#imanew

[inlivingwritenow]

this is what hope looks like. this is what resiliency and change looks like. here’s to rallying around younger hearts that i know will change the world ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻✊

[inlivingwritenow]

I love looking at this photoset that has been hiding in my drafts. I’ll never forget this day and hiding behind my flowers and concentration for what I believed would be the most vibrant, colorful thing anyone will see. Which later presented to me as a small little colorful bunch next to the tall magical pieces created by others around the room. I carried the memory and internal criticism with me to a later paint night, which left me furious with my inhibition to merely create.

In the next month, I’m gonna dedicate my time to going outside of my normal (whatever that means in 2020) and lean into some things I wouldn’t usually do. I may not know what that looks like yet, but I’m confusingly excited. Please hold me to it. And whoever else reads this, I hope you do the same.

[ thank you @im-anew for this 💐 ]

[inlivingwritenow]

“I’m feeling overwhelmed by my emotions, so much that I feel tired the entire day…When does this stop and how do I get better.”

“But my emotions were everywhere. I’m exhausted. I napped before young adults and I’m still tired…Can’t turn on…Present but not present.”

“…Starting to wonder if my bad days are outweighing my good days.”

Two years ago, I committed one of the greatest acts of self-love when I sought help. ^These were from my phone memos back when I was asked to journal what I was thinking and feeling when I was “in it.”

During that time, some peace of advice that was given to me (or what I like to think of as “homework”) was to take a break and focus on the senses I’d encounter while in New York. 

Visual: The villages, signaling street lights, K&R’s high ceilings and open windows.

Audio: ‘Expectations’

Tactile: Perspiration from New York summers ..or from nervousness - I really can’t tell anymore

Oral: Local coffee

Smell: Omnipresent gas..as if the city could easily go up in flames

While being keen to these senses, memories began to wholesomely form. Because what better way to learn than to make sense of it all.

Brooklyn is beautiful, and we took it slow from every neighbor’s direction and perspective to simply admire and respect the space as well as the community we were in. And I took almost every chance to be mindfull.

And when I reported back, I stated, “I failed my homework.” 

I was actually self conscious most of the time, so much that it prohibited me from all interactions or doing simple things like adding more sugar to my coffee without the fear of being judged. My confidence was shot and I intermittently had flights of hypersensitivity. 

Then in the following year, it was a car accident and depression.

I now realize there’s something about this time of year that exacerbates my anxiety. Although 2020 is on another level of its own, my anxiety has begun to manifest itself more physically ..and with a little more anger than I’m used to.

So for those who are tired and just trying to do right, keep going.

[inlivingwritenow]

There is something to be said about repotting. How the growth is necessary but messy. Once we’re up against our surroundings and have taken shape of the space we’ve lived in, we are removed with roots exposed but outstretched to be earthed into new soil.

Here’s to growth. And to our spider plant, Charlotte, and her babies (not pictured) for being rooted into anew.

- Plant Nanay

[inlivingwritenow]

[inlivingwritenow]

50 years 🏳️‍🌈

(📸: @im-anew)

[inlivingwritenow]

“I’ve said this before and I’ll point it out again -

Menstruation is caused by change in hormonal levels to stop the creation of a uterine lining and encourage the body to flush the lining out. The body does this by lowering estrogen levels and raising testosterone.

Or, to put it more plainly “That time of the month” is when female hormones most closely resemble male hormones. So if (cis) women aren’t suited to office at “That time of the month” then (cis) men are NEVER suited to office.

If you are a dude and don’t dig the ladies around you at their time of the month, just think! That is you all of the time.

And, on a final note, post-menopausal (cis) women are the most hormonally stable of all human demographics. They have fewer hormonal fluctuations of anyone, meaning older women like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren would theoretically be among the least likely candidates to make an irrational decision due to hormonal fluctuations, and if we were basing our leadership decisions on hormone levels, then only women over fifty should ever be allowed to hold office.”

[inlivingwritenow]

Joy: I just wanted Riley to be happy...

[Joy picks up the sad core memory of Riley crying in school. As he looks at it, she begins to sob, and completely breaks down into hopeless tears while Bing Bong sadly looks on. Joy's tears fall onto the happy memory orb of Riley after the Prairie Dog hockey game. As Joy wipes the tear off of it, she scrolls through the memory to see it was previously a sad memory turned happy. The sad portion consists of Riley sitting sadly with her parents on a tree branch. Curiously, Joy "rewinds" the memory to the point where Mom and Dad came to Riley to comfort her. Joy begins to hear Sadness's description of the memory in her head]

Sadness: It was the day the Prairie Dogs lost the big playoff game. Riley missed the winning shot, she felt awful. She wanted to quit.

[Joy scrolls through the memory to see the blue sad memory of her and her parents turn a happy yellow when Riley's friends come to cheer her on]

Joy: Sadness... Mom and Dad... the team. They came to help... because of Sadness.