Inside My Head

What we think about ourselves is dangerous territory. And talking about what we think about ourselves with others is like sticking dynamite in your mouth and hoping it doesn't go off. I find when we begin to have a genuine conversation, an authentic dialogue about who we really believe ourselves to be, we discover that we're not so alone in our neuroses.

But it takes a certain kind of person to get to that place. Usually, if you try to talk about what you think about yourself, you will be bombarded with comments like, "How could you think that?" or "Don't be so negative." "Don't be so hard on yourself." "No, you're not ___________!" (Fill in the blank with whatever your current body/self-related obsession happens to be). And I find discussions like this to be stupid and somewhat pointless. When I tell you what I think about myself in my head, I don't need you to tell me that I'm wrong to think that. If I'm telling you about it, I probably already know it's way off course. And that's the thing about self-image. How can we ever be certain about what others think of us? And honestly, they're probably too busy going over their own list of flaws in their head to care too much about yours.

But VEDA? VEDAers, as I've taken to calling the participants, are not like this. They are listeners. They are willing to open up authentic dialogues. They are willing to hear the most horrible things you have to say about yourself and respond with sympathy, not trite platitudes about how you should love yourself. Because we all know we should love ourselves. Sometimes, what we really need to hear is, "Yeah. Me too."

I was really blown away by the response to my own VEDA video, and definitely moved by many others' honest and vulnerable videos. I thought I would share some of that here. I also want to send you over to read this post from Kerri, who is sadly not participating in VEDA, but has ended up writing a beautiful and inspiring post on body image at the same time!

These are the stories we're telling ourselves about who we are. These are the dialogues we're running in our heads. These are the words informing our esteem, determining our worth. They are not perfect, but they are honest. And they are real.

Why I Suck

I'm not sleeping these days. Maybe it's because Kenny's away for four nights, and although I was looking forward to sleeping at an angle in the bed, I can't sleep without him. Maybe it's because it's too hot without air conditioning these days, even though the rain is cooling things down quite a bit. Maybe it's because I'm a crazy person who can't fall asleep very fast. Ugh. I don't know what it is, but being awake until 4 every morning totally sucks. Lucky for me, I do get to sleep really long in the mornings, since I don't have to be to work until 2 on most days. 3 tomorrow!

I spend my insomniac hours listening to This American Life podcasts, which I highly recommend you go download right now. I'm a little bit in love with Ira Glass. Sometimes I make long to-do lists, but of course don't do any of it, because who's really productive at 3:30 in the morning? (I did make homemade lemonade at 1:30 am today though. Didn't want all those failed-cleanse lemons going to waste. Honestly? I didn't even start it. I just thought about going on it yesterday, didn't eat much, and didn't have coffee. Then, my life sucked. So this afternoon, I put the world right with a coffee and a few donuts. Cleanse? What was I thinking.) Or I watch all the VEDA videos.

Speaking of VEDA videos, here's something I'm not good at, which was our topic for today.



Sorry the quality is so crap. It's not crap in iMovie, but when I throw it up on the web, it disintegrates. Whatev. You can still hear my big fat mouth, and that's really all that counts.

Good Morning, Good Morning

The only way I think the morning is great is if I stay up late and meet the next day in front of the computer, reading a book, or talking with the HubbO. Kind of like this: (Sorry for the subtitles at the bottom. The rest of the videos had disabled embedding.)

That was one of my favorite scenes from Singing in the Rain and it's still the only way I like to have anything to do with morning times. It's a happy song that only makes me happy after the morning is over. Because basically, nothing can cheer me up or pull me out of a funk before 11 am.

Today's topic was "Mornings" for VEDA. So, here it is.

VEDA: Vlog Every Day in August

Today is the first of August (I have 6 minutes of this day left!) and it is also the beginning of Ashley and Pham's collaboration: VEDA. Which stands for Vlog Every Day in August. Apparently in is too short to ride this ride. Poor guy. Maybe next year.

Anyway, I am participating in this huge video blogging extravaganza. And let me tell you, I do NOT feel like figuring out all the editing stuff for my videos. So, most of it will be uncut and unedited. Except for the fact that I took like 15 takes and said a lot of bad words. So, the final product is okay. It's a little longer than I had planned, but for me to talk to myself for less than at least 10 minutes is rough. Anyway, it's not all fancy pants or anything. 

Another note, before you watch it (because you are going to watch it, right?), we do not have air conditioning. Have I told you this before? And I had to turn off the office fan in order to be heard on the video. So, it gets a little messy there, what with the sweat mustache and all. Forgive my perspiration.  Also, I had to change my freaking location because Korea doesn't allow people to upload videos due to their "real name/ID" policy. Yeah, that's right. No anonymity on the Korean Internets. Luckily, it was easy to fix. 

AND you can find all the participants' blogs, YouTube channels, and Twitters here. You can find my YouTube Channel here and my Twitter here. I'll post the first couple videos here, but most likely will turn out just posting links here, as well as Twitter and Facebook. 

Not only is this week the first week in August, it's the first week of a 10 day cleanse I'm doing. So, if I'm all cranky and crappy in the next few videos, you'll know why! Enjoy the videos and make sure you leave lots of comments. Because I'm off the coffee and donuts for the next 10 days. Feeeeed me with your looooooove. Okay? Okay!