And so begins a new (interview) series here on cynosure– where I interview all my body-loving artist crushes. (As of yet, that number is less than three, but who cares.)

I don’t remember where (probably a body-positive Tumblr!) or when (probably a couple of years ago!) I first stumbled upon Coreena Lewis’s work, but her photography and art have become an endless source of inspiration for me, not just for my photography but for my relationship with my body. Devouring (because “seeing” isn’t adequate enough a word) her self-portraiture has deepened my love for my own body and grown my appreciation of others’ bodies, no matter what their size.

I had the opportunity to ask Coreena some questions about body and self-love recently, and she gratefully acquiesced. Here’s the result of our body-positive back-and-forth.

You’re a huge inspiration to me (and other people), not only with the utterly human and honest quality of your photography, but with the self-confidence and comfort that you radiate– especially about your body. Have you always loved your body, or was it something you had to journey towards?

Loving my body and accepting myself has always been a challenge. As a child, as a teenager, and now as a woman. It’s hard to make your own opinions on what is beautiful when you are told constantly that your body is not. At this point in my life I am happy with who I am and it’s pretty cool talking to people I have helped to accept their body simply by liking my own.

How did you get to the point of liking your body now?

One of the main things that helped me was my 365 Photography project in which I took a photo of myself every day for a year. In that time I got to reflect on my body in a unique way. I got to see myself in different positions, environments, lighting and angles. I had a lot of positive feedback throughout both of my projects it switched a trigger in my brain.

(Click here for Coreena’s 365 Days Self-Portrait Project, Year One and click here for Year Two! I’m in love with both.)

Do you ever still have days where you don’t feel quite as comfortable in your body?

Always. I have gained a lot of my weight back so it’s a constant battle to see my body as beautiful. Shopping can either be a great or terrible experience. Sometimes it takes me a few days to hop back on the body-positive train after it.

How do you deal with that and “hop back on” the body-positive train?

I often revisit my Flickr and read through all the body-positive comments. I follow a lot blogs that are based on body acceptance so I browse through them.

Sometimes the only other thing that helps is being honest and having an open discussion about my negative feelings online.

Doing art, being around my friends and boyfriend quite often help me, too.

What would you say to someone who is struggling to love their body?

I had to think about this question for a long time because loving yourself can be a hard thing and there is no “simple advice.”

It has to be up to the person to accept their body, their brain and the life that they live– no one else can make the decision for you.

Any last words?

Next time any of you are having a bad day I would suggest taking yourself on an adventure.

Doing things by yourself is the best way to get to your inner clockwork. Once you are happy with spending time by yourself it’s amazing how fast you’ll appreciate your body. It’s hard to get around without it.

And that, I totally agree with. Thank you Coreena for the interview!

You can check out Coreena’s photography and art on Flickr and follow her on Tumblr.

Enjoyed this interview? Share it! You can use the buttons below this post. :)

read more:

• why “you lost weight” is NOT a compliment
• an enraptured interview with the fantastic human being behind raptitude
• interview with cupcake-loving canadian warrior caitlin: a Love, You case study

This is what I didn’t tell you.

I didn’t tell you that within 24 hours after writing flying or falling, my heart shattered.

I didn’t tell you that I spent the next three days unbelievably sad.

I didn’t tell you that I walked up Mont-Royal in the rain and slipped on ice three times with clothes wet and loss.

I didn’t tell you that, one by one, everything I cared about left — not only the people I loved most, but the passion I had for contribution and, with it, slowly slipping away from me, my sanity and my will to live.

I didn’t tell you that I broke down over the weekend, confronted with an even bigger and more insidious fear to which being hurt by anyone else could never compare: losing my mind.

I didn’t tell you that I imploded my anger upon myself, and realized that that was the answer: I had recognized years of suppressed sadness after beginning the journey of recovery, but I had never allowed myself to be angry about anything — the assault, the abuse, the betrayal. The lies and the dishonesty. The heartbreak.

I didn’t tell you that I almost self-destructed.

But now I’m telling you, because I’m just another human being. I’m not perfect and I never will be. I am no higher or lower than anyone else.

My infatuation with the desire to appear perfect is what has broken me, over and over again. It is what sparked my self-hatred; it is what fueled my eating disorder; it is what tumbled me down into relapse. It is what caused me to do nothing but inject sugar into my bloodstream indirectly last summer rather than acknowledge the fact that I was sad, and that I was struggling.

I tried for years to be perfect. I tried to apologize to them. I’m sorry I’m not perfect, I repeated, over and over. Will you ever see that?

This infatuation kept my fury inside. Anger isn’t peaceful, I told myself. Anger isn’t “good” or loving or kind.

I was wrong.

Anger is liberating. Anger is freeing. Anger is transformative.

Anger set me free.

At the very least, anger is constructive. More constructive than wallowing, than pity, than grudges and self-hatred and attachment.

But I was scared of anger. I was scared of what it would do to me. Would I kill someone? More likely: Would I kill myself?

So I kept it in. I never let myself be angry about anything. I wasn’t angry when I forced myself to keep calm as three different ephemeral characters in this reality yelled at me and sent me abusive messages last year. I wasn’t angry after I was assaulted. I wasn’t angry after I was essentially raped by my first “partner.” I wasn’t angry after I was mistreated and hurt, over and over again, by the people I so achingly loved. I wasn’t angry after my heart broke. I wasn’t angry after anything.

I went numb instead. Or conveniently forgetful.

Or I simply swallowed all my anger, just as I swallowed all my tears during the first arc of my eating disorder.

Because this was what I was taught, growing up: If you’re angry, hurt someone. If you can’t hurt someone else, hurt yourself.

So I did. I did for years. I carved my anger onto myself, and then I carved it onto my body and burned my throat and slaughtered my stomach.

And then I decided to stop. I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else, either.

But I had no place for anger anymore. Anger was scary, it was bad, it would make me want to hurt someone. Myself. Anyone.

So I didn’t let myself be angry. And I almost fell apart more than I ever have in my life.

 
I was standing in the middle of someone else’s house. I felt like screaming. I felt like breaking everything. I felt like scratching apart my skin until it burst open, red blood raw.

I didn’t understand where this came from. That one day I could wake up with a madness I’d never known. That I could feel so bad that it wasn’t even bad enough to let go. Sadness, depression, heartbreak I could handle. But this? I didn’t understand. I had never experienced anything like it before. What was wrong?

What was wrong?
 

I am angry.

I am angry that I held in my anger for years because I thought it wasn’t peaceful or loving.

I am angry that I held myself up to such self-destructive expectations of perfection and utter inhumanness again.

I am angry, but anger is not bad. It is not anything.

It was the actions fueled by anger that destroyed my childhood: the abuse, the screaming, the constant fear. It wasn’t the anger itself.

I can’t let anything go if I don’t even allow myself to experience it.

So, I am allowing myself to be angry. To feel fucking furious. And sad and mad and depressed and anything else I could ever feel.

And I am allowing myself to find the joy in this, too.

Because I know this: for everything I am angry about, I feel endless gratitude in equal measure with my rage.

 
I am not perfect. I will say this again and again until I remember that I don’t have to be. I will say this again and again to let you know that I am only here because I decided to be, because I have made the choice to live instead of die. There is no real difference between you and I, and our humanness.

You are beautiful, because you are alive. There is nothing that needs explanation. You are love.

And so am I.
 

I’m stronger.

I’m grateful.

Not because I’m stronger, but

because I’m alive.

I’m alive, goddamnit.

And if that isn’t the most beautiful thing in the world to be, I really have no idea what could be.

 
I love you.

read more:

• the balance between happiness and denial
• what did we give up to “grow up”?
• what I’m really thankful for.

… than you think.

Just sayin’.

read more:

• “I’m just a fucked up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.”
• we all survive. we all heal.
• the answer is YES.

I want you to know that even though this world seems so lonely and scary, it is full of life and love and wonder if you open your heart to it.

I want you to know that this heartbreak is temporary and will not last. What lasts is your resilience, your strength, the courage already within you that’s quietly waiting for you to tap into it.

I want you to know that people change. Or they leave. Or they die. Or they, simply, become irretrievably lost to us, a mere memory.
And that we do, too. And sometimes, no matter how much we want to hold on, what will really make us happier in the long run is, slowly, thumb to pinky, to let go of them.

I want you to know that you will not get the alive fire and passion that you truly deserve if you cling to an ancient flame that has already died.

I want you to know that letting go is the most valuable lesson I’ve ever learned.

I want you to know that no matter how alone you feel, there is an entire loving community of kindred spirits ready for you, just waiting for you to pay attention long enough to say hello.

I want you to know that out of the deepest sadness is carved the most immaculate joy.

I want you to know that you are always loved, unconditionally– by someone, somewhere– no matter how terrified you are of being completely unlovable.

I want you to know that love isn’t really true love if there isn’t the slightest possibility of getting burned.

I want you to know that you’re right– nobody will ever understand you or your sorrows– if you never take the leap of vulnerability and try: to open up, to open your heart, to soften to the warmth and kindness that’s on the other side.

I want you to know that loneliness fades, and that the time and space in-between is there for you to remember that you have, most of all, yourself– the most important person of all.

I want you to know that this, too, shall pass.

For love and life are what’s real.
And this pain is just one moment.

I wrote this for myself:
for the me who is scared and lonely,
for the me who is terrified.

For the me who feels small when she knows secretly that she is big.
For the me who has had her heart broken a thousand times over.
For the me who loves so much that it hurts to try and trust.

For the me who said she would face her fears,
and the very next day, faced forward:
abandonment, loss, loneliness,
alone, alone, alone.

I wrote this for myself,
(but I wrote this for you, too).

read more:

• “I’m just a fucked up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.”
• we all survive. we all heal.
• “maybe, the people who do bad things… maybe they’re just lonely.”

A lightning bolt of a post by the ever-intrepid Holly (the brilliant fellow warrior-friend of mine that inspiringly served as a catalyst for many of the ideas in this book) of Eating a Tangerine; I’m honored to have the privilege of publishing it here on cynosure.

The photos, of course, are mine.

Your surrender is significant

To my fellow women-folk:

For every one of you who capitulates to unfair standards of beauty, it is THAT MUCH HARDER for the rest of us to resist.

When you deny yourself food when you are hungry, when you call yourself names, when you let yourself feel guilty for eating dessert, when you spend more time and money than you can afford to on bringing your appearance into line with The Man’s dictates, IT AFFECTS US TOO.

It affects me, a young woman for whom continuing to recover from an eating disorder requires daily effort. It affects my friends.  It affects my younger sister and my little cousins, who are figuring out whether it is possible to be a woman and at peace with your body.

For all our sakes, stop going along. Stop agreeing with the message that your worth can be judged by your appearance – as if you were some collector’s doll or show dog. Stop doing things that you think are stupid just because you’re told it’s mandatory. Stop accepting these standards of beauty without asking where they come from, what they signify, who they serve, what you think of them. Stop, stop, stop.

Don’t you see? This heaviness you feel, we all feel it, and for us part of the heaviness is what you have added by complying. And yes, some of the heaviness you feel is my fault. It belongs to me too.

Your compliance is significant. Your surrender carries weight. Your capitulation is not just personal.

I am angry, yes. At myself too, for believing that it could ever be a merely personal matter for me to agree to hate my female body, my female self. (I promise I have never written an imperative statement or word of advice that I don’t write also for myself.)

It is inescapable: we affect one another.

So I’m going to keep saying no to all this bullshit, even when it hurts and it’s really tiring. I’m going to look my reflection in the eye even when it’s all wrong, and I’m not going to say that I FEEL FAT as if “fat” were an actual emotion. I’m not going to idolize emaciated women while calling myself a feminist. I’m going to eat as much as I need and I’m going to keep it down, and I’m going to do what I want to do with my days even when I’m not confident in my appearance.

I don’t want to come off like I’m saying I’m somehow stronger than all this and above all this. Frankly, some days I feel like I cannot deal with myself and these pressures, and believe me, I know what poison is like.

But I need this defiance even more. I need to know that I am not making this society any more oppressive for my sex.

And you see, the flip side is this: if your surrender means something, then your defiance means even more.

Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal … therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety … As soon as the alternative appears, it threatens the very existence of appearance and living a lie in terms of what they are, both their essence and their all-inclusiveness. And at the same time, it is utterly unimportant how large a space this alternative occupies: its power does not consist in its physical attributes but in the light it casts on those pillars of the system and on its unstable foundations.

- Václav Havel

It is only with the act of resisting, of refusing to play these games and swallow these lies, that one of us can show another that it is possible to do so.

It is only in believing that I deserve better – and fighting for that – that I can assure you in any meaningful way that you do too. That we all do.

And it is how we give each other strength to keep fighting.

So if you decide to give the finger to The Man and his beauty culture, you won’t be alone. I’ll be there too, and we can stand together and wave at the horizon and tell each other when we notice one of us starting to cave, and then help hold each other up. You won’t be there alone. Promise.

love and defiance,

HOLLY.

Holly makes her home at tangerine-eater.com. She wrote this piece in 2010, a year into recovery. She is a feminist, an anthropology nerd, and a native San Franciscan. She likes ideas, words, mindfulness, and photography.

If you love this post as much as I do, please share! Click through to use the buttons below this post to forward to a friend. Thanks, warrior!

read more:

• how to reform a bad day: a play-by-play case study of a “bad day gone good”
• how to get your perfect body this year
• NO MAKE-UP WEEK SPECIAL: ladies, use your minds.

A wonderful warrior sent me an incredible passage to me a few days ago that he said reminded him of me, and it moved me absolutely. I’d love to share it with you today.

You know what everyone’s greatest fear is? It is that all the dreams we have, all the crazy ideas and aspirations, all the impossible romantic longings and utopian visions can come true, that the world can grant our wishes.

People spend their lives doing everything in their power to fend off that possibility: they beat themselves up with every kind of insecurity, sabotage their own efforts, undermine love affairs and cry sour grapes before the world even has a chance to defeat them… because no weight could be heavier to bear than the possibility that everything we want is possible. If that is true, then there really are things at stake in this life, things to be truly won or lost. Nothing could be more heartbreaking than to fail when such success is actually possible, so we do everything we can to avoid trying in the first place, to avoid having to try.

For if there is even the slightest possibility that our hearts’ desires could be realized, then of course the only thing that makes sense is to throw ourselves entirely into their pursuit and risk that heartbreak.

Despair and nihilism seem safer, projecting our hopelessness onto the cosmos as an excuse for not even trying. So we remain, clutching our resignation, as secure as corpses in coffins (“better safe and sorry”)… but this still cannot ward off that dreadful possibility. Thus in our hopeless flight from the real tragedy of the world, we only heap upon ourselves false tragedy, unnecessary tragedy, as well.

Perhaps this world will never conform perfectly to our needs—people will always die before they are ready, perfect relationships will end in ruins, adventures will end in catastrophe and beautiful moments be forgotten.

But what breaks my heart is the way we flee from those inevitable truths into the arms of more horrible things. It may be true that every [human] is lost in a universe that is fundamentally indifferent to [her], locked forever in a terrifying solitude—but it doesn’t have to be true that some people starve while others destroy food or leave fertile farms untilled. It doesn’t have to be true that men and women waste their lives away working to serve the hollow greed of a few rich men, just to survive. It doesn’t have to be that we never dare to tell each other what we really want, to share ourselves honestly, to use our talents and capabilities to make life more bearable, let alone more beautiful. That’s unnecessary tragedy, stupid tragedy, pathetic and pointless. It’s not even utopian to demand that we put an end to farces like these.

If we could bring ourselves to believe, to really feel, the possibility that we are invincible and can accomplish whatever we want in this world, it wouldn’t seem out of our reach at all to correct such absurdities.

What I am begging you to do here is not to put faith in the impossible, but have the courage to face that terrible possibility that our lives really are in our own hands, and to act accordingly: to not settle for every misery fate and humanity have heaped upon us, but to push back, to see which ones can be shaken off.

Nothing could be more tragic, and more ridiculous, than to live out a whole life in reach of heaven without ever stretching out your arms.

(via CrimethInc. Texts– emphasis mine)

You know what my greatest fear is? I never told you. I don’t think I even knew, myself, for the longest time, after I first tasted that lofty ideal of “happiness.” I was scared of even having fear, I was scared of admitting I was human, imperfect.

My greatest fear is being torn apart by the people I love, the way I– perhaps, we all– have at one point in our lives.

My greatest fear is heartbreak.

And I haven’t been aware of this fear in the past few years because I refused to put myself in front of it, to face it. I stayed inside. I stayed with the same people I’d always known, even though we’d grown apart. I stayed in a comfortable, easy relationship.

But this is what facing fear means: opening up to that new friend, admitting that you care, talking to strangers– and letting yourself entertain the possibility of not only getting hurt, but also the possibility experiencing ridiculous happiness beyond your imagination.

If I don’t risk anything, I don’t experience anything.

Here’s a quote I love from the incredibly sexy and charismatic Colin Wright:

As a general rule, try to avoid comfort at all costs.

There’s a big difference between comfort and happiness: being happy means that you are overjoyed about what you’re doing, who you are, the people you’re meeting and the things that you’re doing. Being comfortable means that you’re not feeling too bad or too good… you’re neutral.

Neutral is what suburbs are for.

Comfort is for people who are looking to relax, not to grow and learn and experience new things. You may save yourself from any potential lows by keeping yourself comfortable, in an easy-chair, watching reality TV and eating Doritos, but you won’t experience any truly happy moments, either. You need the bad (or even just the possibility of bad) to truly experience the good, and to fully appreciate the difference between the two.

Do you know what I told myself a year ago, after realizing in the winter of 2010 that I had effectively made very few friends in my whole time in San Diego and that I was essentially scared of taking any risks?

I told myself I’d say the fuck YES! to life as much as possible, and get myself out there.

So I stuck to an intention of hanging out with someone different every week. I reached out to all the people I had been telling “Let’s hang out!” for the entire time I’d been living in San Diego, and finally got to know them.

I finally hung out with Grayce, whom I’d met in 2008 but never actually talked to– and she eventually became my roommate and one of the most awesome friends I have.

I met an awesome woman named Linh from Hanoi who worked for an environmental NGO in Kenya over the summer and is going to change the world (along with my future wads of philanthropic donations to her future organizations, hehe).

I talked to tons of random people, met a singer-songwriter-sitarist who walked the Pacific Crest Trail and all across India, connected with bestselling authors and revolutionaries, and met my first new friend in Montreal via a Tumblr tag!

I began talking to “strangers” more.

Something I’d been wanting to learn how to do since the second time I came to Montreal in 2008, when I first started realizing that my mission for my life was to inspire happiness in the world as much as humanly possible.

And you know what? I started out complimenting people. (And I still do!)

I would just randomly tell people how much I liked their style, their smile, their hair.

And most people were shocked.

And they loved it.

A year ago, the amazing Holly of Eating a Tangerine wrote her 2011 intentions:

My wide intention for the year is to risk more. Especially:

To do more things that I’m not certain I will succeed at or enjoy.

Simple enough; another assault on the dreaded inner tyrant Perfectionist. Less hesitation, bolder ambitions, more attempts, more new things… more messes and failures, and more learning.

And to lower my guard a bit.

I sometimes hold bad grudges with people I know, and I can keep friendships with new people at a superficial level almost indefinitely. But trust will never not be a risk, as long as people are imperfect—and when I do not trust enough, my friendships stagnate and I start to feel very lonely, and it’s no good. Yet how to stop being afraid of the pain of being hurt by a friend? I suppose it’s like any other emotional fear: If you wait to act until it’s gone, you will never move, so you acknowledge it and then you make your way through it.

I am not going to let myself simply hold my ground this year.

“Trust will never not be a risk, as long as people are imperfect.”

Holly asked me, which do I think is scarier– giving up perfectionism, or trusting others: the vulnerability that comes with a new friendship, a new connection?

I told her the vulnerability. Because perfectionism, ultimately, is something we can control for ourselves. With lots of practice, I can learn to control the insidious effects of the monster called perfectionism. But other people…?

How other people treat us, how much they love us or don’t love us, how they respect or remain honest and open with us– we can’t control that. We can’t even know it, either, sometimes.

And that’s what makes it half (or most) of the fun.

This isn’t just about relationships or other people, but anything that holds us back from being what we could be, what we already are, deep inside.

Fear.

I’ve been waiting for the right time to share this journal entry with you, and I think now’s a better time than ever:

Living, truly living my passion, today on May 18th, 2011, is scary.

In fact, it …

I can see it now.

My life. Two paths. Or a million and one. And that one is the one I need to take, and that other million might just be one.

The one is the safe path. The one where I get a paycheck; where I don’t have to worry or challenge myself or face my fears. The safe path. The easy way. The path I live to be happy. Just happy, content. Almost… obedient. Submissive. Submitted. Surrendered. (And probably in not the best states of health.)

The other is the true path for me. Exciting, exhilarating. Doing what I love, living my passion and not caring if I fail. Not caring if I fall flat on my face. Loving life, loving what I do, being excited and feeling blessed and grateful every, single, moment. Enjoying everything. Challenging myself. Growing. Giving myself ridiculous challenges and strengthening myself with each new victory, with each conquer. Sharpening my sword with life.

And the first path is tempting. Because I want a simple life; I don’t need much. I have tons of abundance regardless of the number in a computer at the bank.

But the second path is unknown. Requires my own hustling. Requires rapid, insane, radical growth. Requires changes and challenges.

And that’s why I know in my heart that the second path is what I’m meant to take if I want to have a life worth living. That if I settled for anything less, it would be the end of me.

I will remember what it’s like to be a kid again, to be playful with this. I will be excited just because I’m trying something new and I don’t know how it’ll turn out. Oh, childlike wonder..!

I will take it step by step. I will go as much as I can, building up my strength and courage until I can blaze a new trail and travel on that trail.

That was the day.

That was the day that I decided, whether I bled out gold or coal, whether I sweat out inspiration or simply found myself in tears, I would set myself on fire and use everything in my being to make my dreams come true and live a life I wouldn’t regret dying with.

I’m moving to New York City in a few weeks, simply because I want to– with nothing holding me back from flying or falling.

Shaving my head didn’t terrify me one bit.

Jumping out of a plane didn’t really faze me.

(Piloting a plane did, on the other hand… but that’s another story.)

Letting go of my relationship, and therefore my past life, was frightening.

Letting go of the myths of being thin was terrifying, because it meant that I had to take responsibility for my own happiness and my own life instead of thinking some mythical body ideal (or anything else, for that matter) would complete me.

Letting go of all that was holding me on the ground– by leaving everything I had known and letting myself fall without any certainty or security instead– made me depressed, lonely, scared shitless. And then I cried uncontrollably for a week straight. And then I woke up in 2012 with lightness in place of the hollow that my sorrow had carved.

And then I realized that if what I thought was happiness made me feel stuck, idle, and unchanging– that it was comfortable to the point of stagnation– I didn’t want it.

I don’t want stability. I don’t want comfort. I don’t want to live my life hanging on to who I was yesterday or even a moment ago.

I want euphoria, I want to chase dreams, I want to feel so much of life that I cry and laugh without restraint all in the same moment.

Life is meant to be delicious and full of passion.

Life is meant to feel alive.

If you’re ready to live, please go drown in your passion, chase your dreams, and set the world on fire.

We need you.

read more:

• “I’m just a fucked up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.”
• the answer is YES.
• all it takes to defeat fear

A reader wrote to me a while back that she really wanted to subscribe to the Letter but hesitated because her inbox was so full of other subscriptions. I thought that that was an interesting (and all-too-common, unfortunately) conundrum that I wanted to help remedy (and not just so people have more room for me in their inboxes ;)).

I’ve read (citation needed!) that the reason why so many people have trouble with their email is because we were never taught how to properly deal with non-analogue (i.e. nonphysical) “stuff.” (You can fit so much on a microSD card. Isn’t that frightening?) It explains why, when I look at the inboxes of some of my friends, I see a lot of emails– many unread, and all in one place.

Getting control of your inbox, in theory, shouldn’t be that hard– but there are now countless info products and e-courses of all kinds aimed to help you do just that. Forget having to fork down a couple hundred dollars for an escape from your inbox overwhelm– I’ll just tell you the way I do it and you can try it out for yourself for free. ;)

I wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t until I started unplugging in September (and went on a weeklong retreat) that I realized how freeing it could be to simply forget about the digital world for a while. It’s tricky for me especially, because, as you can see, my work is (right now) almost all in the digital space. When I was creating like crazy over the summer, I bet half my time was spent (or wasted) refreshing my inbox and Twitter. (Which explains my intentional absences from the latter.)

The thing is, there are good reasons why we get overwhelmed by all this digital input. I’ll explain that as I talk more about my process.

Here’s what I do to free myself from the abyss of neverending emails:

1. I don’t own a “smart”phone.

I don’t have a phone with internet, plain and simple. I deleted the Gmail notification app off of my computer long ago. (Back when I was on LiveJournal, I had the LJ notification app and would refresh my friends page every quarter of an hour.) I turn off my notifications for ALL apps. Even if I really wanted to, I refrain because I know it won’t be beneficial or healthy for me. (Loving yourself, check.)

I unplug from my cell phone sometimes, too– I turn it off or I don’t check it after dinner or until noon the next day.

The internet is always on, that’s the thing. But we don’t have to be. We have lives outside the internet (I hope). We can remember what’s really important, and truly live live live our lives instead.

If there’s a truly urgent emergency, people will find a way to reach us. And it probably won’t be through email.

2. I don’t check email until the end of the day, or after I’ve finished my most crucial work.

I’ve been slipping on this one as of late because of the book release festivities, but the thing is, I recognize that my “need” to check email actually comes from somewhere else. Why do I feel like I “need” to check email? Because I’m yearning for social connection and validation. Email gives me a temporary sense of socialization with others during my work day.

The thing is, when I check my email first thing in the morning, it hits the “on” switch– the “email on” switch. Then, even if I try to get other things done, I continue to return to the inbox every 15 minutes. Honestly? It feels good– much like refreshing Facebook once felt for me. But when this “email switch” is on, my mind is automatically sent into a flurry. I rush through my meals. I forget to breathe. I start running around trying to go to the bathroom as quickly as possible so I can return to my computer. I start to go mindless.

The “good” feeling is a result of compulsion, not nourishment. It’s akin to addiction, and that’s rarely healthy.

When I don’t check email at all until the end of the day– or only on a certain few days a week, even!– I’m free to actually work on what’s really important. My head honestly feels clearer, and when I do sit down to check my messages, it’s with mindfulness and genuine presence. I don’t just send off cursory responses– I really absorb what other people are communicating to me.

And when I have already done my work, I try to be as mindful as I can before I even log in.

Before I open my inbox, I breathe.

I ask myself (if I haven’t done any work yet or am procrastinating, and feel the urge to check email) why I’m looking at my email. What needs do I have? What do I think will be fulfilled by that simple act?

And then I log in.

(Another tip: I never stay signed in, so that I always have to pause before opening my inbox. Just another pause of mindfulness for me.)

3. The moment I log in, I open all my emails, organize them immediately, and label almost all of them “to read/respond to” (in Gmail) and archive them before even really looking at them.

If it’s a newsletter, I label it that.

If it’s an email a friend has sent me, I label it that.

If it’s an email notifying me of my sales, I glance at it and archive it.

I basically label and archive EVERYTHING right away when I enter my inbox. Why? Because just seeing all of the stuff there overwhelms me. I know I’m not going to read or respond to it all right away, so I put an important label on it and get it out of my sight for one moment, first.

(Also, I love Gmail’s “priority inbox” feature. The only stuff on my main page are what’s unread– which is usually nothing, after I’ve gone and sorted everything– and my inbox, which only has a few of my favorite inspirational messages from the Universe.)

The only things I leave in my inbox to read immediately are Notes from the Universe. (And this month, I’m also retaking Gratia– yes, I take my own courses; everyone can benefit from more gratitude reminders in their life, after all!– so those are in there, too.)

I read what the Universe has to tell me that day.

I focus a few seconds on the gratitude topic for the day.

Then, and only then, do I attend to reading and responding other emails.

4. I keep my emails as short as possible.

I resisted the five sentences tenet for a while. But email is for communicating! I love my words!

Then I realized that the way I used email before I started working in (and with) my inbox had to differ from the way I used email after my work became mainly digital.

In the past, I’ve written very long letters via email to friends while overseas. I had more time for that once upon a time. I don’t have that time now.

So I keep my emails as short and to the point as possible. I don’t subscribe to an arbitrary number of sentences (5?) but I do do my best to be concise.

I’ve also found that getting to know someone online is way easier through Skype or at the very least text chat, anyway– as opposed to sending them a long letter.

Besides, I use snail mail if I want to make my correspondence truly special.

5. I subscribe only to what’s really important to me.

I’ve become very good at clicking the “unsubscribe” button. I used to be subscribed to a lot of random lists I didn’t really care about. (The extreme cases are the more spammy lists that I don’t even think I signed up for.)

If you’re on this list and you don’t care about what I write, I encourage you to subscribe. The unsubscribe link is always there, ready for you to click! I don’t want you to waste your time :)

I still subscribe to a few newsletters that I don’t absolutely love, but I think they’re interesting. I also have a few paid subscriptions to other lovelies’ letters as well, as I enjoy supporting my fellow digital creators.

Our lives are short and our time here in this world is precious. You don’t need to waste it on emails you never read or that don’t enrich your journey or bring you joy.

In conclusion…

Email is a great tool for communication, but it can’t beat real, in-person connection and presence.

So throw your smartphone into a swimming pool (like one of my friends did, admittedly by accident) or at least keep it off when you’re not working or when you’re not actually committing to being present online.

If you’re going to be online, be online completely. Put all your presence there. Absorb new ideas. Read great work. Get inspired. Watch cat videos… uh, what? (Just kidding– looking at cute cats is one of my favorite pastimes. That needn’t be crossed out. ;) And yes, I am a crazy cat lady. And I do like cake.)

If you’re going to be offline– i.e., the entire rest of this living thing that we do– then be there completely. Give all your attention to the present moment, and be here and be now.

When I’m not chained to my email, I feel much freer. I’m able to have the space to be more mindful and present. I don’t just have it, though– I cultivate it, day after day, by being intentional with my email.

Inbox 0 can be a determining success factor– or at least one component of the maintenance of your mental and emotional sanity, no matter what your relationship to the digital world– but you don’t need to break your back or have to pay someone else to teach you how to achieve it.

If this post was helpful to you, please share! Click through to use the buttons below this post to forward to a friend. Thanks, warrior!

P.S. My latest book, The Thing About Thin, is now $19.
Read more + buy here.

read more:

• the man who didn’t believe in love.
• true love is paying attention.
• 8 ways to feel better about your body now!

I’ve also been getting busy propelling myself back into my first entrepreneurial creative venture and making sweet love to my camera after a semi-photography sabbatical last year. But that’s a story for another day. ;)

I’ve been getting busy, and who doesn’t love to start (rather than end) their week with a link round-up? I jest, I jest; but I just wanted to share a few gems with you on this lovely Monday morning afternoon.

Two pieces that have been published recently elsewhere:

• This one dives lightly, for my first time, into what it’s been like to me as a hyphenated Asian with a history of eating disorders: “Losing Weight Will Not Fix Your Life” at Thick Dumpling Skin (because I had no idea for any other title– I wanted to mention dumplings but that’s already been taken! ;))
• Maybe you’re just hungry at Voice in Recovery– yet another post about hunger, because I love hunger and I’m grateful for hunger– because it means I’m listening to my body, and that I get yet another opportunity to nourish myself!

Other places I’ve been wandering that you may have missed:

• 5 Kind New Habits for an Awesome New Year at Yes and Yes– the year’s just started, and now is always the best time to implement more self-care into your life.
• Making a Difference with Writing: Self-love warrior Sui Solitaire talks about using writing to make a difference at Crystal Clarity Copywriting– the lovely Tanja interviewed me about how I use writing to change the world

Two reviews for my latest book The Thing About Thin that touched me and filled me with warm and fuzzy feelings:

• Happiness is not an end in itself. (Review: The Thing About Thin)

  What touched me most about this review:

  “…The book’s scope is far larger. While the reference point here is to body image and curing self-hate as expressed against our bodies, the teachings in this book could apply to anyone at all who has stifled the size of their inner self, whether through drinking, drugs, toxic relationships, zoneing out on the world… all of them forms of spiritual anaesthesia that prevents you (or me) from truly LIVING.

  It’s a deeply nourishing, soul-feeding book that explores how we resist ourselves from fear, and how that fear becomes an internalised limit on what we can feel and how we can be.”

  As I wrote on Google+ (speaking of which, are you hanging out with me and our fellow warriors there yet? ;)):

  I don’t just write about body image or eating disorders– I aim to write about our humanness and how we navigate the challenges that we face in our day-to-day lives. If you have time, please consider this book, even if you have never struggled with body image issues.

  The message that I’ve intended to impart has been gratefully understood: This isn’t just about body image or eating disorders. This is about life and all the ways we hold back from ourselves from being our most wonderful, truest selves.

• Inspirations (by Aimee Levesque)

  What touched me most about this “review”: (i.e. as Aimee writes: “I prefer writing so-called reviews that are, in fact, just a collection of reading notes.”)

  “The thing about this book is that it’s so revealing (of Sui’s as well as my life) that it has shaken me to the core. Focusing excessively on myself just doesn’t make that much sense anymore; In fact, instead of being an end, self-acceptance may be just a means. A means to justice, or whatever goal we have set for ourselves.

  But it might be still necessary, in order to be able to dig from our hearts.

  Reading this book, I literally felt beautiful…

  I knew what I had to do next: Acknowledge that I was already fulfilling my own purpose (the one I have for now), and that was making me more complete every day.

  (Being perfect is not a purpose. Who does it help anyway? Not even me, considering the imminent fall.)

  This book is not only for people recovering (or trying to recover) from eating disorders. If you are willing to move beyond the first pages, you will discover a unique voice, humble AND strong. That’s what I like about Sui and her website cynosure: At first I thought, “Oh, just another website on self-acceptance and self-love,” but I soon realized hers was way deeper than a lot of them. Her twist on things is always so unexpected, but it always makes so much sense. It resonates.”

I am so, so grateful to have you here, dear warrior.

Thank you for lighting up my journey the way that you do.

P.S.

Shout-out for stories!

Are you a male-identified sufferer/survivor of eating disorders? If so, I’d love to talk to you– email me at hello at sui-solitaire.com. I’d love to hear your story, publish your experience, or interview you. :)

Also, are there any Asian-American male recovery warriors (to borrow Kendra’s term) in the house? I’d like to talk to you, too. (Non-Asian males, I still love you! But this is for a separate project I’m working on with others.)

If you know anyone who fits either criterion, will you forward them this post? Thank you so much, dear warrior!

I finished rereading it today, having bought two copies (not to worry, fellow tree-huggers– the second was digital, and the first, used) because I had forgotten my print copy in California. I wanted to share with you some savory quotes that I could have included in the book, but didn’t:

“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

“The enemy of the artist is the small-time Ego, which begets Resistance, which is the dragon that guards the gold.

That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility.”

“If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet…

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.

Give us what you’ve got.”

Highly recommended– after you read this one first, of course. ;)

Fun fact: I emailed Steven Pressfield a copy of my book and he complimented me on the title and told me he’d read it soon. Yes!

read more:

• if you never read anything else by me, at least read this.
• 15 on my saturday morning to-do list
• my 3rd big epiphany

Past me surprises me often.

As I impart onto Love, You warriors, “little acorns lead to mighty oaks.” The Mighty Oak within us is already there, we just haven’t rediscovered that part of ourselves yet.

I write this because when I look back, I can see that I kind of always knew what the answer to my various self-imposed issues was– I just didn’t know how to truly embody it.

my mind and thoughts; endless realizations
2007 November 20 (before I began to recover in earnest, and when I was still in the depths of self-destructive hell)

in the end, it took so many years to figure it out, find the obvious answer, right in front of me:
“love yourself.”

Even this, one of the very first posts published here on cynosure, surprised me today as I reread it. I’m still learning the lessons herein, and I keep on having to forget and remember the very things I told myself two years ago:

we all survive. we all heal.
2009 December 3

winter, maybe.

do you ever feel like you don’t know why you’re alive? sometimes that it wouldn’t matter if you were dead or not. a second ago you had passion for everything in existence, but now the flickers have whistled away. apathy is worse than sadness, in my opinion. anesthesia is the real depression, indifference the true disease. wishing you can’t feel pain doesn’t make pain go away, it just makes you numb to all– happiness and joy included.

when I experience a moment like this, sometimes the first thing I think is: I was supposed to be over all of this by now. I was supposed to have “healed” from whatever wispy grey of fog (or pollution?) clouded my heart once upon a time. I’m “supposed” to be happy. but that’s what I forget, that none of us really “should” be anything but ourselves. that the only thing we “should” do is let ourselves be.

(Read more.)

And this, from three years ago, right before I even started learning to love myself for real:

You know what?
2009 February 10

Life is hard. Life is so, so hard sometimes.

You can be on the edge of dying. Not dying physically, necessarily, but in spirit. You could be simply losing your will to live. Your will to stay alive one more second. Your will to wake up. And be conscious when the world keeps on going, when time passes.

Life can be so hard it tears you apart. It makes you fall apart. It rips you up.

But that’s why you keep putting one foot in front of each other. That’s why you learn to get up, even when both your legs are broken or missing or gone and you just. don’t. want. to. go. any. further.

It’s okay to want to give up. And it’s okay to feel like giving up. It’s okay to realize that, whatever you’re doing at this moment that’s making you feel such despair, maybe it’s just not what you need right now. And it’s okay to admit that.

Whatever you feel.. whether it be weak, or simply too tired… it’s okay.

But you ARE enough. And you will ALWAYS be enough. And even if you feel disappointed in yourself.. it’s past. Right now is right now. You can recreate your life starting this very moment.

(Read more.)

I share with you these because when I wrote the first and third pieces, I was, honestly, kind of a mess.

Yet, somehow, even in those darkest times, I found some light within me– the light that’s within all of us– and kept moving forward, holding onto that slightest flickering flame. It honestly shocks me sometimes to see that I could have, out of seemingly nowhere, pulled out just enough hope and wisdom to keep me going.

But maybe it wasn’t just me, at least me in that very moment– the me in 2007 who was struggling with an eating disorder, having just ended her poor excuse for a relationship and gotten her heart broken by the same guy who broke it three years before– or the me in 2009 who was living alone and found herself dreadfully, dreadfully lonely and depressed. Maybe it was future me– maybe even me here, now, or even further beyond, a me that I don’t even know yet– whispering hope into my own heart years ago.

The thing is, we never know for sure where exactly we’re heading. No matter how much we don’t even feel like being alive today, with every step we take, we go forward, not back. We’re always learning, we’re always growing, and we’re always waking up more and more every day to the magnificence that’s already within us.

We can’t see where we’re going until we get there. We might know the journey we want to take, the forks in the road we prefer over the others. We might know where we really do want to go. But we don’t know what it’ll be like until we actually arrive where we’re meant to be.

I’m going to quote the uber-talented Utada Hikaru here in a blatant reveal of my not-so-publicized videogame nerdery:

Regardless of warnings
the future doesn’t scare me at all
Nothing’s like before.

No matter what we’ve put behind us, no matter what we’re even traveling through now, the future won’t be anything like yesterday or today.

We can always choose, in each moment, to create for ourselves something different.

Eight years ago, I couldn’t have even dreamt of the peace and joy that I live with now.

Eight years ago today, I was contemplating suicide and harming myself, forming the thin, faint white scar on my right wrist– and other scars that have long since faded.

Eight years ago, I couldn’t have known that one day I would learn to be grateful for the depression, the abuse, the heartbreak, the sorrow and self-destruction, somehow.

Eight years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that one day, I would be making my life’s work reminding others that our lives are always worth living, no matter how it feels otherwise.

I never saw this reality until I got here. The only thing I could do was take tiny little steps, every day. In 2004, the steps I took– the only steps I could take– were simply to refrain from hurting myself and keep on staying alive.

Today, I’m still taking steps. Steps to soften, to open, to be kinder and more understanding. To let go. To empathize deeper.

We can’t see where we’re going.

But where we are right now is where we’re meant to be, and no matter what our situation the best thing we can do is find some semblance of hope, of gratitude, of acceptance. Of love.

We can’t see where we’re going, so we might as well enjoy what we can see: where we are, right now.

(And trust me on this… it only gets better from here.)

Reviews for The Thing About Thin:

“…Sui Solitaire (of everything I’ve ever loved ever… I don’t think Sui’s courses and e-books have been out of my inbox since she started ‘em) has released The Thing about Thin. I’ll give you the short version and say:

It’s brilliant. It burns with a raw honesty. It inspires with a burning passion. It is, to quote the author, fucking liberating.

And it is about more than eating disorders.

…Parts of it were so perfectly spot-on for me, it felt as though she had read my mind (I haven’t ruled this out) and written out how I felt in ways I couldn’t express yet… This book makes heavy the point that it is a journey, and one which we learn through. Parts of the journey we repeat, and that’s okay.

If you’re still reading this review, that’s okay too, but I find it difficult to believe that you haven’t skipped on over there and laid down some cold hard e-cash for this amazing book.”

♥ Amelia J. Wells, SilenceCupcake.info (read the rest of the review here)

Liberate yourself. Start your revolution.

read more:

• promise yourself to be strong
• we all survive. we all heal.
• the time to love your body is now. not tomorrow, not tuesday. now.