram of overlaps between my life, my habits, my body and my diagnoses.*

Now, I don’t think I was wrong when I theorized that part of why I was thrown for such a loop last Friday had to do with me (falsely) believing that I was off the hook, only to have a sudden reversal of fortune. But another huge piece of this is just a plain old shame spiral.

The conventional rhetoric around Type 2 diabetes and my version of prediabetes is very much that it’s, like, totally preventable. That makes it very easy for me—in my usual perfectionist, hard-on-myself way—to think of myself as being “to blame” for being prediabetic. And that self-flagellation takes me down the shame path pretty darn fast.

I am now 100% in the ranks of the “bad fatty,” and I am having all kinds of shame and sadness around that.

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