Self-Care Like a Boss

This is a boss bitch guide on how to self care in a world that tells you that you are last.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Ko-fi - Sneak Peak at the definitive Self-Care Like a Boss

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HEY this is a link to read some of the brand new never before seen material for the next book. Share! Enjoy! YAY.

[nudiemuse]

Treat. Yo. Self. – Shannon Barber – Medium

Where I actually do the thing folks hate.

HEY U BABE. If you’ve missed my work on self-care I’ve got a hell of a thing for you. A brand new piece, free read at Medium. It is just a little glimpse of stuff I’ve got planned for 2019. Come read about treating yoself to fancy coffee and tea, with a good lesson about self-care. Share with friends

[selfcarelikeaboss]

For Marginalized Folks especially

Hey, hey you.  

Marginalized folks especially those of us who deal with a barrage of bullshit daily, we need to talk about some things. I feel like this is especially important for those of us who are involved in any flavors of social justice, dealing with sexism or transmisogyny because you exist it is especially important to have an exit strategy for the days when it's too much.  

Yes, marginalized folks. Hello, darlings. Look at Auntie Shannon.  

You, please yes you.  

You do not have to fight every fight. You do not have to engage with every instance of mega bullshit. You do not have to suffer for the cause all the time.  

I know how difficult it can be to disengage. These things that we fight for matter so much and have such a profound effect on our lives, our instinct is to stay in it. We will get more into it but, I want y'all to know I get it, I live it and we're going to talk about it.

We all know by now that stress kills. And we also know that sometimes we can't go it all alone. Let's start learning or remembering that we are not beasts of burden. We deserve to have or develop self-care skills to help us in our fight. We can help each other, to survive and care for ourselves.  

As some of y'all are bound to have already figured out, part of my inspiration in embarking on writing seriously about self-care the way I do is Audre Lorde.  

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”  

  ― Audre Lorde  

I read that in Audre Lorde's book A Burst of Light; Essays  a long time ago and that quote has rattled around inside my head since then. I don't want to just help you all and myself commit these acts of political warfare, I want to explode the entire notion of what and how self-care is supposed to be done.

Way back when, we had a post here about my beliefs about self-care. You can read that here. Those things are all still absolutely true things I believe. What moves me right now is that I have accepted the inherent radical nature of what I'm writing. I have tussled with the notion of keeping things a bit more light and presenting a "nicer" face to make my work about self-care more easily digestible.

Part of my responsibility in our relationship is keeping it 100 with y'all and with myself. To only present the give yourself a mani or take a bath type advice would be disingenuous and we both deserve more.

This is more.

Acknowledging and honoring the deeply rebellious, radical act that self-care for marginalized people is. Our survival on our own terms. We get to be the boss. We get to figure out how to live as well as we possibly can regardless of what our cultures teach us about whether or not we deserve to live as well as we can.

For those folks who are not really living the marginalized person life, I want you along for the ride. I want you to witness and learn and hopefully start getting a deeper understanding of ways you can support your friends like me.  

Now. Before I go, my friends please remember.

No fight will be won if you are too burnt out to fight it.

You don't have to have "an excuse" to bow out.

You are in charge of how and what you do. Not all of the fight has to be boots on the ground. We'll talk about that more in depth later.

Now how about some homework?

I would like y'all to spend a little bit of time acknowledging and honoring your efforts to fight the good fight. And I want you to tell your Team or your Squad you love them and what they do. No matter if you're in the street marching, writing articles, writing posts on facebook, retweeting, signal boosting etc. Spend some time with knowing that you are contributing even on days when you have other shit to do.

And if you don't have a team to tell you-

Thank you for what you do. Thank you how you do it and please take care of yourself.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

On Trauma and Self Compassion-CW: eating disorders, food insecurity, trauma responses.

~As with my last longer post, there is a read more. If you don’t want to read a long post on tumblr, come subscribe at wordpress!~ If you have other accessibility needs, drop a note and I will see what i can do. 

Hello friends.

I'd like to have a bit of a departure from the usual entries and give y'all a bit of perspective on something I am dealing with right now and how that intersects with my philosophy about self-care.

I deal with a lot of food insecurity. This is both for the amount of food in my house at any time, to how much money I want to spend on my food for my work days, to how well I'm able to provide money for healthier eating for my partner and I. This is something I have dealt with since I was young and that I continually struggle with almost daily.

It took me years to narrow down why, outside of disordered eating etc, the issue of food has freaked me out so hard for so long. Let's have a look at what food things can trigger the ever loving shit out of me:

Spending money on food.

Not spending money on food.

Having good food (nutritive, tasty, the thing I want to eat when I eat it)

Not being able to cut enough out of the budget for my personal shit, to provide my partner with a diet that could potentially help their health.

When I "treat" myself and buy fresh veggies for lunch.

When I don't necessarily have the energy to go to four stores on foot to get the best deals.

Etc.

I mean, basically everything revolving around food both in my house and in my walk around life can cause me some anxiety.  

Prior to me starting to write about self-care, it became super evident to me that I needed to work some of this out.  My issues with food insecurity got to the point where, I was not eating because I felt too guilty spending household money on food for work. Things got fairly dire when I was rationing my lunch food "just in case" and leaving most of it at home.

At that point, I decided to start figuring shit out.

All these years later, I've realized that sometimes I just have to go with the food insecurity feelings in order to spare myself the anxiety. This has been a revelation to me. The fact that I have been able to have the ability to slow myself down and think it out is amazing. For a bit of extra context, this progress hasn't been made under the care of a mental health professional.

Let's pause here so I can talk about that a bit.

Over the years I've dabbled in therapy and not been able to find what I needed or, at times haven't been able to afford the cost. For me this has involved a lot of very painful processing. I write about it (not for public consumption), I've learned to talk about it with trusted chosen family and I work at it. This is not a perfect system, in a perfect world I'd find the perfect therapist and we'd knock this shit out.  

The most important thing I can say about embarking on dealing with trauma basically alone is that you have to show yourself compassion. Traditionally for me that has been the most difficult thing to do. I have had to learn to be as kind and loving to myself as I am to my little family. I have had to learn to forgive myself for being abusive to myself. For gaslighting myself. For believing a lot of bullshit and resisting what I know to be true.

Even when I've felt the worst about myself, the one thing that has ever helped me help myself is knowing that the path to freedom is paved with forgiveness and self compassion.  

Note I don't necessarily say self love because self-love isn't always going to work and we'll talk more about that later.

Here's the important thing I'd like y'all to take away from this in the context of how we're doing self-care right now.

Sometimes in our quest to improve the quality of our lives, we have to do some unpleasant ass shit. Whether it is dealing with people we'd rather not, setting boundaries with people, or if you're me being a decent human being to yourself.  

Now, lately I've been letting myself feel my food insecurity and deal with it as best I can. Usually that means if I go to the store for "snacks" I realize and accept that means I will probably buy enough food to make one dinner for the two of us. Even if we have food for dinner, buying that meal staves off that particular panic and it makes my day easier.  

Previously, I would have just panicked so hard I'd get no food, be panicking and generally losing my entire shit and falling into a deep shame spiral.

Now, this doesn't always wind up in a win. Sometimes, the only win is that I panic and am able to recognize why I'm panicking but I'm not always able to stop it. Sometimes, I fall down the shame spiral and it is hard as hell to get out of it. Some days are better than others.  

There is not a zero sum game. When it comes to living with and dealing with trauma, shit is a roller coaster. Some days you are going to be the most amazing and most clear headed person who sails through their day without tears or panic or anything. Other days, you might be curled in the fetal position on the floor trying not to shit your pants- or maybe that's just me.

So start with compassion and kindness. Talk to yourself the way you'd talk to someone you love. If they told you that something "silly" upset them or that they are having a bad anxiety or depression day, would you tell them to fuck off? Probably not. So that my friends is your challenge.

I also challenge y'all to share with each other some strategies you use to show yourself compassion, to some ways to support each other when we're doing this work.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

What is Self-Care Like A Boss?

SCLAB for short is the dream and brain child of author Shannon Barber. The idea to document and actively work on self-care for survival came about after a bout of severe depression that occurred at a time when they had no support system in place and no idea how to survive the depression, poverty and trying to become a fully functioning human.

The original version of SCLAB Self Care Like A Boss. Self Care for Life, came out 8-16-2012 and was a culmination of years of struggling to figure out how to be a human.

Fast forward to 2017.

Your host has done a lot more writing, studying and doing self-care.

From writing for XoJane magazine on self-care for poor people specifically. To reading articles, studies, both pro and anti self-care I have been spending a lot of time working on my concept.

What is my concept?

Self-care is not a single thing. Self-care is not made up of only treat yoself. In the work here, self-care encompasses everything from learning how to take care of yourself when you're sick, to figuring out how to deal with financial issues regarding hard case, trauma and stuff we all can benefit from learning. Self-care as I'm talking about it, is going to involve learning about things like privilege, how it might be to be another person, the gross things our bodies do, dealing with menstruation, how to set up future you for a better day-

In essence, what SCLAB is about, is learning to make being human easier and thereby increasing the quality of our lived lives.

Some of this won't be pleasant. Some of it will be hard. Some of it won't pertain to you individually and some things are just not going to work for you. That's okay. We can acknowledge that nothing is one size fits all, nothing is good for everyone and there will be some experiences of life I cannot speak to.  

We can learn co-operatively, we can talk about how our lived lives are different and we can know stuff about how other folks survive.  

We do have some ground rules. If you are participating, sharing, etc please abide by these rules.

Do not remove the attribution to me. As in, don't take my name off of this work. 

Do not antagonize other people because you might not like a post or a suggestion.

Self-care is not a gendered act. Yes even if we talk about tutus, sparkles and makeup. Self-care is for everyone!

This is not a be all end all. These are suggestions and jumping off points.

I the author, will not get things right 100% of the time because I'm human. If I really screw up, I will apologize.

Things that will not be tolerated: racism, sexism, transphobia, Transmisogyny, misogynoir, homophobia, gender essentialism, and whatever other hateful bullshit the author sees fit to add at any time.

My Philosophy:

My philosophy here is fairly simple. Many of us are people who are marginalized in one way or another or in multiple ways. For a lot of us, no one has ever taught us how to improve our quality of lived life. No one has told us, explicitly and directly that we matter and that our well being is important. There's stuff a lot of us don't know.

I decided that I have some knowledge and I want to share it with other people. I want y'all, to add to the conversation. Talk to each other. I want the SCLAB blog to be the place where we can meet up, y'all can hear what I have to say and take the conversation further.

The Book?

I am currently writing a new version of the book. The blog will be where the more nuts and bolts, practical things and recipes live. The book will be more thinking, brain oriented with a few little splashes of memoir because I'm extra.

When will the book come out?

I don't actually know. Part of my mistake with the previous versions was rushing because I wanted to get it out in the world. I'm taking my time.

Questions?

I'm  getting ready to put together a FAQ so be on the lookout for that.  

Before I go:

How about a little check in my homies?

Have you:

Had some water?

Eaten some food?

Taken your meds?

Do you have anything pressing to do? Pay bills? Check your bank balance?

Need to check on your critters?

Babies need feeding?

If this is stuff you’re on top of right now YES! Are you feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start? Get yourself a glass of water. Seriously, right now go and get it.

You’re doing it!

Come back next week and we’ll get into some good stuff about hustling, survival and making a little extra pocket money.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

On my Return or What had happened was....

In which the author falls flat on their face and just lays there.

I really want to tell y'all a beautiful story about how failure to achieve a set of goals inspired me to some sort of pep rally level uplift and that everything is just awesome now. I'd love that, I want to take a beautiful photo of me on a cliff or something at sunset and have someone write me some inspirational shit about failure to lay over it in almost impossible to read script.

But.

Well, that is not what happened.  

Before I confess just how deeply I've failed, let me tell you about some of what I wanted to do.

After Milcah, and I got SCLAB out, I had planned to write a TON of posts for this little blog, and live read, and get some more readings and you know all the things. I had plans, I thought they were good plans, but they were not plans I could complete.

After having what other authors have assured me is a normal bout of upset after releasing the book, I didn't come out of it. It just turned into not related to SCLAB a bout of very bad insomnia that drop kicked me right into a deep dark depression hole.

For most of 2015/2016 I was struggling to not be crazy. I have a problem where my insomnia fuels my anxiety fuels my depression fuels my insomnia, in a big vicious circle until I can't climb out. I was not in danger, but I was not okay.  

The story I told myself was that I was that I should shut the hell up forever as many commenters from various spots on the internet have told me to do for years. I contemplated "retirement" from writing about self-care and leaving it to my betters. I'm sure some of you with anxiety are nodding right now. I told myself a lot of stories that all ended with, I suck.

Y'all, I denied to myself every good thing I've ever said about self-care. My feelings about my worth as a human, a writer, an artist, a friend everything just disintegrated and I didn't know what to do. What I wound up doing was between long love letters to Milcah, and to myself I started all over again. I pretended that what I had were notes from years of research and I got to work.

I've been a secretive shitbag about what I've been doing exactly because it has felt too fragile and I've been uncertain and fucking terrified to show anybody.

Now, here I am.

For this return post I want to share with y'all how I have survived all this bullshit.

I did what I've told y'all to do so many times. I went into self-care to survive mode. I didn't actually give a shit about my skin or hair or what I was eating or not eating. I wasn't all the way suicidal, but I was in what for me is a most dangerous state of giving exactly zero fucks about my body or anything. Rather than doing what I wanted to do and just give up on everything, I went all the way back to basics.

I wrote myself a to do list.  

Nighttime Version:

Remove makeup .

Eat Dinner

Exfoliate and moisturize face and ass.

Take vitamins and pills.

Use your damn skin care. A note I write to myself constantly.

Daytime Version:

Write. Write anything just write.

Drink water.

Breathe.

Reach out when shit gets real.

Breathe.

Write.

Eat food. Any food just get it in.

I had a very basic self-care routine that I clung to. I've mentioned how for me personally things like my skin or hair going wonky really screw with me so I made it a priority to take care of those things. We've talked about how sometimes shit goes wrong and gets dire and we have to just make it through. I had to just make it through.  

Given how little faith I had in my own advice, it worked. At some point I sat back and looked at what I was doing and realized that my doubt about what I'm doing here as deep and honest as it felt, was not true. As I've told y'all, the type and methods of self-care that I talk about won't magically make everything good. I wouldn't promise you that. What it does, is makes the right now bullshit easier to survive and the future a little brighter and easier to navigate.

Coming up, we’re going to get multi-faceted and we’re gonna stay intersectional. Self-care as I practice it, write about it and want to talk about it with you has a lot of moving parts, some stuff is going to be hard to deal with and talk about, some stuff is gonna be fun and glitter. We are going to put in the work to make being human a little better.

My return, here is not quite triumphant, but it does feel good. I have done some major work and have plans I believe I can execute.  

For right now I turn it over to y'all.

Please report in about your self-care. How is it going? Are you confused about anything? Would you like to read more about something I've mentioned? Come and say so.

Thank you for coming back and I can't wait to see where we go. 

PS-

If y’all have friends who don’t do tumblr but who you think would benefit from this, please direct them here to the syndicated version over at wordpress. 

[selfcarelikeaboss]

[image description: a field of black with all caps text that reads: Soon y’all, more self-care! Practical Inclusive For you! Read more below]

Oh, hi there.

So it is coming, y’all.

Before we get this here doohickey restarted I need to tell y’all some things.

First up-

Rules.

Yes, we have rules here.

1.) Our self-care and how we talk about it will not be gendered or adhere to bullshit like toxic masculinity, TERFness etc. Nah son.

2.) How we talk about things here, will get hard for some people. You might have to google a term, or sit with your personal discomfort about a subject. 

3.) Things won’t be all funsies and pedicures. 

4.) Please, if you see something here that you have something to add to, an experience, etc please say so. This is not the void.

5.) This will not be a space that will put up with racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc. If you want to be about those things, do it in your own space. I have zero tolerance for these things. Now, as we get started here is the plan.

I’ll be republishing some older material. I will have new material as well. What you find here will be more action focused than what you’ll find in the new book. Speaking of, when is the new book coming out? I don’t know yet. 

What can you expect here?

We’re going to talk about doing the fun stuff, easy at home facials, hair care, ideas for ways we can teamwork stuff out. We’re going to talk about hard stuff like the ways we can learn to budget if need be, our relationships with money, being poor. We’re going to talk about living in this time when so many of us marginalized folks are struggling.

I have some other ideas (feel free to chime in here y’all, for real)

Vlogging? Would y’all be into that? I’d like to try it out and already have a YouTube channel, so could that be a thing?

I will likely republish material from here to another platform. I’m thinking it will likely be Medium or maybe WordPress.

How can you support SCLAB and help me make it the big wonderful thing I want it to be?

Boost it! Share the links far and wide my homies. 

As we get rolling, I will also do a bit of monetizing. I will operate with as much transparency as I can. Likely I won’t accept advertising, but will use affiliate linking to make some extra coin to keep this going. 

Now, when is it happening?

MAY 1 2017!!!

I will reblog this post every now and then. I will also be posting up a whole new introduction to your host as well as putting together some resources to help with everything from make-up to finances.

Lastly, I promise to do my level best to be inclusive and good to you folks. 

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll join me here, we’ve got great work to do.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

[Image description: three panel collage photo. From the left, a shot of a paper planner with multi colored writing in it, middle, shot of square blackish blue fingernails, right, Brown femme smirking with a facial mask on]

Hey y’all!!

This is your friendly reminder-

BRAND NEW CONTENT COMING MAY 1, 2017.

Bring yo friends!

Tell yo husband!

Tell yo homies!

How about a few updates?

1. I am working on cross platform posting so if you don’t want to read on tumblr or want posts via email, it is coming!

2. If you click over, you’ll find a shiny new tip jar paypal button. I’ll talk more about that soon.

3. HOLY DAMN Y’ALL IT IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN!!

[milcahorbacedo]

Motherblazing: Self Care Like a Boss & Sisterhood

O, my golly. Motherblazing first book, Self Care LIke a Boss by Shannon Barber, has made $450 in sales since Aug 31st. I’m blown away by all the support Shannon and I have received so far. From the love notes, to the instagram worthy pic of Rhea St. Julien wearing Self Care swag, to Kelly volunteering to design a cleaner cover of the eBook. The eBook itself isn’t perfect. There are, to me, glaring typos, odd formating in the Kindle version, and other structural kinks I need to work out. I wanted to get Self Care out sooner rather than later, because the money Shannon and I received will go straight to our living expenses, and invesments toward improving our craft and the eBook itself. I’m a one human show, and my business in pubishing has always been focused more on the relationships than the machine of a product. What is money without love to fuel it?

I’m working on Motherblazing’s second book, a series of vingettes, Sisterhood. Sisterhood chronicles the last 3 years of my life navigating my chosen pornography and literary families, building relationships with female feminists I proudly call my sisters. I explore intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. I even get transgenerational at times. It’s a fun and challenging book that is tender, wild, and unashamed when dealing with taboo subjects.

Motherblazing, my brainchild, will publish its website within this week.

Thank you for reading. May your week be productive, full of art, business, and love.

Loved this post? Keep up to date with my publications by signing up for my email list here.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Make that $510 in sales as of today. Thank y’all for supporting Self Care Like a Boss! Expect another self-care blog post soon.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Makeup For All the Faces (Brown Skin Tones & Genderfluid Inclusive)

Rule 1. No one absolutely has to wear makeup if they don't want to. Rule 2. Makeup is for everybody who wants to give it a try. Regardless of how you identify, yes, you can be a made up bombshell femme. You can be a dagger sharp eyeliner wearing butch. You can identify anywhere on the gender spectrum or not at all. When we wear makeup, whether or not we're doing a full face, including foundation and all, wear your sunscreen. Personally, I use a CC cream which is basically a tinted moisturizer with SPF protection. Essentially what you want to do is get in the habit of putting moisturizing sun protection on your face. Your foundation and other makeup will go on easier and last longer, and it is good for you. I am a full-coverage loving type. If you haven't ever tried foundation here is where to start. Go to a department store, a Sephora, or drugstore. If you go to Sephora or the department store counter, then ask to be color matched. I know a lot of you might be going, But Shannon I don't have Sephora money. That is okay. Right now all you want is a sample of something that matches your skin color. I would ask for a sample of any Nars products for darker skinned folks and pretty much anything else for everybody else. Now you're not going to want to use this particular sample, take it with you to the drug store or whereever and find one as close as you can get. Once you have your foundation, get thee to Youtube and search for basic foundation. You can try putting it on with your fingers, a sponge or a brush. It will take practice. Don't worry if it looks weird the first few times you do it. Like everything else it takes some practice. If you shave your face, then make sure you have done so before you put your makeup on. Shave as close as you like. For an extra smooth you want a nice very sharp razor. Don't overuse razors because they can tear up your skin and lead to ingrown hairs and sadness. Now you want to cleanse your face well but don’t strip it. I suggest using something gentle and effective. Level up and exfoliate. You can do this with a facial brush, a mechanized one such as a Clarisonic, or you can go buy a facial scrub. I like the Aveeno scrubs. If you have acne prone skin I am also a fan of the Clean and Clear product line. This is stuff that is easy to get and fairly inexpensive. Also if you are new to using facial scrubs, don't start out with every day use. Use them every few days to measure how your skin reacts. After you exfoliate, use a warm wet towel and lay it on your face for a few minutes. The only thing I'll say about what kind of cream/lubricant to shave with is listen to your face. Don't shave naked. Find the thing that works for you. And don't be fooled by gender based marketing. Once you're done shaving, apply your moisturizer and you are ready to rock. If you have facial hair, there here are tips. To help keep your skin happy, condition your skin and beard. For a multipurpose treatment, prior to bathing, use some coconut oil or olive oil and rub it into the skin under your beard and into your beard hair. Let it hang out in there, then wash, and ooh so silky. For longer beards I highly recommend oiling your beard regularly. You can also use the same conditioner you use on your hair, or you can use a special beard salve as my partner does. Keeping your skin nice and moisturized under your beard and keeping the actual hair softer will result in less itchiness and discomfort. A special word here for people of color. Where I live I have a hell of a time finding drug store products for brown skin. If this is also the case for you, here is how I’d navigate ordering stuff for your face online. If I find a product I think I'd like to try, I go to the google machine and input the color name and review. Check photos and Youtube and blogs. What you want to look for are folks who have skin color that is similar to your own. I've actually gone so far as to take a photo of my naked face in natural light and then I will compare it on screen to the pictures I've found.

Get to know your shade in a few different products. Go to a Mac Cosmetics counter and get color matched there. Get it in a few popular brands because sometimes you can find cosmetics that have comparison charts according to popular colors from other companies. The point is to find your color and then find what you can afford or what you want. Do not be afraid to return things. Keep your packaging. If the store you bought them from has a return policy, then return it if you don't like it. I've also found that if I find a product I like that is a drugstore brand, then often I can find the darker shades on Ebay or online beauty supply stores.

I suggest sticking with a lot of cheaper stuff until you get more confident. I am a big fan of Wet N Wild, I grew up using their pencil liners and liquid liners. They are inexpensive and if you don't like a color or how something applies you are not going to be out of a lot of money. I will again suggest turning to Youtube. No matter what skill level you have or look you want someone on Youtube has a tutorial. Everything from winged liner to elaborate makeup artist level stuff. This is part of something bigger than just having pink lips and purple eyelids. This is about learning how you want to present yourself to the world and using that presentation as armor. 

When it comes to eye makeup you can go mega elaborate or you can master liner and mascara. Yes, it can be overwhelming, but it's fun. When you screw up your liner you can always just take it off. If you want to wear eye makeup you will also need remover. I buy packs of cotton rounds (not balls, the fibers can get into your eyes) and eye makeup remover. I personally tend to wear about nine pounds of liner and mascara so I use either the L'Oreal eye makeup remover in the green bottle or the equivalent from Walgreens. You can use a dedicated eye makeup remover. I always use the ones for waterproof stuff. Or you can use oil. You can use coconut, olive, jojoba. Remember, if you want to paint, theny ou gotta have the tools to take it off for our own sanity and for the sake of your skin.

The serious business part of makeup is that it is so intensely personal. It takes a lot of work to unwrap the reasons why you might be completely opposed to makeup or feel obligated to do it. The truth is my friends, you don't have to wear makeup ever if you don't want to. It is also true that makeup is fun. I can make myself look like a the Evil Alien Queen I was born to be and then wash it off if I'm not feeling it. I can put glitter on my face and be a fairy. I can wear fourteen pounds of black eyeliner, black lips and walk around thinking murder (there is a quote by Charlize Theron about this and embodying queendom) and feel like the baddest motherfucker on the planet. That, my friends, is the fun and real serious business power of makeup. You can put on red lipstick or pink or neon green. Hold your head up and be secure in the knowledge that you are presenting yourself precisely the way you feel right at this moment. Holy shit. Think about that. Really take in the fact that you and you alone have the final say about what face you show to the world. You, my friend, are the only one you have to satisfy. If that means you beat your mug until you are the most flawless creature walking the Earth, don't stop get it get it. If that means you wear no face stuff and every obnoxious neon lipstick you can find? GET IT. Rainbow eyeshadow and mile long lashes? Glitter in your beard and a bad attitude? Unkempt brows? Grab colors and smear them on your face? Do the damn thing. You are in charge. The lies the beauty industry and society tell us can fuck right off. You do not have to do "pretty." You do not have to do acceptable. All you have to do is what you want.

Now let's talk about when you need to assimilat for jobs or for your own safety. If you are in a place where you need to be read in a certain way, as male or whatever, there are things you can do to feel glam without outing yourself or putting yourself in danger. Take care of your skin and dot some powder on your face. There are also (this is dumb but helpful for some of us) cleansers made for men that are matte, along with lip balms and the like. You can get the feeling of being made up without putting yourself in danger. You can also paint your toenails. Like your own sparkly little secret if you are feeling real fancy. Get a facial when you have the cash or give yourself one.

Thing about what I call Pretty Making is that you can do it to whatever degree is good for you. And you can even push your own boundaries because sometimes we have to do that. I'm talking about those of us who have been told that we're too fat, too ugly, too hairy, too male, etc. It will be harder for us because so many of us have been told that we're excluded from Pretty Making because we're just ugly. That is bullshit. What we're doing right now is giving a big ole middle finger to those ideas and a big old mega fuck you and your ideas to people who believe that interacting with beauty is only for those who fit into western beauty ideals. I am a full coverage wearing, mega shitloads of eyeliner loving, bold lip with a smokey eye, and an unnaturally matte face wearer. Once upon a time I hated my face. I was entirely convinced that my face was the ugliest most fucked up face. For a while I stopped wearing makeup because I believed that I was simply drinking the beauty ideal Koolaid. What I learned is that I really just enjoy makeup. So I started up again in earnest. I wore a lot of outlandish eye shadow that was not always expertly applied. I wore crooked false lashes, ugly lipstick. Everything.

I also took a lot of photos. At first I would take about 20 pictures, then narrow it down by how acceptable they seemed to me. I would crop them to show just my eyes. I didn't want people seeing my mustache, scars, etc. A few months later I posted full face shots at which time I noticed several things. I am kind of cockeyed. I have a slightly lazy eye. I also have freckles. And sometimes my face looks very foriegn and very strange to me. Like my forehead seems too small and the rest of my face huge. I won't lie. Some days, even when I was particularly proud or fond of my eye makeup, I looked at those pictures and cried my eyes out.

I made myself work it out for months until something happened. I realized that, yes, sometimes I think my face is weird and ugly. It is not the end of the world. I remembered how much pleasure I get out of looking exactly the way I want to at any given time. Most important, I felt powerful. When I have my big ole messy blacker than black smokey eye going with my big dark lips I feel like I can't be beat. I feel like my face, my weird ugly face, is perfect because I feel perfectly myself. I have taken my own image and how I present my image out of the hands of people who don't care about me and that is amazing. Don't make fun of or believe that people who are really into their makeup and their faces are just vain and vacuous. We are powerful. You are powerful. You are fucking perfect. You hear me? You are fucking perfection. You show your perfection in whatever way you please.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Pre-order Self Care Like a Boss & Sign Up for Our Email List for Exclusive Discounts and Updates

On August 31, 2015, Self Care Like a Boss by Shannon Barber will be ready for purchase!

Preorder Self Care Like a Boss eBook here and sign up for our email list here for up to $15 - $20 off the $30 retail price.

If you can’t order the book or are uninterested in signing up for our email list, then please spread the word! Like and reblog this post, tweet it on Twitter, post it on Facebook, link it in an email, and tell all your family and friends. Your word of mouth is worth just as much as buying the eBook! We want Self Care to be available to as many marginalized folks as possible.

Thank you for supporting us so far. We wouldn’t be here without you.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

What is Self-Care and Why We Need It

Self-care is the sum total of the things we do to take care of ourselves. This can include, but not be limited to:

Time outs Makeup Shoes Dancing Yelling Learning Silence Books Cats Magic Pie Exercise Food

You are a smarty, you get what I'm saying. I'm talking everything from dragging you butt out of bed or off the couch to dressing to the nines and eating a TV dinner at home. All of it.

Self-care is life. Self-care helps take care of others. Self-care can help ease our suffering. Self-care is revolution. Self-care is amazing. Self-care is for you and I believe you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it.

I believe in you. You'll see me say that a lot because I do.

When we engage in self-care on any level we are actively fighting for ourselves. You may be quiet as a church mouse and run away from confrontation or argument but when you engage in self-care, you are telling a culture that teaches us that we are never okay and never good enough to go screw. I am dead serious. Everywhere we look we are told both indirectly and directly that we, as we are right now, are wrong. We are told we're too fat, we're too ugly, we're too thin, we're too imperfect, we're too weird looking.

Those messages come from people we love. They come from our parents and siblings, they come from that aunt that tells us we'd look so much better if we just (insert x thing here), they come from our friends. They want our lives to be easier and in their minds conformity is the smoother path.

Sometimes those messages come from hateful places. They come from the mouths of bigots often flying under the flag of seemingly good social-justice-flavored causes. They are still crappy messages.

Here's our big overarching lesson: You are under no obligation to take in or internalize those messages. You do not have to believe that if you were just whiter, thinner, curvier, were "passing," cisgendered, prettier, less sick, not mentally ill, not queer, more "normal", manlier, more feminine, weren't such a Social Justice Warrior blabhblahblahblah. You do not have to believe that you would be better if you just stop being who you are.

Self-care for us means that we are nurturing ourselves. If we were plants, then self-care would be our water, excellent soil and sun. Self-care is us providing ourselves with an awesome foundation to go forth into the world with our heads held high and feeling secure in the knowledge that we are fucking awesome just the way we are.

Self-care means we are giving ourselves fuel to exist because for many of us, existence is really hard. Most of us have not been taught these lessons. Most of us have not had anyone tell us directly and without any bullshit that, No, no we don't have to do the things that hurt us because culture says so.

Most of us haven't been taught that the time we spend beautifying, doing day to day stuff, drinking tea, watching our favorite shows, writing fanfics, ranting on the internet (i.e. all that stuff that makes us feel good and whole) is perfectly okay.

That is why we are here. That is why I am here for you. And don't get it twisted; part of this is pure selfishness on my part. It makes me feel like a better human, like I am fulfilling my souls desire to help my homies.

Even if you read all this for the how-tos and bullshit, I am glad you're here. I'm happy we're in it together. I am a firm believer in self-care. I believe that we need and deserve to take care of ourselves the best ways we can. It's not easy for a lot of us and I believe in having concrete solutions and absolute support.

Let's do a roleplay. Let's pretend that we are not people. We are awesome hover cars. Now we can assume that as awesome as a hover car might be, if we ignore the flux capacitor or pretend like the check brakes light isn't on, then our hover car will break.

Unlike hover cars, we have an awesome super power. We can do some care for ourselves. Our hover car selves can't function without care. So we learn to self-care.

No matter where you are starting from, whether you are able bodied or not, if your self-esteem is broken, you can do it. I won't blow rainbows up your butt and say that it will get better. Self-care might not make your life suddenly full of puppies and rainbows. I will say that self-care can help make the bad times easier. Self-care can help you survive. Self-care can help propel you to better.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

For the Rest of Us

This guide is for the rest of us. It's for those of us who wouldn't line our litter boxes with what we shall call lady mags (you know, those magazines that tell you things like YOU GO GIRL but your thighs are awful and your vag stinks) or may not have vaginas or be the "woman" those magazines target. It is for those of us for whom platitudes and advice to think positive make us want to hurl. It is for us poor people. It is for fat people. It is for thin people. For those who have eating disorders, mental illness. For those who are non-neurotypical, non-gender conforming, confused, a parent, person of color, queer, straight. This is for us. All. of. us.

Here's the thing my homie, not all of this stuff will apply to you personally. I do ask that you read those parts anyway. I believe that having an awareness of the real things going on in other people's lives enriches us. It makes us more human, it makes us more prone to being good allies to those who need it. You can expect to learn some things. I hope you learn some concrete stuff, some more abstract stuff, and it is my fondest wish that, above all else, you learn, that you, my friend, are important.

You can expect some real talk lessons about how our culture does everything it can to prevent us from being happy and healthy as we can be. Please remember I am speaking from a American-centric position because it is where I am from and live and I would not presume to speak for other cultures.

You can expect to gain some skills that will help you be better at being a partner, being single, being in a poly relationship, caretaker and all round awesome human being.

We are going to do this together.

I promise I will not bullshit you about anything. I am going to do my damndest to be honest with y'all. Because of that, some of this will be hard to read. I encourage you to brave the rough parts. I will also do my best not to shame you. Don't mistake this for sugar coating because I won't. What I will not contribute to the things that are already trying to shame us all out of existence.

I will not exclude you. I promise that through this little book I will do my very best to be inclusive. Also understand that for the purposes of clarity and brevity I won't make lists of every identifier I can think of. I have ways.

I am going to include the odd old blog post at moments where I feel it is salient.

There will be times when advice or talk is genital specific. That's okay, you can read that part too because I bet you know somebody with those parts and they might need help sometime.

There will be some talk about awful things. I will trigger warning where applicable. Be ready. I don't do this to hurt you but to help those of us affected by x awful thing. I do feel that it is valuable to all of us to know about these things and what happens when others experience them.

There are going to be moments where if you are White, CIS or heterosexual things will not be for you and I may say things you think are mean but I urge you to get through those feelings. Being uncomfortable sometimes is not super terrible and I hope you will come out with some greater depth of understanding about people who are none of those things. Including me.

I do not proclaim myself to be an expert. I'm just a person who is very into the politics and how-tos of self-care for people who live in the margins

I do not possess the One-Two Way, I am not the Knower of All the Things. I am flawed. I am human. Please remember that if you decide I'm full of shit or wrong about something.

Now let's get to it shall we?

Hang onto your hats, put your seatbelt on. We are goin' for a ride.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Self-Care Like a Boss eBook

Hi destined self-care bosses,

Milcah here. I'm making a tiny appearance because it's grind time! Shannon and I are publishing Self-Care Like a Boss next month, and, as a thank you for journeying this adventure with us, the next posts we publish will be installments of the book itself. Yes, we are essentially giving the book away for free! All we ask in return is that you utilize the suggestions in this blog as they are relevant to you, and, if you appreciate the suggestions, then please give us feedback. We'd love your help drafting and solidifying SCLAB. Tell us what you loved, what challenged you, and any suggestions you think helpful. Constructive criticism is the best.

Thanks again for reading! We wouldn't be here without you.

Love, Milcah

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Happy Birthday, Shannon, My Self-Care Queen

Hi, Self-Carers. Milcah here. I wanted to take the time to publicly give Shannon Barber, the queen behind Self-Care Like a Boss, a happy birthday. This whole week Shannon has cared for herself by taking the week off work to indulge in things that make her happy, and all week she’s been on my mind and in my heart. I care about this lady a lot and want only the best for her. She’s helped me become a happier and healthy person. There are no words for the impact she’s had on me thus far.

During the short time that I’ve collaborated with Shannon as her editor, I’ve changed incredibly as a being. My understanding of self-care, how to do it and why it’s so important, has grown more than I could have accomplished on my own. Everything from learning how to exfoliate my skin to owning my very real desires to present my gender in a more fluid way is in part due to Shannon’s Self-Care Like a Boss writings.

Before Self-Care Like a Boss, I felt very insecure about my self-care rituals. First, I didn’t quite know how to self-care. I felt guilty because I thought, I should know these things. Aren’t they commonsense? But growing up in a house with abusive and neglectful parents didn’t help my self-care path and left me with internalized shame. I didn’t come from a bright and happy childhood. I came from a low income family. I identified as a feral street kid with nowhere to belong, nowhere to go. Second, I didn’t think I lived in a body worth caring for. I didn’t have the kind of perfect body portrayed in mainstream ads. I have self-inflicted scars and dark marks. I’m not a waif. I’m not blonde. I’ve suffered all my life from mental illness and have battled with eating disorders. I’ve experienced bad vibes and oppression from others when I presented anything other than classic femininity, when I presented as queer or genderfluid. Being an “other” didn’t produce great results. Maybe I didn’t deserve to self-care. Maybe I wasn’t worthy.

But the more I consciously consume Shannon’s messages, the more I understand that feeling of unworthiness to be false. Seeing how Shannon shows up in her world, in her black fat body with her outrageous goth style, inspired me to say, Fuck it, I’m gonna do me and show up the way that my body, soul, and mind needs to be. I’m going to love and own all of me, even the “imperfections.”

And the sense of solidarity and community that I’ve felt as I’ve watched you all, the readers, like and respond to Shannon’s blog posts, I know we are not alone. We are strong. We are here. We are fighting the system by practicing in self-care. We are creating visibility for a new generation of people who believe that everybody, and I mean every body, deserves to self-care like a boss. We are all worth loving and supporting ourselves.

Look at us. Look at me. Look at Shannon. We are healing.

Thank you for all of your love, dedication, and hard work, Shannon. Happy Birthday, my beauty, my self-care queen.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Inner Asshole Voice Versus Inner Hype Man

My inner voice is not the nurturing voice a lot of the time. My inner voice is an angry dude. Inner Asshole Voice is an asshole. Inner Asshole Voice hates me, hates you, hates your dog, hates my shoes, and hates everything.

Inner Asshole Voice wants to ruin everything.

For instance:

Me: OH, look how hot I look today. Lips lookin’ luscious, booty looking PAPOW! Can’t nobody fuck with me.

Inner Asshole Voice: Bitch, is you serious? You got no ass, your eyebrows are crooked and nobody needs to see that. Take all the seats.

Me: Oh . . . okay.

Now your inner voice might be your Mom, it could be some other jerk, but it is the voice that tells you no all the time. The voice that makes you hesitate before hitting send on that important email, the one that keeps you from dancing even when you’re at home in your underwear behind closed doors. It is the one that tells you not to even think about wearing that fly outfit.

That voice is an asshole

Now what do we do when Asshole Inner Voice is babbling in one ear and we have shit to do?

My solution?

Be your own hype man.

If you don’t know what that is let me explain. In hip-hop your hype man is the person who pumps up the crowd. They introduce you, they get the crowd moving, they use call and response, they make sure that everyone in the room understands that you are the shit.

Imagine that the Inner Asshole Voice is a heckler or some other species of jerk in the crowd. Our Inner Hype Man is the antidote.

Your Inner Hype Man needs to get louder. Needs to get the crowd (you) ready.

Now how do we wake up our Inner Hype Man?

My method is as follows. I have playlists of music. Most of the songs that get me going have a couple things in common:

They excite me. Maybe they make me want to throw punches and elbows. Maybe they make me want to strut like I am on a cat walk. Or they make me shake my butt.

They just makes me happy.

In order to properly wake up your Inner Hype Man you’re going to have to let go of a few ideas. First of all, it is perfectly reasonable to dance around and wave your arms in the privacy of your own damn home. Second of all, you are the shit.

I swear you have an Inner Hype Man. You just need to reach in and get them going.

Step 1: Get your playlist going. Maybe start off with something that just makes you bob your head.

Step 2: Let loose.

This part can be done literally if you’re able or figuratively if you aren’t able or just don’t want to.

Dance around. Do the running man in your living room buck naked. Put on some metal. Hit your rock star power stance and belt it out. Put on some booty shorts and knee socks and twerk until you can twerk no more.

Consider your flailing, booty shaking, head bobbing thing to be your warm up. Practice doing that and then you’ll be ready for the next step.

Step 3: Pretend that you are freaking Beyonce (insert your own queen/king/supreme performance being here) and everyone is ready for you.

You are not only Beyonce. You are the hype man and you’re the crowd. So it is now your job to get the crowd ready for the star: you.

I was an only child and spent a lot of time alone. Often, when I was pretending to do things, I cheered. Did you do that?

Do you remember cupping your hands around your mouth and making whooshing cheering noises?

Maybe you played basketball and ran around hollering, “AND THEY SHOOT! THEY SCORE!! THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!”

There are times and have been times in our lives when even for a split second we all knew we were the shit. The best. The one and only.

Whatever thing you have to do that makes you nervous, wake up your Inner Hype Man and your Inner Asshole Voice can shut the hell up.

You are ready to get hyphy. This is where you pull whatever imagery works for you. Maybe you’re getting ready for the big game and everyone is chanting and high fiving. Maybe you are about to strut a catwalk and everyone will gasp when you walk out. Whatever gets you there, grab it and hold on tight.

Is your Inner Asshole Voice laughing right now?

Mine is.

Me: YEAH, I AM THE SHIT. I AM THE ONE. NOBODY IS READY FOR ME RIGHT NOW.

Inner Asshole Voice: Bitch, sit down.

Me: But . . .

Inner Asshole Voice: Nobody wants it. Shut your face. Stop writing this shit and just . . . Shut. Up.

That is actually happening right now. In my head. I took a deep breath, walked around for a second and knew what to do.

As I’ve mentioned previously my self-love gets ugly sometimes. In my head it’s fight music not booty music playing. I’m hyping myself up to figuratively beat some ass.

All day I’ve been doing things that scare me. Reaching out for advice from writers I admire, making myself some really solid financial plans, doing things that real-talk scare the actual poop out of me. My guts are churning. I keep scrolling up to read what I’ve written here and feeling some type of way.

There is a song done by Busta Rhymes featuring Ozzy Osbourne (YES, this is a real thing. Youtube it.) and I am hearing Busta in my head:

THIS MEANS WAR!

Black Sabbath plus Hip Hop means I’m getting ready.  I went in the bathroom and bounced around on my toes for a minute like a fighter. My Inner Hype Man is losing his real shit right now.

In my head these intimidating tasks are a big fight. I’m getting ready to step into the Octagon and put my title on the line. I’m the biggest, baddest bitch ever.

NOBODY CAN FUCK WITH ME RIGHT NOW!

FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE A BEE!

After a couple of minutes of this treatment, my head came up. I felt silly for having such melodramatics going on in my head at my job, but sometimes you just have to let it happen.

Letting my Inner Hype Man go buck wild pulled me out of some sadness that was interfering with my ability to write this and work out my budget.

My Inner Hype Man doesn’t just wake up. He had to work for it today.

Like everything else, this might not work for you. Your Inner Asshole Voice might be too loud. Baby steps, homies. Maybe you start with something small. Tell yourself, I cooked the SHIT out of that dinner, and high five yourself.

Now let's be real. I know a lot of folks just can't. This is not a place you are ready for and that is okay, homie. This is where I ride to your virtual rescue. I give you all full and total permission to use me as your Inner Hype Man.

Whether you put me in the role of coach yelling at you from the sidelines:

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!

Or maybe I'm staring down the Inner Asshole Voice and saying:

HEY you, shut the hell up for five damn minutes. We have shit to do.

You could even have me sitting on your shoulder like that cricket from Pinocchio telling you:

You got this! YOU GOT THIS! YOU ARE THE SHIT, YOU GOT THIS!

I volunteer.

You see this face here, your Inner Asshole Voice cannot mess with this. I'm bigger, meaner and I like you more.

I know some of you feel like nobody has your back against your Inner Asshole Voice and you can't back yourself up yet. It takes time so be cool to yourself about it. That is why I am here. That, my homie, is at the very root of why this is even happening here. You dig?

While I can't sit and hold each of your hands because my mutant super powers have yet to develop, I can let you know I got you. I can tell you that if you need to, use me. I want you to know that as impossible as it might feel to shut down your Inner Asshole Voice, I believe in you. I believe in us.

On the days you need help here I am. In the moments when you want to cry because everything in you says, You can't, you suck, or just, No, here I come yelling:

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Now my friends. Give it a shot. Report back. Get your playlist sorted. Let's do this.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Self-Care Like a Boss's Beliefs

Happy Monday, self-carers!

Before we get any further into self-care business, I want to establish 3 beliefs that act as the foundation to the self-care practices we are providing here on Self-Care Like a Boss:

Belief #1

Self-care is not an absolute truth. No one is the end-all, be-all boss of self-care. There are many ways to self-care and it's up to the human to decide which practices make that particular human feel like a boss.

Belief #2

Being human can be stressful and it is a daily practice to be human well. Being human well means staying humble by remembering all humans are weird, flawed, and awesome.

Belief #3

It's deeply important to share self-care know-how because more access to diverse practices of self-care means more easygoing, accepting, and happy human beings.

With these beliefs rooted in our writing, we'll go through examples of how a human can practice self-care in the myriad ways one can feel good in this practice. Remember, you can always adjust the stories and beliefs attached to the practices to suit your specific life's and needs and wants. The important part is that you cater your self-care regiment to you! Because only you know what's right for you, what makes you feel good, happy, relaxed, at ease.

Take care this week, y'all. Remember when shit gets tough and too real to handle: self-care like a boss.

[selfcarelikeaboss]

Who is Shannon Barber?

by Shannon Barber

First let me tell you a story.

Picture yours truly at 21 years old. It is summer and the air is warm. I’m wearing a floaty chiffon dress, my hair is did, my face is beat for the Gods. I am heading for an important job interview. I want tobe the hot young receptionist at some bourgie art establishment.

I'm walking like I have shit to do type walk, elbows out, booty swinging, stomping towards my destination. I walk right out of my panties in broad daylight on a busy street in downtown Seattle. I look over my shoulder and see my satiny drawers sitting there, lonely on the sidewalk. I check the time and keep on walking.

That is who I am.

This is also who I am:

I break into uncontrollable ugly sobs when people do nice things for me. Best friends gives me a present, I send her text messages with close up pictures of my crying my eyes out. Reader gets me a pair of pants, I sit on the floor holding said pants and crying my eyes out. My publisher tells me that I deserve to be paid for my art. Later I sit in the bathroom and cry my eyes out.

I hate crying. I don't know why. Well, I do know why. It is because feeling vulnerable scares me and when I get scared I get angry. I'm working on that.

I want to be very clear that I am not an expert. I am not a guru. I'm not a professional nor am I a therapist. I am just like you. I am a person who has lived through some things and has some knowledge to share. Some of the knowledge I share may not have to do with you or your life directly and that is okay.

The deal is that I believe in the inherent value of us sharing our smarts with each other. I believe with my whole heart that by making our small individual worlds better, we make the bigger badder world outside better.

Some basic things about me:

I am a Black, Fat, Queer person. I am very sensitive, very opinionated, loud about said opinions. I sometimes sit back and watch people before I give my opinion. I can be weird and shy. Sometimes I drool when I laugh hard enough. I am twitchy and flappy, I can't always use my words. Any big emotions, happy or sad or whatever sometimes makes me throw up.

Just like everyone else in the world I'm special. I am a greedy reader and writer of as many things as I can get out of my head. I enjoy blogging and windy walks on the beach. Sometimes I am a total asshole. I work on that, unless it is warranted in a situation.

In the realm of Things About Shannon to Know, I do actually care about you. Yes you. I know it sounds very woowoo and bullshitty. I don't think we have to like each other on a personal level to care about each other. I might think you're a jerk but that doesn't mean I believe your life should be crappy. I care enough to know that.

Often I have to have people explain simple things to me. I'm inelegant and pick my nose. On an emotional level, this is the shit that makes me kind of awesome.

I am neurotic and owner of many fears. I am really afraid of a lot of things. My fears range from the sort of ridiculous. I am pretty afraid of birds. Granted I'm not terrified of birds anymore. I used to be so afraid of birds I once ran out of a pet store sobbing because a parrot looked me in the eye and yelled at me. True story.

I am also terribly afraid of being underground. I don't use the bus tunnel here in Seattle. I've never been on the underground tour and I don't even want my body buried because I find the idea of being underground, even if I'm dead, terrifying.

Writing this makes me nervous as shit. The idea of exposure, that you might see all the things that I don't necessarily hide but that freak me out to have examined, freaks my shit right out. Here I am with my book coming out and I'm talking to folks about self-care and dealing with shit and I'm so flawed. I am so stupidly human.

Of course I'm flawed. I'm super duper hella deeply flawed. Sometimes to the point I want to rage, flip a desk and quit everything. So flawed that I do and say things that, in a lot of contexts, would be problematic. So seriously flawed sometimes I don't believe I have anything good to contribute to the world and I should take all the seats.

I am just like you. I have a lot of flaws and foibles. I do strange stuff and have a truckload of issues.

My own issues are what pushed me to trying to figure out how to care for myself even though I am fucked up. This is what I know about surviving myself.

I have anxiety, I am an eating disorder survivor. Sometimes my anxiety drags me into depression. And because I am who I am all of it tends to manifest in internalized ugliness. I won't cry but I will go into a spiral of self hatred I'm almost ashamed to admit to. Sometimes it is so bad I can't look myself in the eye in the mirror or I can't look at myself at all. I won't say that self care cured me but it has helped me survive all of it.

I internalize so much because I still don't really know how to allow myself to be totally human. So I take care of myself through it. When I first started thinking about self care it was out of pure desperation. I was in my early 20s and desperate for some kind of hope.

What I needed was somebody to show me how to take care of myself the best I could even when everything was hell. Part of the adult I have become means I have a need to be that voice as much as I can for other folks. I don't want any of us to go through it alone.

That is why I say we're the same. My issues and problems might not be the same as yours but we have them.

I feel it is important for y'all to know is that I'm not better than you. Even if I said I was flawless, never said or did anything problematic,and claimed to be the grandest poobah of all things that I'm talkin' about, I'd still be just like you.

I say we're the same because when we get into thing, some stuff I write about is going be difficult. We're gonna talk about some rough stuff like: fatness, bodies, poop, sex, gender, disability and maybe some other stuff that might not be the most familiar territory. When I started thinking and learning about a lot of this stuff I was uncomfortable. It takes time.

I want you to know some of the stuff I'll talk about will make you uncomfortable, maybe because of bias, maybe because it's just unfamiliar to you. Understand that if you don't know about something it is okay. We'll get through it. I also know about this stuff comes in handy in your life or the life of someone you love.

This is where my deep belief in sharing my experiences and knowledge really kicks in. I believe in teaching laterally not downward. I am not in a position above you because I know a thing. I just know the thing.

I believe!

I feel like floating around the room clapping like I'm trying to resuscitate Tinkerbell but I digress.

Where was I? This happens to me a lot, digression. I'm you, you're me, we know stuff, yadda yadda.

I'm going to pause here for a second. I'm writing this and listening to some silly reality TV in the background and squirming in my chair like I have ants in my pants. This, in and of itself, isn't super unusual for me when I'm really working on a thing. I'm uncomfortable and squirmy because I'm sitting weird and my butt is semi asleep.

Okay. I got up and walked around. Let's get back to business.

Speaking of my flaws, let's talk about how I feel about flaws in general. I don't believe that flaws are automatically absolutely bad. I like to think that once we start undoing a lot of the damage done to us in terms of viewing ourselves as being allowed to be complex and imperfect (or, you know, human) we can learn how to fix or start to fix the things that make our lives suck.

For a long time I bought into the idea if I spoke, behaved and made sure to be a Good Negro, I wouldn't experience racism. I bought into the White supremacist notion that only "Bad" or those types of Black people ever had stuff happened to them. I didn't talk about racism passionately, I let "friends" make anti-Black statements to me and I just kind of smiled.

I held it all in. I internalized a lot of racism and as a result of that spent a good many years being a self hating Black person. I hated so much of myself, it reflected in everything. My self esteem, my writing, how I allowed people to treat me. Everything. That was a flaw that destroyed a lot of who I am and how I live life. So I had to fix it.

That is the sort of thing I believe is worth stomping out because I did not need it. Hating myself made my life crappy and was just not okay at all.

That is also who I am. This is where I'm coming from. I've fucked up a lot in my life. I've fallen in public, gotten too drunk, been too loud, gotten into fights, made people mad, hated myself, loved myself, everything.

There have been a lot of moments in my life when I've felt like the most unworthy, disgusting awful person to ever move around in the universe, when I have been pretty well convinced that care or love were wasted on a piece of shit like me. I spent so much time internalizing every bad thing, I spent years being unable to see past it or through it.

I want to tell you that a lot of what talking about self-care this way is about for me is working out the stuff that is wrong without traumatizing myself. Among my many issues the big one through my whole life has been internalization. When I have experienced abuse, I internalized. When I clogged my own toilet the first time, I told myself I was just stupid of course I should know how to deal with it beyond panicking.

That is also who I am.

I am screwed up and weird. I am occasionally kind of awesome and continually figuring things out.

What else do I want you to know?

When I eat food I really like, I wriggle in my seat and will probably offer up a bite. I'm a giant child, if I can't open a container sometimes I shake it or bite it. I can't always use my words and on occasion have been known to have a tantrum.

I'm clumsy and have fallen in public more times than I like to count. Sometimes I dance around my apartment and try to twerk while I wash my face. I watch too much crime related TV and sometimes just start yelling because my stories get nerdy shit wrong. Sometimes I get very angry over things that don't really matter in the big picture.

Right now my guts are a little acidy and I'm nervous. I'm not a memoirist and writing about myself this way is hard. There is that part of me knows I'm a chronic over sharer (I live tweet my freaking period) but show my soft underbelly is terrifying. I still struggle with being human.

Here I am.

I can't promise healing but I can promise some help. I can promise that even when I am a little hard with y'all, it's out of love. I can promise that I will not bullshit you with woowoo platitudes nor will I pee on your foot and tell you it is raining.

All this yammering about myself later, I hope you have a bit of an idea who I am and where I'm coming from.

So hi. I'm Shannon. I'm very pleased to meet you and hope you stick around for the ride.