closed. congratulations to Beth! you’ve been emailed!
oh my word, don’t these just kill you?
The gentle art of fighting without fighting.
7 Feb posted by
My heart may take off & cease beating after this announcement.
That’s how honored & excited & floored I am to be contributing to Lauren Lankford’s new project, The Good Women Project.
Good women are a dying breed, and The Good Women Project is doing something about it.
We exist to encourage and equip young women to become good women, and show that good women have the most fun, the best sex, and most fulfilling lives.
You may know Lauren from Love Bomb or her own gorgeous blog that lets words & honesty simply flow. & now Lauren has me talking on her new site about marriage, both in general & in specifics. I certainly do not have the perfect marriage, but of all the things I tend to eff up in my life, I somehow manage to be one half of a good marriage. You may not always agree with what I have to say – which is the beauty of it, because good women come in many different forms & good marriages can be measured in numerous ways. Maybe you’re young, wondering if “prince charming” will ever come galloping along. Maybe you’re married, looking for camaraderie or desperately searching for inspiration to hang on. Or maybe you’re just nosy & want a peek into my marriage (& that’s totally okay). I welcome you to join me there.
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My husband & I do not fight.
That may seem odd, or difficult to believe, or impossible…but true. We have never raised our voices or thrown out words in the heat of the moment that we regret. In our marriage, there is never name-calling or storming off with slammed doors & tears. It is not because we are both meek lambs that avoid conflict; in truth, we are both bulls that lovingly point fingers at who is the most stubborn. No, my partner of seven years & husband of almost five & I do not fight because years ago, I pledged to honor & cherish him.
I strive daily to uphold those vows, & thus in the simplest, most raw form, be a good wife. A good woman.
What are you afraid of?
7 Feb posted by
I have this thing about finishing things. Getting to the end of a tube of toothpaste or babywash. Watching Nate finish the last sleeve of crackers & then having the satisfaction of tosses the cracker box into the recycling bin. Folding that last sock in the pile of laundry. The other night, I got practically giddy as I squeezed the last drip of my Philosophy body wash on the puff & tossed the empty bottle into the waiting trash can.
Granted, there are some things that I never feel this affectionately about finishing. A bag of pretzel M&M’s & the bottom of a formula can happen to be the first that pop into my head to fall in this category.
Sometimes I will even go out of my way to finish something – badgering Nate to finish the last two cookies in the pack just so I can toss the box. He usually doesn’t complain too loudly about that, though.
But I’m not like that with weight loss.
It’s not easy to admit. & I don’t know why I’m like that. You’d think that if I get my jollies off finishing things, I would be hurtling towards weight loss goals with wild abandon, seeing those pounds fall off the scale. Right? I don’t know what I’m afraid of. I don’t know what I’m holding back from by holding on to this weight or holding on to my old habits. When I really dig deep, I think it stems from this – the two times I have really lost weight in my life, I have been depressed. In college, I shrank to 155 lbs & a small size 10. But I was utterly miserable until I went on Celexa & subsequently gained 30 lbs. Last spring, I lost weight & started feeling amazing physically, but mentally I was a hot mess. & then gained weight on medication. Logically I know that losing weight doesn’t have to mean that I am sick. But I have to learn to break that pattern by losing weight when I’m healthy. & I’ve never done that before.
Are you afraid of anything with weight loss? With success? With shedding old habits? What do you think causes that fear?
More importantly, what can we do to rise above it?
