#mandy stadtmiller

[airplanes924]

Books I’ve Read in 2023

Number 17

Unwifeable by Mandy Stadtmiller

[fatornotblog-blog]

Ripping off the bandaid

Here’s the truth.

I stopped writing, not because I was fat again, which is what I initially thought was the reason I stopped writing, but because I stopped believing I had something to say.

The truthier truth: I thought I had stopped believing I had something to say because I was fat again.

But that, dear reader, as you probably know, is not the truth.

I stopped believing I had something to say because a lot of shitty things started happening and somehow, I believed, I was the cause of them all. I took on every painful thing as a personal failing and then refused to acknowledge I had done that by covering up any hint of emotion with food or weed or pills and for a while that felt great, until it didn’t. Then it really didn’t and by that point I felt I was in too deep for help, from anyone, but especially from myself.

But nearly three weeks ago now, I was driving back to Connecticut, where I live, from a family vacation in Delaware and listened to Mandy Stadtmiller talk about masking the painful things that happened to her and my body started vibrating.

I’ve heard of this happening, but I didn’t think it was ever going to happen to me. Her lessons learned about addiction, boundaries, and leaps of faith had me buzzing. And I’m buzzing again now as I write this. Whatever the opposite of anxiety is, where your chest is tight and your breathe is short, is what I’m feeling now.

It’s a belly-burning sensation. My breath is deep. My brain feels focused.

The truth is, I’ve been punishing myself for who knows what reason by not letting myself be vulnerable. By shutting it all down in the face of fear.

The truth is, I love this space. I love my blog. I love writing knowing it might be read. Since middle school, when a friend showed me Dead Journal and a whole new world of communication opened up to me, it’s something I’ve loved.

This morning after I finished my morning pages (Thanks again, Mandy) I thought about, what if I followed every passionate thought that came into my head. I didn’t have to act on those thoughts, but what if I at least gave them room to breathe. 

To do that, would be to believe that I was deserving of such attention, and with that thought, I was game.

I didn’t realize it until I got home, and took stock of my day, but I think I managed to accomplish exactly that.

I posted a photo of my cat on his instagram. It’s so stupid but it makes me so happy and I hadn’t done it in a few weeks. Next, I signed up for a free trial at Orange Theory and bought workout tanks with motivational phrases literally just because of other people I see on instagram doing it, and that makes me happy.

Lastly, after dinner, I turned off the TV and picked up a Geneen Roth book my sister bought me for my birthday.

In the introduction (which I didn’t even make it past!) of “This Messy Magnificent Life,” Geneen talks about living if as nothing was broken.

I knew, in that moment, that for me living as if nothing was broken meant returning to this space. 

This space where there is so much of me, this space that I felt too broken to return to.

For a while, for most of its life, this space tracked my weight, but behind the scenes, and what I value it for now, is that this space gave me a voice I was proud of. And honestly, at the time, I thought I was proud because I had achieved weight loss. Really though, underneath it all, and my most vulnerable core, I was proud because something I had written had resonated with other people. 

The part of morning pages that I like the best is not the writing, or what I discover about myself while writing. It’s the much, much smaller (and harder!) act of just being with myself without any distractions.

I’ve been doing it for such a short time and yet already I’ve reaped the rewards of being vulnerable with myself. It’s a muscle I had forgotten how to use. It’s a thing that’s so easy to do once you get past the fear of what you might discover.

I had been learning all of that again, slowly, in this new daily practice, when of course, predictably, Geneen Roth came right out and hit me over the head with it. 

“Freedom from mental suffering is not a mystery, but a willingness to examine what keeps us from directly experiencing the deep-blue peace and quiet joy that are always accessible and forever unaffected by the passing show.” - Geneen Roth.

And so here I am. Showing up and willing. 

[hopefullywedontbreakup]

This week Giulia and Will talk to Mandy Stadtmiller and Pat Dixon about standards, marriage and more. Listen here

or subscribe on iTunes

[mancavedaily]

Love, Laughter & Horrific Crime

Love, Laughter & Horrific Crime

Writers/podcasters/comedians/couple Mandy Stadtmiller and Pat Dixon join us to discuss their many projects, including TMI-ary, News Whore, NYC Crime Report, and The Nearly Naked Lady Hour (it comes with a bacon bar!).

Go listen on Play.it or iTunes.

  Follow them on Twitter @MandyStadt and @PatDixon.

Brendan McGinley is editor round these parts when not writing comics or Cracked columns. You…

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[yeahpitchbitch]

How to Pitch a Story to an Editor in the Media

Here's my best attempt to encapsulate what I've seen work -- and not work -- in pitching editors at various media outlets.

Mandy Stadtmiller tells you what's up.

[bijoubaby]

"In a modern world crisscrossed with transactional relationships, the relationships with the people who have your heart are the ones that really mean anything at all to me anymore. Sure, I want to have professional success. But that's all pretty damn fleeting, depending on the ebb and flow of the day. The only thing that lasts is how much you love."

Mandy Stadtmiller - xoJane

[layesica]

Everything, even still, is just icing to me. It is all a dream. I was already blown away that I had met Bob Odenkirk. I was like 'Oh my god, Bob Odenkirk.'

-- Fred Armisen