Radimo LA

A collective of humans working toward living their best lives. mind body home ask

[radimola-blog]

WHY THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE SUCKS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

AN OIL PIPELINE IS GOING TO POISON AN ENTIRE COMMUNITY:

A huge company is building an oil pipeline through the Missouri River. It’ll transport the dirtiest oil right through some of the cleanest water in the US. If there is a crack, leak, spill, any breakage, (which is super common) that oil will seep into the water and that water will become toxic.

The company that owns Sunoco just got their permit approved (btw Rick Perry is on their board of directors, in case that gives anyone else the fucking creeps). In response, a bunch of kids from Standing Rock Reservation physically ran across the country (1800 miles) in protest, carrying a petition w/ over 140,000 signatures, and met with the white house. NOW these kids, members of indigenous tribes around the nation, and their allies, are standing in front of massive equipment, using their bodies to stop construction and putting their lives on the line to protect this water.

WHY IT MATTERS:

When that water gets contaminated by oil, it will be poisoned, essentially deadly, within the hour. It’ll effect anyone in any community along the river or connecting rivers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. More people than we can fathom will lose access to clean water, and it’ll happen quickly. These kids are fighting for our access to clean water, too.

What happened in Flint could have been avoided if we had known about it. This time we have a shot.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

This is a big list of things we can do. Sharing info, donating funds, sending supplies… We all have different abilities and means so here are a number of ways you can help.

DONATE TO THE CAUSE:

To donate thru GoFundMe: bit.ly/SacredStoneFund

To donate to their California Run: bit.ly/StandingRockCA

To donate to legal defense fund: bit.ly/SacredStoneLegal

If you cannot donate, consider sharing these links in case someone in your circle has the cash, but doesn’t know about this yet!

SEND SUPPLIES:

Send directly using their Amazon Wish List: bit.ly/SacredStoneAmazon

To send / drop off Supplies: 202 Main Street Fort Yates, ND 58538

Full list of supplies needed: bit.ly/SacredStoneSupplies

Some examples of supplies needed: canned food, cookware, toilet paper, diapers, reusable plates & utensils, tents, solar powered gear, flashlights, blankets, water jugs.

PHYSICALLY SHOW UP:

If you want to join in ND, and use your body or talents to bring support, sign up here: bit.ly/SacredStoneCampVolunteer

If you’ve got access to a boat and can be in ND by August 20th: bit.ly/SacredStoneWater

FOLLOW THE STORY:

Follow on Facebook: bit.ly/SacredStoneFB

Follow the Standing Rock kids on Twitter: twitter.com/rezpectourwater

Follow the Standing Rock kids on IG: instagram.com/rezpectourwater/

[radimola-blog]

UPDATE AND IMMEDIATE ACTION:

11 / 21 / 2016

"Hundreds of water protectors were injured at the Standing Rock encampments when law enforcement blasted them with water cannons in freezing temperatures Sunday evening."

To stop the violence:

1 - Save the image below

2 - Go to faxzero.com

3 - Fax the image to MORTON COUNTY SHERRIFF'S DEPT: KYLE KIRCHMEIER 701-667-3463 or call 701-667-3330 to speak to someone.

[radimola-blog]

A few weeks ago my mother died.

She died of a lithium overdose and no one knows whether or not it was intentional. I feel completely uncomfortable around the rest of my family. I feel very isolated, like I’m not allowed to comment because I haven’t had a relationship with my mother for the past year.

My mother’s husband told me point-black that I had to live with myself knowing I was the cause of her mental health issues. His words didn’t effect me that much because my mother has been ill since I was a child (long before he knew her) and they were the same words my mother said to me when she was alive.

I know it’s not my fault. I know no one person can cause another person’s mental illness. I know that I did what I had to do to preserve myself, protect myself, free myself.

It’s funny because all I did was say “I’m not going to respond to anything you send me unless it’s positive.” It was her choice to only reach out to me with the negative. I set a clear boundary, to no longer accept emotional abuse from her. I am proud of what I did and I wouldn’t take it back for anything in the world - including one more year of abuse (before she ultimately died). It would not bring me peace, it would not make me feel better. In fact, taking space from my mother is the only reason I was able to find any compassion for her. It wasn’t until August of this year that I finally felt like I truly appreciated the things she’d done for me. She taught me so much. She was strong, she stood up for herself. She followed her passions. She forced honesty out of me. A lot of my best qualities I now see were hers first, I’m forever grateful to her for those and equally grateful to the space that I took, giving me the opportunity to have this new perspective.

I learned from her mistakes, too. The codependence that kept her in abusive relationships, the dependency on alcohol, the pathological lies, the unsafe driving, the ability to give up on herself at the drop of a hat. I see those creep up in myself and because I saw how they destroyed my mother, I work on them.

I don’t drink. I have become the most honest individual I know. I am the safest driver I know. There are times when I want to give up on myself, but always find a way not to. I was in a bout of depression and anxiety from which I never thought I would escape. But I did. I forced my way out of it. I believe in freedom from mental illness, I believe it takes honesty and a lot of hard work. Emphasis on the hard work. To stop myself, breathe, and interrupt my anxious spin outs – it takes a lot of fucking work. And the only reason I know to do that work is because I saw what it could do to a person if they didn’t know how.

My mother and my (adoptive) dad (her third husband) separated when I was 17 years old because her drinking had gotten so out of hand. He begged her, saved her life, tried to help her, but she refused to do anything about it. They fought constantly and I watched the bff-single-mom that I grew up loving more than life turn into the kind of person that screams at a cashier for no reason at all. I, of course, never knew what to do in those situations. I’d spent my life learning that she was always right, always in charge, and when she was screaming it was time to get small. I still do that, I get small when people scream. I would love to be the person that stands tall and calmly asks someone to quiet their voice, and sometimes I can be that person, but inside I’m still just fucking terrified of what will happen next. Maybe it’s just a screaming fit, but maybe the scream is accompanied by a punch in the side of my arm that I’ll feel for weeks. Maybe the scream is accompanied by a full sobbing breakdown that I – as a six year old – have to figure out how to fix.

When my parents separated, my mother had already totaled more than one car. She used to drive drunk and either get pulled over or run into a tree, a fence, a building. Once a man asked for a ride and when they reached his destination he showed her a knife and said “I could do whatever I want to you right now, but I’m not going to because I believe that you’ll never pick up a stranger off the street and drive while you’re drunk ever again.” It didn’t stop her, didn’t even pause her.

She called me downstairs on more than one occasion and begged me to give her a reason not to kill herself. Don’t think for one second I didn’t think of that the moment I found out she died.

My mother’s immediate family wasn’t around very much during my teens and early 20s. My best friend Ryan would come to her house and force her to let me leave. He saved me from her on a number of occasions. My best friend Brynn would come get me at 2am when my mom locked me out. My family wasn’t around until they showed up, in August of 2007. When I was just 21 years old we tried to have an intervention and I did all of the talking. Everyone thought it was best coming from me because she loved me so much. Such a fucked up thing, now that I think about it. During the intervention she was scream-singing “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse and I still hate that song. I brought up the crushed wine boxes her husband and I had found hidden, more than once. I brought up the lies about her adoptive father, she made up some story about stealing a gun from my Nana’s closet and having to fight him off of her. My nana didn’t have a gun. She yelled and yelled until we all left.

She didn’t speak to any of us for a few months. In late December called me to say she would go to therapy if I went with her. So I did. I drove my mother to therapy and sat in the room with her, watching while she lied to a professional. It was the day after New Year's hit and she promised she hadn’t a drink in days, not even on New Years Eve.  She was sick all the whole time, kept leaving the session to go to the bathroom because of nausea which she claimed was caused (along with her mood swings) by premenopause. When we were alone the therapist asked me if my mother was being honest. I said no. At this point in the conversation (it was the beginning) she had already told so many minuscule lies it was hard to keep up: “Well, she said she had one sister and one stepsister, but really she has two half-sisters and one stepsister” – it was the most blatant one I could remember and the easiest to correct. The therapist told me I should speak up when my mother was in the room, but I grew up knowing better than to tell my mother when she was lying. And the looks she gave me when I called her out were looks I’d seen before, looks I knew to be afraid of. The therapist said that she really wanted to help my mom, but could do nothing for her until she got her drinking under control. My mom said "no problem, what do I do," and the therapist gave us an address for a rehab center.

I think at this point my mother had not anything to drink in maybe six to eight hours, twelve tops. I drove her to the rehab center and we sat in the waiting room. I remember being annoyed. My girlfriend was on her way to meet me so that we could drive up to Chicago together – I was supposed to move there the next day and I didn’t want to be doing this... All of a sudden I felt my mom slump over onto me. She was convulsing and foaming at the mouth. I’d never seen anything so terrifying. I just shouted for help and people rushed in. I moved a table out of the way as people pulled her onto the floor and started to do whatever you do in that situation. A woman with long red hair pulled me into a side room and asked me how I was. I think I just said “I don’t know...”  This was not the first time something traumatic happened and I didn’t know how I felt about it, and it would also not be the last time. She rubbed my arm and said it was really confusing and frightening. I told her I was supposed to move to Chicago the next day, but I obviously couldn’t do that now. She grabbed both of my shoulders, looked me in the eye and said, “Go to Chicago. If you put your life on hold every time something like this happens, it will continue to happen forever. Trust me, my dad was the same way and look at me. I’m here. I dedicated my life to it. Promise me you’ll go.” And I did. I promised her, and I went.

That woman saved my life.

And she was right. Things with my mother never got better. They got much, much worse and I’m realizing for the first time that I can’t believe how alone I was in dealing with it. She was rushed to the hospital after that collapse and my family wasn’t there, her husband wasn’t there. I was there and, as fast as he could make it, my dad was there, too.

She claimed sobriety in 2008 and I got a tattoo. On her (4th) wedding day I found out she’d been lying to me. I knew, not because she told me, but because I walked in on her drinking. We would talk and sometimes she would be so unbelievably mean to me that I didn’t know what to say, so I would just apologize. She would plan trips to visit me and  never show up. Or she would come to visit and leave early. When I was studying abroad in Spain she came to stay with me and kept me locked in a hotel room for a week. She wasn’t drinking, but became unbearably ill (I now realize she was probably going through withdrawals) and since she didn’t feel well enough to leave the room I wasn’t allowed to go either. I pleaded with her to let me walk down the street, I’d been in this city for two months and I knew it well, but even that wasn’t allowed.

She was in and out of rehab four times, claimed sobriety more than once and I only ever found out she was lying by a stroke of luck. She and a friend came to stay at my apartment in Brooklyn in 2011. Her friend let it slip that she was not only drinking, but was the life of the party at every party in their hometown. My gf and I went out of town for the weekend and came home to two broken glasses and three missing plates, which we found shards of later. My mom never responded to my questions about them, but texted my gf to tell her I was planning to break up with her. The woman who told me about my mom’s drinking was soon banished from their small town for stealing from my mom. My mom fired at least four different people for stealing (that I can think of off the top of my head).

My family started to get more involved around 2012 when my Aunt’s father was on his deathbed. My mother had a sudden vested interest in him. She’d stopped speaking to him because of the stories she’d made up, but he was dying and she seemed to really care. Both of my mom’s sisters dropped everything for him, visited him 9 hours away every week, moved him into their houses, did everything. My mother visited once in a while and would send a text to the entire family to let us know she’d done so. She locked herself in his hospital room and got him to sign a new Will that included her moreso than her sisters. My Aunt Missy called me and begged me to try and talk to her. She was in tears because my mother had just told her she was a worthless mom and we all knew it, and that I, in particular, always thought she was shitty. That obviously wasn’t true, which is why Missy was talking to me. I did call my mom, I asked her to stop being involved. She called me Paris Hilton and said I didn’t understand because I always got what I wanted.

All along the way I’d try to talk myself into feeling okay with what was going on. I couldn’t control it and she wasn’t hitting me so it wasn’t that bad.  

When I hear people use that excuse now it absolutely slaughters me. I want to scream ‘GET OUT GET OUT PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF’ but a lot of the time people don’t understand my point of view. It almost doesn’t matter what my mom has said or done, because she’s my mom. It means even less to people now that my mom is gone. I really should have stuck it out because if I put up with the abuse for just one or two more years, she would have died peacefully knowing I loved her.

But I didn’t. I didn’t love her anymore because she abused me and the Stockholm syndrome wore off.  I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and I ran like hell until I finally felt the sun on my cold, pasty skin. I still received purely hateful messages from her, but since I was in the sun now, I could see that the rest of the world was there and it had much more to offer.  I could read a text message about what a worthless, shameful daughter I was and how I’d caused her bipolar downspin, and instead, the message felt like she was saying, “You made the right decision, I am not well, save yourself.” And I did, I had to over and over and over.

When I learned of my mother’s death, I felt a lot of things. I felt sad for my nana, her mother that tried so hard, wanted to save her, and took a beating for no reason other than being a kind woman with a huge heart. I felt sad for my mother’s husband, who believed every word she said and truly thought she would be better one day. I felt afraid because I knew he hated me. On my birthday two years ago he texted me to say I was despicable and should be ashamed of who I am. I was afraid because the last interaction I’d had with my aunt Missy was her texting me to say I’d be the reason my mother committed suicide. I also felt things I’d never even thought about. Like the fact that I’m the only one in my family who fucks with meditation, yoga, awareness, eating well - what if I could have saved my mother? I know people who have curbed mental and physical illness just by the food they eat. What if that was the answer and I was the only person around her who knew it? Of course, I’d only gotten meditation to become routine about 10 days before my mother died, so I didn’t have the time to feel the benefits myself, much less save her. And anyway, you can’t save someone. People are only capable of saving themselves.

My mother died of an overdose. She was in the middle of a seizure and never came out of it. I think I’m the only person in my family that knows what that looks like and the image has been haunting me for weeks now.

I am not angry or resentful, and I have no regrets. I’m grateful I removed the abusive people from my life and if any one of them died I would be able to stand by my decisions with strength and gratitude. Which is exactly how I feel about my mother. I also feel a huge sense of relief for her and the rest of my family. She was struggling with some of the toughest, most painful, dreadful shit and I’m so happy she’s finally free. I’m so happy for my family to be free from the pain of loving someone who is living the way my mother lived.

I’m sure this was hard for some people to read, it was hard to live. But what I takeaway from my mother’s life is not negative, it’s not hard.

I had a relationship with my mother that no one else will ever know or understand. When she was a single mom, working three jobs and finishing college, she was coming home to me. She had me when she was 19 years old - we grew up together. I learned to harmonize by singing along with her to Shania Twain’s “Who’s Bed Have Your Boots Been Under” and because of her I understand the remarkable importance of Tracey Chapman. She was so funny and she thought I was so funny, which is now a requirement in all of my relationships. She was a great singer, painter, photographer, she loved to travel and she cared about etiquette. My mom was really fucking cool.

I think the stress and anxiety around interacting with her made it so that I didn’t even realize the coolest woman I knew disappeared when I was 14 years old. I’d forgotten about how we grew up and how much I loved her. For the first time in 16 years, I miss my mom. I am so grateful for that feeling.

Grieving for an addict / bi-polar / emotionally abusive mother is confusing and hard. I don’t feel like I knew the woman who died, but I knew the real her better than anyone in this world. I’ve been crying often and out of nowhere, I usually don’t know why. I roller coaster between furious, guilty, numb, relieved, grateful, nostalgic and generally overwhelmed. Furious because I’ve spent a large part of my adult life being afraid she would show up at my house with a gun, and I can’t believe I had to feel that way about my own mother. Guilty because maybe I could have done something. Numb because I just started recognizing my own emotions two years ago, and this is all new to me. Relieved because I don’t have to be afraid of her anymore. Grateful and Nostalgic because I can finally access the positive memories of her. And generally overwhelmed because I don’t expect a single person to understand, but I wish more than anything on earth that someone did.

If you recognize yourself in me, please know you are not alone, your emotional health matters, and sometimes the best decisions we can make for ourselves are the hardest. If you recognize yourself in my mother, please know you are not alone, your emotional health matters, and sometimes the best decisions we can make for ourselves are the hardest.

———————————————————————————————————

A few things that have helped me:

Ways To Support Someone Who Has Lost An Addicted Loved One - This was a good read for myself, too. It helped me verbalize some of the things I needed from friends / family.

What Not To Say To Someone Who Has Lost An Addicted Loved One - This was really nice to read. It validated some of the feelings I was having about the way people responded to me. I don’t like to dictate what people can and can’t say, but some of it didn’t feel right and it was nice to read this and know that what I was feeling was legit.

Mourning My Abuser: BUST - This really resonated with me.

Paradigm Malibu & San Francisco - Adolescent treatment center. I’ve worked with the youth here and it’s a treatment center different from any center I’ve seen. They focus on empowering each individual through self-love and compassion. My mother was in and out of rehab four times. I’ve always felt like these centers were bullshit and it was hard for me to accept work here, but I did. And I was so moved, I was so grateful, I am so hopeful that more and more centers like this become easily accessible. I believe in looking beyond yourself, I believe in asking for help, I also believe you must be actively participating in your search for help. Research, ask around, call a few places, seek the kind of guidance that could change your life for the better.  

[radimola-blog]

WHY THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE SUCKS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

AN OIL PIPELINE IS GOING TO POISON AN ENTIRE COMMUNITY:

A huge company is building an oil pipeline through the Missouri River. It’ll transport the dirtiest oil right through some of the cleanest water in the US. If there is a crack, leak, spill, any breakage, (which is super common) that oil will seep into the water and that water will become toxic.

The company that owns Sunoco just got their permit approved (btw Rick Perry is on their board of directors, in case that gives anyone else the fucking creeps). In response, a bunch of kids from Standing Rock Reservation physically ran across the country (1800 miles) in protest, carrying a petition w/ over 140,000 signatures, and met with the white house. NOW these kids, members of indigenous tribes around the nation, and their allies, are standing in front of massive equipment, using their bodies to stop construction and putting their lives on the line to protect this water.

WHY IT MATTERS:

When that water gets contaminated by oil, it will be poisoned, essentially deadly, within the hour. It’ll effect anyone in any community along the river or connecting rivers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. More people than we can fathom will lose access to clean water, and it’ll happen quickly. These kids are fighting for our access to clean water, too.

What happened in Flint could have been avoided if we had known about it. This time we have a shot.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

This is a big list of things we can do. Sharing info, donating funds, sending supplies… We all have different abilities and means so here are a number of ways you can help.

DONATE TO THE CAUSE:

To donate thru GoFundMe: bit.ly/SacredStoneFund

To donate to their California Run: bit.ly/StandingRockCA

To donate to legal defense fund: bit.ly/SacredStoneLegal

If you cannot donate, consider sharing these links in case someone in your circle has the cash, but doesn’t know about this yet!

SEND SUPPLIES:

Send directly using their Amazon Wish List: bit.ly/SacredStoneAmazon

To send / drop off Supplies: 202 Main Street Fort Yates, ND 58538

Full list of supplies needed: bit.ly/SacredStoneSupplies

Some examples of supplies needed: canned food, cookware, toilet paper, diapers, reusable plates & utensils, tents, solar powered gear, flashlights, blankets, water jugs.

PHYSICALLY SHOW UP:

If you want to join in ND, and use your body or talents to bring support, sign up here: bit.ly/SacredStoneCampVolunteer

If you've got access to a boat and can be in ND by August 20th: bit.ly/SacredStoneWater

FOLLOW THE STORY:

Follow on Facebook: bit.ly/SacredStoneFB

Follow the Standing Rock kids on Twitter: twitter.com/rezpectourwater

Follow the Standing Rock kids on IG: instagram.com/rezpectourwater/

[staghunted]

I bought the book after seeing a post quoting it float around Tumblr. Not bedtime reading.

I wanted to post these types because while most of us are familiar with the philanderer or hyper masculine abuser, it’s important to recognize these types.

You’re not “crazy” if you believe you’re being abused and the dude isn’t a violent drunk bro.

The last one is especially important with more and more men identifying as feminist without more reason than they’re not “one of those guys”.

[fromond-deactivated20170206]

These pages should be public service announcements on the television.

[sleepbby]

life cleansing tips:

- delete conversations between people you no longer talk to. its healthy to let go of the past and not letting yourself dwell on things.

- say kind things about people you like. say good things about yourself. don’t speak or think about people you don’t like.

- look in mirrors. you shouldn’t be afraid of facing yourself.

- clean sheets make clean sleep make clean minds

- allow yourself time to feel and grow. don’t be too hard on yourself for crying, you need to vent in order to move on to better times. even rainy days work towards sunny days.

- if things don’t work out, stop forcing them. there’s no reason for you to keep working and failing if there’s other places/people for you to excel and be happy.

- kiss your body, caress your body. make yourself feel loved.

- running away doesn’t always solve everything. sometimes, the reason that made you run will still be with you. focus on freeing yourself before starting anew.

- a glass of water and a good nights rest can go a long way

[iguanamouth]

a mess

[itastemetal-deactivated20200404]

this is THE BEST explanation of this aspect of mental illness i have ever seen

[selenocysteine]

Tips to learn a new language

The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences

(Sources: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)

This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.

We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that I grabbed from here! :)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)      

‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.    

Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?    

Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.    

Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.    

Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.    

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.    

People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.    

Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.    

Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.    

Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.    

Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.    

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)    

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.    

Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.    

Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.    

Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.    

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)  

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.    

Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.    

Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.    

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)    

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.    

Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.    

General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.    

Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.    

VERBS (about 100 words)    

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.    

PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.    

Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.    

Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.    

Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.    

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.    

Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.    

Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.    

Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.    

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.    

Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.    

Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.   

[thepolyglotblog]

Oh i love this concept!

[amateurlanguager]

I love it too! I love it mostly because it makes me feel less overwhelmed. When you break it down like this, everything seems so much more manageable. Like, hey, I could memorize 20 words at a time (even if ‘at a time’ varies wildly for me), and just do that like ten times. That’s a HUGE chunk of a language.

(And since I have the habit of doing languages that are similar to ones I’m already familiar with, the grammar part usually comes pretty easy, too.)

[thepunkgreenwitch-deactivated20]

Could you give me some tips to get started?

This is gonna be a long ass post. My apologies. Anyone is more than welcome to add to this list.

Blogs I recommend: X

 Beginner Witchcraft

Old Motherredcap’s Reading List

Advice for beginner witches

Things to consider

Defining “witchcraft”

Magic and witchcraft

Research for Newbie Witches

Websites for Herbal Properties and Useage

Different Types of Witchcraft

Secular Witchcraft

Cultural Appropriation

The G word

Spells and charms for Beginners

Dispelling Spells

Lavender’s Wishing Spell

Burning Bridges Spell

Chocolate Money Spell

Spell to Ease Jealousy

Emotional Cleansing Spell

Rainbow Protection Bottle

Wreaths for Protection and Happiness

Energy Bath

Motivation Chant

Pick me up Cleansing Jar

Protection Jar

Rosemary and Lavender Smokeless Cleansing

List of Cleansing Spells

Meditation

50 Meditation Tips

An Earth Meditation

Benefits of Meditation

Breathe & Relax

Grounding, Centering, & Shielding

Grounding - Grounding Techniques - Ungrounded Symptoms

Grounding & Centering

Centering

Shielding: (1) (2)

Budgeted Witchcraft:

Tips & Tricks for Frugal Witches

Moonstone Beginning’s Frugal Pagan Resource

A Witch in a Pinch (Blog)

Budget Witch (Blog)

Witchcraft on a Budget

Being a Witch on a Budget

Budget Witchcraft (Site)

Accumulating Witch Stuff on a Budget

Ways to Practice Witchcraft with Little or No Money

Chaos Magic:

Chaos Magic in a Nutshell

What is Chaos Magick? 

Chaos Magic- The Misunderstood Path

Chaos Magick (a multitude of articles pertaining to chaos magic)

Introduction to Chaos Magic

Chaos Magic Theory

Chaoism & Chaos Magic: A Personal View

Oven-Ready Chaos; Phil Hine

Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic- Peter J. Carroll

Sigil Crafting:

A Beginner’s Guide to Sigil Craft

Ways to Use Sigils 

Sigils Reboot: How To Get Big Magic From Little Squiggles

An Essay On Sigil Crafting 

Practical Sigil Magic- Frater U. D.

Sigilmaking with Lee 

Sigil Magic: Making a Magical Sigil

Sigils… 

Sigil Daily: Creation & Activation

Magic/Sigil Circles 

Chaos Magic: Basic Sigil Magic

Sigils 

A Brief Overview of Sigil Magick

Sigils and Seals 101 

Sigils

Sigil Crafting Method 

Creating a Sigil

Sigil Masterpost (gif warning!)

Sigils in Theory and Practice

How Do You Make Sigils? 

On the Preparation and Usage of Sigils

Sigil Magic

Sigil 101 

Practical Sigil Magick

The Sigil Bowl 

Sigil Basics

What Are Sigils? 

Making Outdoor Sigils

Online Sigil Generator

Sigilisation

Sigil Magic

Sigil Making Process, by Rook 

Sigil Making Process, by Richtor 

Sigil Charging:

My Super-Physically-Mentally Intense Method of Charging Sigils…

How to Charge Sigils 

Firing Off Sigils

A Personal Method of Charging Sigils 

How to Charge a Sigil Playing Video Games

Charging Your Sigils- A Brief Explanation 

Charging and Firing Sigils 

How to Use Sigils 

The Fae Resources

Books

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries – W.Y. Evans-Wentz

The Secret Commonwealth: Of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies – Robert Kirk

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry – Yeats

Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore – Yeats

The Fairies in Tradition and Literature – Katherine Briggs

An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures – Katherine Briggs

The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends – Katherine Briggs

The Sidhe: Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld – John Matthews

Through the Faerie Glass-Kenny Klein

Websites

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (Sacred Texts)

The Secret Commonwealth: Of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (Sacred Texts)

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland – Lady Wilde

Puck – That shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow

The Fairy Family: A Series of Ballads & Metrical Tales Illustrating the Fairy Mythology of Europe

The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries

“The Fairy Doctor” – Lady Wilde

Sacred Text: Fairy Mythology Index

Divination

Tarot

All About Tarot

All About Tarot Readings

Many Different Uses For The Tarot

Tarot Deck Outline

Choosing The Tarot Deck That Is Right For You

What To Look For In A Tarot Deck

Choosing A Tarot Deck Just For Reading Others

Connecting With Your Tarot Deck

Top 3 Beginner Tarot Books

When To Cleanse Your Tarot Deck

How To Cleanse Your Tarot Deck

Recharging Your Tarot Cards

Cleansing Your Tarot Reading Space

Purifying Your Tarot Cards

Three Ways To Shuffle Your Tarot Deck

Six Ways To Choose A Tarot Card

How To Clear Your Tarot Deck

How To Store And Care For Your Tarot Cards

Minor Arcana Keyword Chart

Tarot: Quick and Dirty Keyword Sheets

Tarot Cheat Sheets

Tarot Reversal Keyword Sheet

Major Arcana Meanings

Court Card Interpretations

The Major Arcana

Court Cards In Tarot

The Tarot Suits

Tarot Suit Info Cards

Topics You Can Use In Your Own Custom Tarot Spreads

Great Topics To Ask The Tarot With Only 1-3 Cards

Four Decks To Help You Create Your Own Tarot Spreads

How To Design A Tarot Spread For A Client

Classic Tarot Spread Positions

Interview Your New Tarot Deck

Effective Tarot Questions

How To Create Your Own Spreads

Tips When Reading Tarot For Others

New And Old Tarot Traditions

Four Myths About Fortune Telling

Fortune Teller Isn’t A Bad Word

Quirky Tarot Habits

Six Types Of Tarot Readers

4 Easy Steps to Learn Tarot

How To Read Tarot Cards

Why “Free” Tarot Readings Are Not Ever Really Free

How To Interpret Reversed Tarot Cards

What To Do With Jumper Cards

Tarot Exhaustion

Tarot Relaxation And Grounding Exercise

Four Tips On Reading “Negative” Tarot Cards

How To Deal With “Going Blank” During A Tarot Reading

Tips When Reading Tarot At A Special Event

Ideologies That Hold You Back As A Tarot Reader

Six Mistakes To Avoid When Reading Tarot For Yourself

How To Obtain The Clients Energy During a Tarot Reading Without Them Touching Your Cards

Reading Tarot With Confidence

Scrying

How to

Lithomancy

How to

Runes

Interpretations

Glamours

Glamoured Shower Disks

Goddess Glamour Bath

Witch of the Waste’s Glamour Enchanted Jewelry Spell

Blood Magic

Ethics and Safety

PSA to Blood Witches

Blood Magic 101

Starting Blood Magic

When you’re no longer a beginner

Blood Christening

How Not to Use Blood Magic

Sexual Sangomancy and Blood Bonding; Pros, Cons, and Safety

Blood and Bone Magick

Use of Blood in Folklore and Magic

Potions

Quick Guide to Potions and Lotions

Herbal Brews Introduction

Herbal How To: Infusion

Herbal How To: Tinctures and Extracts

Minerals that are NOT Suitable for Adding to Water

Magical Properties of Herbs, Roots, Flowers, Barks, and Resins

Herbs to Avoid During Pregnancy

Poisonous Herbs: Hazards

List of Poisonous Herbs (Magical Uses and Safety Warnings)

Familiars

What are they?

Is this my familiar?

The Familiar Self

Familiars and Gender

The Three Kinds of Familiars

Plants as Familiars

Working with Plants as Familiars

[hedgewitchwanderings-deactivate]

Good masterpost for witchlings/beginner witches but for others too. :)

[radimola-blog]

I didn’t. I literally had no clue. If you had asked 12 hours before I broke up with the person I’d been dating for 5 years, I would have had no idea I was about to break up with him. There were definitely clues. CLUES FOR DAYS. It’s a little unnerving to look back and see all the ways in which we just straight up didn’t get each other. Neither of us liked the way the other person told stories. I never wanted to do anything he wanted to do and vice versa, so one of our main activities was watching TV. I thought he was embarrassing in public. He thought I needed anger management. We lied to each other a bunch. White lies and big terrible ones, some that I snooped to find out (not proud of that). The list of reasons I should have known is long, but I didn’t. We broke up a few times over the course of 5 years. All over stuff that infuriated me at the time but my anger always simmered down, eventually. I would start weighing pros and cons and get lost thinking how he "would do anything" for me. We never really took any steps towards breaking up besides saying the words so it was easy to get back together. I didn’t recognize the reasons I needed to leave until I was out of there. And I didn’t see the bigger more damaging lessons I learned in that relationship, until I fell deeply in love with someone else. Seeing how good a relationship could be illuminated all the stuff I had put up with for so long. I could not have fathomed this kind of relationship back then. So, my goal here is to help you fathom. Love can feel like caffeine. Love can feel like a giggly sleep over. Love can make you feel like the hottest, coolest super hero. Here is a list of things that happen in my current relationship that I couldn’t live without now that I have them. If you want these things, go out and find them OR make up your own list of things you want and find those because being in a dope relationship is life changing and being in a bad relationship can kill you from the inside out. We want the same things. Our main goals are to be healthy and have fun. We like fruits and vegetables and learning about how bodies work. We love dancing and having deep talks with our friends and making jokes on snap chat. We want to help people. We want to have a beautiful, minimalist home. We have a lot in common and it’s so cool to do the stuff you love while flirting. We have corresponding desires and skills. An easy example is how I love cooking, except for the clean up while Dannielle doesn’t mind cleaning at all but would rather not have to come up with and prepare all the food. We both love delicious, healthy, home cooked meals and together we make that happen every day/night just by doing the things we already like to do. We like different parts of the same things so it works out perfectly. It’s very symbiotic. Honesty. The only way we got to the place where I cook and she cleans is by being honest about our preference. That was scary for me at first. I considered myself low maintenance, but since Dannielle started challenging me to access whatever teeny tiny preference I might have, I’ve found a million teeny tiny things that actually make me so happy. Honesty has been the cure to a lot of my relationship struggles (all relationships not just romantic ones). We’re also honest when something is wrong. If we’re off, or if something is annoying, we say it, we work on it, and it gets solved. I once said to my ex, “If I told you every time you made me mad, we’d never stop fighting.” Why was I sacrificing honesty instead of sacrificing the relationship that was clearly not fitting right? I DO NOT KNOW GUYS. She gets me. When I’m having a weird, half-pieced-together thought and I stumble through it out loud, Dannielle always lends a new perspective. I value her opinion so much and vice versa. We hypothesize all night about the world, examining why we make the choices we make, or mourn some deep hurts. We laugh and cry and make plans and it all makes perfect sense to me. I get her too. She makes me feel better. When I’m upset about something, Dannielle helps me understand it better. She gives me empathy. Just that acknowledgement can be healing. Talking about a problem with her always helps me figure out what to do about it. We fight for a reason. At the end of every fight, we address the core of it. We come out the other side understanding where we went wrong. It’s an exercise in honesty. I was used to saying whatever I thought the other person wanted to hear to end a fight. Feeling great after a fight is brand new to me. I admire her. Ugh, I think she’s so cool. She makes everyone laugh, I love the way she dances, I love the way she dresses, and I love her hair (I cut it.) Her writing is so brave and her message is so important. Sometimes people come up to her and tell her she changed their lives, and I always think, me too. I’m a very, very different person than the girl who might have married that dude. For example, the anger management he thought I needed was probably because I was actually angry! I think there was a low frequency hum of anger in me from spending all my time with a person who didn’t get me. While I was in that relationship, I was a meaner, lazier, messier, more passive aggressive, insecure, and unhealthier version of myself. I also couldn’t write a song to save my life during that time but I wrote like half a million songs the second we broke up. All the other stuff has slowly changed too. If you’re not feeling like the best version of yourself, it might be time to break up. 

- Julia Nunes, Radimo LA

[radimola-blog]

Happiness According to a Poker Player

When you live on the felt, your happiness is controlled by how big your chip stack becomes. You succumb to the power of luck and your happiness isn’t in your hands anymore. You feel the surge of endorphins rushing through your body when you win a hand of Poker, and our brain feels the same visceral pain that we feel when we’re dumped when we lose the very next hand.

Humans are addicted to feeling roller coasters of emotions, because having everything makes us unhappy. We’d rather have a life full of highs and lows instead of just feeling only one thing or two all the time, even happiness. This is why we’re attracted to those most wrong for us; if they make you work for their love and approval, they make us feel the widest variety of emotions, which draws us to them.

I spent my teen years as the social outcast of my high school and turned to books instead. By chance, I read a book on Poker strategy called Super System by Doyle Brunson. As a wide-eyed college freshman, I decided to test out my poker knowledge by stealing my sister’s ID, cashing a sixty-dollar check from my roommate and heading to my local card room with three Jacksons burning a hole in my pocket. I turned that initial sixty dollars into six thousand in two weeks and jumped head first into the unpredictable abyss known as the world of Texas Holdem Poker.

I became addicted to the ups and downs that the sport offered. I wasn’t afforded these emotions in everyday life, because my life outside of the stale-aired poker room came with no friends or experiences. Poker was all I had. After an exciting first couple of months being tossed around, feeling the highest surge of emotions I’d ever felt when I won pots worth more than the car I drove, and the lowest of lows when I’d lose it all the next hand, It wasn’t exciting anymore.

When you imagine a poker player’s life and hear of the amounts they can win on certain nights, you probably think they spend every night making it rain and popping bottles of champagne. Truth is, most poker players spend all their time playing poker on little amounts of sleep and don’t do much else. It is very few who can maintain a healthy lifestyle outside of poker, full of people and other hobbies.

My Asian-immigrant parents embedded into my consciousness that being successful meant living in a penthouse, driving a nice car and having more than everyone else. Here I was as an eighteen year-old losing and winning small fortunes on a regular basis, driving the BMW and only going to my luxury apartment in order to shower, sleep and gamble some more.

My sole purpose in life was to wake up, make money, sleep, and repeat the whole process again. I was wasting my youth trying to make money, when playing poker wasn’t enjoyable anymore and the money was never spent wisely because I didn’t have friends to enjoy it with. I realized my life was just a continuous cycle of longing for more. After five years of this nagging feeling, I finally decided to escape the world of poker and follow the only thing I felt passionate about, LGBTQIA youth suicide prevention.

Most people say they’re working a job they don’t like in order to save money and pay for fun experiences, but we get so engrossed in everyday life and don’t take those frequent trips to other countries we promise ourselves. We spend most of our time workings jobs we feel content with instead of following what moves us.

I promised I would spend the rest of my life doing the things I love doing as my career and start my dream company. It’s a bit idealistic and a lot of having a company involves being on your laptop in pajamas questioning your life choices, but I get to choose how I want to spend my time. I can’t measure my success as of yet, because my success is not dependent on how much money I make, but by how many people I help, and just being on this journey is happiness, according to a poker player.

Grace Kim for Radimo

[radimola-blog]

“I recently called it quits on a toxic friendship. She suffered from various mental illnesses and was explosive and I internalized her anger. I’ve become aware of my own toxic behaviors and how we brought out the worst in each other. It has been extremely painful for us both. I am angry with my friend for bringing out the worst in me, but mostly I am angry at myself. At this point, I know I have lost a friend, but how I can I move forward in the process of forgiveness?”

This is such a cool question because it comes from such a cool place. Being able to identify your own emotions is so hard for so many reasons. In a lot of cases we’re taught to ignore our emotions because it’s not polite, because you'll upset someone, because you’re supposed to “be strong,” or because your emotions make you “look crazy.” It feels nearly impossible to even identify that anger and what’s more - to figure out how to actually deal with it.

Anger is one of the most important emotions. It’s the last thing you feel after you’ve felt everything else (sad, confused, stupid, wronged) so you’re kind of at the highest emotional point (which is why a lot of people feel so irrational when it happens). It took me a VERY long time to figure out and put a name to any of my emotions. I was in a toxic friendship for years and I couldn’t quite place what felt so wrong about it. I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong/in trouble, so when I would step back and look at it, I would be like, “Why am I so shitty?” It took a bunch of therapy for me to even recognize the reality of the situation I was in, AND to get out of it, AND to feel good about my decision, AND to stop fuming about the whole thing.

So, I’m just going to share with you the things that helped me…

You're allowed to be pissed. You should be pissed! You loved, trusted, respected, and supported someone who messed with your head. For me, every time I thought about it, I would get furious and then feel bad for being furious and then I was like, “But i should be mad…right?” It was this endless cycle of feeling an emotion and then feeling bad for feeling an emotion. But for real, trust yourself. It makes perfect sense that you are angry, you have every right to be angry, let yourself to be angry.

You’re probably also relieved. I was. I was mad, sad, confused, and also relieved that I escaped something that was holding me back. Allow yourself to feel everything. Feel those negative things, and then breathe. You don’t have to deal with the anxiety and fear of that relationship anymore. You can also miss the good parts of that friendship but embrace the relief, too. You’ve done something that will dramatically improve your emotional health. If you can allow yourself to feel the good emotions, you will start to feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life. It takes a lot of strength to leave a relationship, whether it’s family, friends, work, romantic; it’s hard as shit. And you should be really really proud of yourself for getting out of it. You’re letting so much good into your life by cutting out the things that are bringing you down. IT’S SUUUCH a good move

You’re not shitty. Forgive yourself. You were in a hard relationship and you turned into a version of yourself that you didn’t like. HOWEVER, you did the right thing and the BEST thing a person can do in that situation. You saw that you were being shitty, decided you didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone if you were being shitty to them, and you let that person go. You did it for you, but you also did it for your friend. Your friend was also in a terrible relationship. You did a great thing for the both of you. So, forgive yourself for being shitty in that relationship and move forward with the knowledge and awareness that you are not shitty, and you don’t have to be shitty in any relationship in the future. You have control over who you become friends with and if you see a lot of the same Toxic-Friend behaviors in someone new, you know it’s not good vibes and you know you don’t want to engage with that person, because you’ll probably become shitty and being shitty FEELS AWFUL.  

Be unbelievably grateful for the good people in your life. I totally believe that you attract whatever you’re putting out there. So, if you’re walking around this world feeling really good, being kind to those around you, appreciating when people are good to you, and making choices that make you feel really good - you’re just going to attract people and experiences that are also dope.

I went through exactly what you’re going through and these are the things that helped me. It was a hard transition to make, there was a lot of guilt and weirdness, but eventually I took a step back and I was like, “I am so much happier, I HAVE to let myself be happy, otherwise what was even the point of all this?!” Once I let myself feel happy, the good friendships I had started to deepen in such cool ways, and I started to meet new, amazing people. In the past, I had this idea that *everyone* felt the way that ToxicFriend felt, that *everyone* thought I was dumb, that *everyone* would be upset if I tried to talk to them about how I felt, etc etc. BUT once I started to let myself feel that relief, happiness, and gratitude, I started to open myself up to some really good, strong, inspiring friendships. Having supportive, respectful, positive people in my life is a real game changer. I feel good much more often. I believe in myself way more, I am starting to really trust my own instincts. It wasn’t easy, but it was hella worth it.

The coolest part about letting go of toxic people is getting your life back and making it better than ever.

Dannielle Owens-Reid, via Radimo.LA

[radimola-blog]

Organic, non-gmo, vegan, gluten-free, raw, food combining, etc etc - it's all so overwhelming, which one is actually the best, why is it the best, and how do you start?

In trying to make food more convenient in every way possible, the decision of what to eat has become a lot more complicated. Everyone I come across is confused and has a lot of emotions about what’s on their plates. I’m sure you know at least one person who doesn’t eat gluten, maybe it’s sugar, maybe it’s dairy, or maybe they avoid nightshade vegetables. I don’t even know what that last one really means. But I’ve heard it! And you’re probably thinking, “What’s a GMO?” Google any of these things and there are a ton of arguments both for and against every type of diet, supplement, and food group. I definitely feel like I can’t trust anyone except myself at this point. Which is why my only advice about what you should and shouldn’t eat needs to come from listening to your own body, mind, and soul. The more I do that, the better I feel.

Vegan. In January 2010 I went vegan. After being vegetarian for a lot of my adolescence, I also went back to eating a typical omnivore’s diet and felt awful. Even crazier, I didn’t do anything about it for a long time. Headaches, stomach cramps, guilt, and regret were just some of the symptoms I experienced being an omnivore. For one, I’m lactose intolerant and at the time saw nothing irrational about taking a pill so that I could eat ice cream! I also felt bad eating animals, but they tasted good! So I get it. But it took a few years for me to finally get sick enough of all those things, both mentally and physically, before I made a change. Being totally vegan, avoiding GMO’s, and eating mostly organic food makes me feel good, put’s my mind at ease, and helps me love me more!

Genetically Modified Organisms or GMO’s. The most predominant GMO crops are corn, soy, and wheat. GMO refers to plants and animals created by gene-splicing techniques. They were first created to yield better crops, help farmers, and hopefully solve world hunger, but instead it’s just created a lot of health and environmental concerns, which you can read about here. The fact that the safety of consuming GMO’s is totally unproven makes me feel uneasy and definitely makes me want to avoid eating them as much as possible. Also eating less toxic pesticides feels better to me than eating food covered in pesticides, so I try to eat mostly organic.

Gluten-free. Are you kidding me? I love bread! It’s the greatest food. I just pay attention to my bodies reaction and gluten and I are chill. Check in with your body, if you're gassy and uncomfortable after pasta, try going gluten free for a few days. Pay extra attention to how your body reacts when you reintroduce bread. Some people may need to cut gluten out of their diet but most people don't.

Raw.  You can find everything from so called “pizza” to “brownies” made from sprouted buckwheat, raw nuts, and dates.  I love a good raw dessert every now and then, but ultimately I want my food served warm! It just feels better to me but I'm so amazed and excited by people who have cured their diseases with raw diets (the incredible story of Jesse Bogdanovich).

So there really is no right answer. You just have to do what makes you feel good at the end of the day! I want to tell you not to eat meat, eggs, and dairy products and list all the reasons why. Science has proven these foods aren’t doing your body any good. However, my lists wont make much of an impact until you tap into how you feel when you eat those things. I ignored the way my body felt for a long time, I got used to feeling crappy, but the more you pay attention, the easier it is to make healthy choices. Pay attention to your body, mind, and soul. If you are veg-curious and need a few more good arguments to make the switch then check out this, this, and this.

I think eating a plant-based diet is not a trend and is definitely a movement, lifestyle, and way of eating that’s here to stay. It’s a reaction and solution to the food system we’ve created that has become unsustainable and unsafe for humans, animals, and the entire planet. So it’s a decision you can make to help yourself and, on a daily basis, have a hugely positive impact on the world and your body.

Ultimately, if you want to make any change to your diet I always suggest baby steps. Swap out the foods that you feel weird about one at a time. The changes and cost of doing an entire overhaul to your life and your kitchen are overwhelming, so just be easy on yourself. No one is assessing or judging you but you. Always ask yourself what makes you feel good. It’s going to be a process of trial and error, but it’s worth it in order to feel better. There are also lots of people out there that can help you. Again, while the internet can sometimes be your worst enemy when it comes to finding answers, I do recommend searching for food bloggers and websites that can give you meal plans and ideas in an instant no matter what food rules you’re adhering to. In fact, I have my own vegan food blog and YouTube channel called hot for food and I think you should check it out! I think you’ll like it, vegan or not.

Here’s to feeling good and taking control of your body. Peace out!

Lauren Toyota, via Radimo.LA

[radimola-blog]

Where is a good place to start when trying to rid my home of harmful chemicals? I've just started reading up on this stuff and it seems like my entire life needs an overhaul. Where do I even begin?

Diving into a new interest or knowledge base can always be a bit overwhelming, and the trick is to see this as part of the fun of it all! If it helps, try to think of it as a reminder that the world is full of different disciplines; everyone starts from the same place, we're all just students, and every obstacle is an opportunity for growth. Deep breath in ... (hopefully one with no bleach fumes) ... and we're okay. (-:

It's practically impossible to live a chemical free life, but a good place to start is by controlling what chemicals you put on or in your body. Below we will tackle some items you (hopefully) use on a day to day basis.

Antiperspirant/Deodorant -

The research linking Aluminium (found in almost all antiperspirants) to Alzheimer's and Breast Cancer is not entirely conclusive, but it could be a contributing factor. (*1.) The same can be said of the potentially toxic effects of Propylene Glycol.  (*2.) When you consider how much deodorant one applies, potential cumulative effects seem worth avoiding just in case. I use Meow Meow Tweet brand natural clay and baking soda based deodorant, available in Lavender or Tea Tree scents. There are also other similar brands such as Schmidt's and Piper Wei.  

Toothpaste -

I'm of the opinion that fluoride is a neurotoxin and that we should be avoiding it. If you would like to know more about that here's a doc to watch. In addition to our tap water, we usually put fluoride directly into our mouths in the form of toothpaste. Make the switch to Tom's of Maine or Dr.Bronner's fluoride-free toothpaste, or do like I do and brush your teeth with a homemade mixture of 40% almond oil, 30% spearmint oil and 30% peppermint oil topped with some baking soda. I use Now Brand Essential Oils but any food grade essential oil should be great. If you want to remove all of the fluoride from your water you can purchase a reverse-osmosis filter.

If you want a natural solution for whitening your teeth, try coconut oil pulling. Just swish a tablespoon of coconut oil around your mouth for 15 minutes, spit and brush as per usual. Do it for a couple weeks and prepare to be amazed at your tooth brightness level. Remember not to spit the coconut oil down the sink as it can clog a drain when it solidifies. I spit it into my compost bag.

Soap -

Our deodorant fiend Propylene Glycol is also found in most popular soaps, along with artificial coloring, artificial fragrances and triclosan. These can dry out and agitate our skin, which is sort of not what you want your soap to do. Make a move to Dr.Bronner's Pure-Castile liquid or bar soaps (I like the Peppermint variety), or natural soaps like Dudu Osum.

For hydrating your skin, try Almond or Moringa oil. I love Moringa!

Makeup -

Makeup is a potential source of chemicals such as aluminum, and petroleum, and also of parabens and phthalates (*3) that we apply directly to our faces. Maybe let's stop doing that? Here's a label reading trick: look for the labels "Organic" (this actually means made with 95% Organic ingredients) or "100% Organic." Beware -- "Made with Organic Ingredients" actually means "made with 75% organic ingredients". Afterglow, Sephora Natural and Organic makeup, and Dr Haushka brands all get great reviews around the web and amongst friends.

While we're on the topic of makeup, let's cover makeup removal. This happens to be just one of the multitude of uses for the mighty Coconut Oil. Apply generously to your face, let it seep in for a minute and start wiping it all off. Boom.

Shampoo -

This one can be tricky as there are a number of different needs depending on ones hair thickness, oils, etc, but there are a number of DIY recipes for totally natural shampoo alternatives. Here are a couple...

- Equal parts baking soda and water. It's that simple.

- Equal parts coconut milk and Liquid Castile Soap (Dr. Bronner's) Essential oils to taste. (-:

So, now that we're not putting anymore chemicals directly on our body, we can start taking them out of the cleaners and air in our homes.

Plants as air purifiers -

1 plant per 100 square feet. Plants breath in Carbon dioxide and breath out Oxygen. They look beautiful. Win win.

All Purpose Cleaner -

1 part white vinegar to 3 parts water. That's a pretty easy recipe to follow. Spray with some extra white vinegar if an area needs to be sterilized (after raw meat prep for example).

Laundry Detergent -

Ecover Zero Laundry Liquid or Molly's Suds laundry detergent Order some and feel better about your clothing knowing that they won't be washed with petroleum distillates or artificial fragrances.

If you're wondering about the safety of a product not mentioned here that you use daily, or if you find yourself stressing out over ingredients and spending frustrating shopping time comparing one brand of whatever to some other brand of whatever, you can use an app called THINK DIRTY to scan the barcode and see how it fairs!

If you want to take it further and make all of your household products here's a link to a list of DIY home cleaning products that you could make cheaply and easily.   Tip - You're going to need mad Baking Soda, and a bunch of white vinegar.

The key to all of this (as with everything in life) is to move forward at your own pace one step at a time in the direction of your bliss. If you start by replacing all of your products with non-toxic options it's going to be a difficult and expensive process, but by dealing with the little stuff first you can make a lot of progress without grossly disrupting your usual lifestyle. Have fun!

Chris Kuffner, via Radimo.LA

[radimola-blog]

How do you know yourself? I feel like I'm not very authentic sometimes because it's hard for me to separate the relationships I have with other people from myself and my identity. How do I remain authentic? What does that mean?

This is a broad topic, so I'm going to focus on a specific part. What I'm hearing in this question is that maybe you are allowing certain relationships in your life to infer or affect how you feel about yourself and who you are. It can be super confusing when this happens - and it happens to everyone. We all have different faces we wear for different parts of our lives, and we all have egos. Egos are often pulled in certain directions before we are even aware of what's happening. They also generally want things - and this can cause us to alter our behavior in order to attain them. When this feels uncomfortable - like when you buy someone a gift with the hope it will make them like you more (instead of giving purely out of generosity...it's a fine line, I know), this may be when our authenticity is a little out of focus. Or maybe you take out your nose ring before visiting your conservative extended family, and this makes you feel like you're changing yourself for their approval.

Right after I came out, I remember my extended family holiday gatherings felt so painful because it was a topic no one knew how to touch. I pretended like it didn't exist, and so did they. I felt like the least authentic version of myself, even though I had just conquered something so difficult by coming out in the first place. I should have felt the most authentic! But I was still scared of what everyone else thought. There's no quick fix or remedy to this. Sometimes there are people who will just not accept us. And sometimes there are people who will completely surprise us. Over time and with practice, we learn to accept ourselves, and that makes all of the other stuff a lot easier.

You are changing every day, so knowing yourself is always going to be a process. The fact that you have the awareness - that sometimes you don't feel authentic - is such a big step toward finding and loving the self that you are. Authenticity is hard to define, but I think it walks hand in hand with genuineness. You have to look inward and observe. The more you allow yourself to do that, with full acceptance of whatever it is that's going on, the better you will know what it means to be what you are. It may sound cliché, but I think learning to love yourself wholly is the hardest and most important part of being you.

Lauren Zettler, via Radimo.LA

[jhholtzmann-deactivated20190111]

its been said before but this is a daily reminder that mental illness does not excuse toxic behavior

it can offer an explanation, but you cannot treat someone with cruelty and then just like “well sorry it’s my mental illness i can’t help it”

i don’t have a solution, because i know that mental illness by nature can be difficult or impossible to control, but do not let a friend or partner or parent or anyone be a dick to you and say that you have to put up with it because that’s just how they are

or even worse, guilt trip you about being upset with them

i am saying this as someone with a diagnosed mental illness that im on medication for:

mental illness does NOT give anyone the right to treat you badly

and if someone tries to excuse their toxic behavior by claiming it’s mental illness and they cannot help it, that’s a red fucking flag

[recoveryisbeautiful]

[cannibal-rainbow]

Why people get trapped by Emotional Abusers & Why it’s not their fault

(these imply to platonic and romantic relationships)

1. Attachment

The Emotional Abuser gives you attention: they make you feel flattered, loved and important. You start to believe that they genuinely care about you. They might even think that they do by themselves since they internally justify all their doings. Normally this kind of attachment would lead to a healthy bonding and a closer relationship. With the Emotional Abuser it leads to some levels of addiction and dependency on the victim’s part which is never their fault. Emotional Abusers’ behaviour exploits normal emotional bonding to another human being.

2. Guilt

In some point in the relationship you notice that it’s all about their needs. The Abuser might do something that hurts your feelings and bringing it up leads them to reason why it’s actually your fault and why you have to take responsibility for it. They make up convincing excuses why it’s not their job to do it, why it’s absolutely unreasonable of you to ask for it and so on. In other words: they Guilt-trip you. The Emotional Abuser believes they have no responsibility for their behaviour or feelings. If they feel uncomfortable by something in the relationship they will manipulate you to take the blame instead of trying to work things out. Guilt-tripping makes the victim submit and erodes their sense of emotional and physical boundaries since they are made to believe it’s their job to cater on Abuser’s needs.

3. Cognitive dissonance

After the idealization pace the Emotional Abuser will move to a devaluing pace. Catering to their needs is not enough anymore and you feel you can’t do anything right no matter what you do. The pace starts when the Abuser feels you are getting emotionally too close and/or you are trying to hold them accountable for something they have done. Emotional Abusers are afraid of responsibility and intimacy so they will try to push you away. They use manipulation: Gaslighting and Guilt-tripping to force you into silence and to take all the responsibility for the relationship. They give you Silent Treatment which is justified by some clever excuses. Emotional Abusers believe they are entitled to absolute emotional comfort even when it means abusing other people.

Because you remember how well they used to treat you, your mind has a hard time accepting they are not the person you thought they were. In fact you might start to make excuses for them in your head because they have manipulated you to think nothing is their fault. It is extremely difficult to get away from the Abuser’s emotional trap because they take advantage of the victim’s emotional bonding to them and give false hope that the relationship could be “fixed”. You are misled into thinking that if you just learn not to be so “needy” and “selfish”, the Abuser will reward you with the loving behaviour they demonstrated in the beginning.

Aftermath

The Emotional Abuser has no intention to take responsibility for what their abusive behaviour has caused to you because they have normalized and justified it in their head. Not all of the Abusers are so sure of themselves but need a lot of internal convincing and validation from others so that they can feel good about themselves which is their goal: not having to deal with responsibility or emotional labour. After all Emotional Abusers are not Disney villains but people who are so selfish that they lack of motivation to learn how to not hurt people.

There are two ways how the trap can break: the victim quits all contact with the Abuser or the Abuser leaves the victim. The latter one occurs if the Emotional Abuser feels they have to deal with too much because of the victim. The Abuser might feel threatened by the victim if the victim is making the Abuser feel bad about themself by calling out their abusive behaviour. The Emotional Abuser thinks that they are actually the victim in the relationship because the real Victim is making them feel bad and scared. The Abuser is genuinely afraid that they would have to deal with negative emotions that taking responsibility would require.

In the end the Emotional Abuser ends the relationship with some dramatic note in which they project all their feelings into the victim: you are the abuser, you have harmed them, you have threatened them. This is their way of securing their own emotional well-being as they refuse to acknowledge the reality. Just remember that it was NOT your fault and you are not responsible for their horrible behaviour. While mutually harmful relationships can exist abusive relationships are based on a power imbalance and therefore there is no such a thing as “mutually abusive”. You are nothing like your abuser.