#it's so cringe to read her monologues about being strong and powerful when the only reason she even has magical powers is because of Leifta

[glassmoonfortuneteller]

Erika's "we'll take back everything the humans took from us" speech is funny as hell because she is a human rich kid with an aengel greatgrandparent she never heard about before who lived her entired life in the human world and only arrived in Eldarya by accident. So because she lived for a year or so (the time inside the crystal doesn't count) in faerie land she thinks she can talk for an entire race that became extinct after a genocide caused not by humans but for other faeries?

[ahtohallan-calling]

chapter 12 of don’t read the last page is here!

masterpost

[kristanna / m / multichap / modern au with actress!anna and vetstudent!kristoff]

“So much is changing right now for both of us, and I’m so happy for you, seriously. But like...what if we change? What if you ask me to move in, and I did, and then later we fell out of love, and now it’s not just a breakup, it’s a whole big...thing? What would you do then?”

Anna chewed on her bottom lip. He resisted the urge to pull it free and kiss her.

"I don't know," she said finally.

chapter 12: a couple of turkeys

Mercifully, Anna fell asleep after the most excruciating forty-five minutes of his life. She was leaning against the window, so he couldn’t see her face, which was probably for the best, because the wounded look in her eyes was absolutely killing him.

“That’s fine,” she’d said quickly after he’d told her moving in together probably wasn’t a good idea. “You’re right, I wasn’t even thinking, I’m sorry. Let’s just-- let’s just get back on the road.”

“Anna, I’m not--”

“Come on, your mom’s waiting.”

“It’s just that I--”

“It’s fine,” she had insisted. “You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to have a reason not to want to live with me.”

And then she’d looked down at her phone and began talking animatedly about how Elsa was already sending pictures of her getaway with Honeymaren and how cute they were together and how they had better let her be the maid of honor at their wedding because this was all due to her, and Kristoff had started driving again, and though he laughed at all the right parts in her monologue neither of them actually smiled.

And then she’d gotten quiet after a while and snuck a glance at him. “Are you upset that I asked you? I’m...I really am sorry if I asked too soon or something. It’s just, um, you know we’re both always like ‘man I wish I didn’t have to go home’ and then. Um. I don’t know. But it’s okay, really. We don’t have to rush anything.”

“It’s not that it feels like rushing. I’m just trying to think long-term, you know?”

“...what do you mean?”

“Just...I don’t know. Sometimes things just don’t...work out.”

“Oh,” she had said, very softly, and that was when she had turned away and rested her forehead against the glass, and neither of them had spoken since.

He wanted to set his hand on her knee, let her know that this didn’t mean he loved her any less, but he didn’t want to wake her, not when the shadows under her eyes were darker than he had ever seen. She hadn’t even started filming yet, and already between the rehearsals all day and the interviews and paparazzi-dodging all night, she was completely exhausted.

If you lived together, the voice in his head said, making his heart ache, then maybe you could help with that.

He would; as tired as he was these days, he’d do whatever she needed in order to help her get at least a little bit of rest. Even if that meant letting her steal all the blankets so that he had to roll over and hold her in order to get any warmth-- and as he thought it, it occurred to him for the first time that that was precisely why she did it.

Fuck.

And he’d said no out of fear that he’d stop being enough for her, out of the certainty that this was going to end, and in doing so had probably sped up the demise of the best thing in his life. 

His fingers clenched around the steering wheel. He wanted to do the right thing, wanted to do right by her. But it felt like there was no right, not when leaving would mean breaking her heart and his own, and staying with her meant he’d only hold her back from whatever- whoever— she was meant for.

A little snore escaped her then, and he felt a sudden twinge of affection so strong he unconsciously pressed a hand over his heart. God, he thought, but what if she’s meant for me?

That was pure, self-indulgent fantasy. Just because they’d been friends who had secretly loved each other all through high school and lost touch with each other and somehow reconnected years later and fallen in love all over again almost immediately and never had an actual fight (until now maybe) and hated being apart and liked the same kind of pizza and fit perfectly together in every sense of the word and—

Fuck, he thought again, but this time there was a sense of wonder about it. 

He had three more hours to ponder over it all before he pulled up in front of his parents’ house, three hours to come to a decision, to formulate an explanation and an apology, to realize that maybe, just maybe, there was a right thing to do. 

Anna was still asleep when he pulled up to the house, but that only lasted as long as it took for his youngest sister to hear the car pull up and run out to meet them, yelling, “You’re here!”

Anna jerked upright, looking disoriented, but the moment Kristoff squeezed her hand she blinked and offered him a smile, one that slid away all too quickly and was replaced by a look of shame. “Anna, I—“ he started, already knowing he’d do everything in his power to make it up to her as soon as he could, but he was interrupted by another squeal of delight as his mother ran up to meet them. 

He squeezed Anna’s hand quickly before she could get out of the car. “Talk later?”

For some reason, that only made her look even sadder, but she just nodded and hopped out of the car to sweep his sister into a hug. “Elise, wow! How have you already grown since this summer, huh?” she said, and despite himself he smiled. 

“Hey, Mom,” he said as he was pulled down into a tight embrace. 

“How’s she doing?” his mother asked, kissing his cheek. 

“She’s okay.”

“You’re taking care of her?”

“Of course,” he said, inwardly cringing. At least that wouldn’t be a lie much longer. 

She kissed his cheek again and freed him from the tight squeeze of her arms. “And how are your classes going?”

“Good, really good,” he said, and she beamed proudly up at him. 

“Kris!” his brother yelled from the open back door, “get your ass in here to watch the game!”

“Nate! Language!” his mother called back, shaking her head fondly as she went to hug Anna. 

Anna’s face lit up. “It’s so good to see you, Mrs. B. I brought, um, I brought a pie.”

Just as Kristoff had predicted, his mother was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude at the sight of the pie, gushing about how much she appreciated it and how impressed she was all the way inside. He followed with a smile, clapping Elise on the shoulder. 

“You guys need to visit more often,” his sister said, giving him an accusatory glance. “There’s too many boys around here now that Lilly’s in college.”

“And I won’t make that worse?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“You don’t really count as a boy. You take showers,” she said with all the wisdom fifth grade had afforded her. “And Anna makes up for you, anyway.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” he said, and Elise gagged. 

“Geez, Kris, you’re worse than the girls at school.”

He didn’t care. He tugged gently at the end of one of her dark braids. “Missed you too, munchkin.”

“Doofus.”

With that, he headed indoors to catch up with the rest of the family. 

Between his sisters asking what it was like getting to be a princess in two movies (“like a dream come true”) and his brothers asking not-so-subtly if this meant she got Lakers tickets for free (“I don’t know, but I’ll ask”) and his mother, to his father’s chagrin, asking dreamily what it was like acting with Hans Westergaard (so that was that guy’s name— to his relief, Anna just shrugged and said “fine”), he didn’t even get a chance to speak to Anna alone until hours after dinner, when the rest of his family had finally gone upstairs to bed, leaving them to get the sofa bed set up. 

“Listen, baby, about earlier—“ he began, but she shook her head emphatically as she tucked in one corner of a sheet. 

“Kris, I really don’t want to do this with your family right upstairs.”

“Do what?”

“You know, break up or whatever.”

“Jesus,” he said, genuinely horrified. 

“Well. Sorry to be blunt. Just don’t see the point in dancing around it.”

He froze, a pillow in his hands. “Do you think I want to break up with you?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I said or whatever. And your sisters are probably listening to this right now, so like I said, let’s just leave it. At least til after lunch tomorrow, okay?”

She laid down on her side, curling up and facing away from him. He sat next to her, putting a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “Anna, I don’t want to break up.”

She didn’t move as she replied. “It’s okay. Seriously, I get it, all the sneaking around and how busy I’ve gotten, like— I don’t blame you. I’m not mad, I just...don’t want to do this right now. I don’t know. I’m tired.”

He leaned over so he could see her face. There were silent tears tracking down her cheeks. “Anna, baby,” he said softly, reaching to brush them away, “I mean it. I— do you want to break up?”

She shook her head, the tears picking up speed, and he laid down behind her, pulling her snug against his chest. “I love you,” he murmured, but still she was tense in his arms. “And I’m really sorry I upset you.”

She turned to face him, and his heart ached at the exhaustion and disappointment and simple sadness muddled in her eyes. “I’m sorry if I, like, pushed you or made you feel pressured or something, really.”

“No, baby, it was all me. I promise.”

She nodded, just barely, and he gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m serious, though, I don’t really feel ready to talk about it right now,” she said, tucking her face against the crook of his neck. “Can we figure it out tomorrow?”

He settled his hands over her shoulder blades, pressing her close to him. “Of course. Whenever you’re ready. I just…fuck. I'm sorry."

“I'm sorry, too. For jumping to the worst possible conclusion."

He kissed the top of her head. "No, that wasn’t your fault. I realize now I, uh, I kind of explained myself in the worst possible way. So sorry for that, too."

 "Well, we're okay now," she said, and a sigh of relief escaped him. He felt her smile against his shoulder as she spoke again. "We’ll figure the rest of it out in the morning.” She yawned against him, nestling a little closer. “Love you.”

“Love you back.”

---

He was awoken the next morning by Elise plaintively whispering, "Wake up, the parade already started, and I want to watch it in here."

Anna, still nestled in his arms, nuzzled her face sleepily against his chest. He ran a hand over her hair and whispered to the girl peeking around the corner, "Can you watch it on mute or something?"

"Kris!"

He chuckled. "Okay, fine. But don't blame me when you find out what a grump Anna is before daylight."

"Fuck you," the grump in question mumbled, only loud enough for him to hear. "I'm a ray of sunshine in the morning."

Elise tiptoed closer. "Lilly taught me how to make coffee. Do you want some?"

Anna sat up then, her mood vastly improved. "Bless you, Ellie. Always knew you were my favorite Bjorgman."

They left Anna curled up on the sofa bed and tiptoed into the kitchen. Kristoff couldn't help but grin as he and his sister pushed their glasses up at the same time; they were both adopted, all his siblings were, but somehow he and Elise had ended up being just alike anyhow.

"How was school last week?" he asked, handing her the coffee scoop she couldn't quite get from an upper shelf.

"Boring. Everyone just wanted to go home for break, even the teachers. We watched Anna's movie in science the last two days because the teacher went to New York."

"Did you like it?"

"Duh! I already watched it like five times. Me and Emma watched it twice at our sleepover last week. I almost forgot and told her I knew Anna, but I didn't. I'm keeping my promise."

He gave her a high five. "Thanks, El. I know it's hard."

"I kinda like it. It makes me feel like Spiderman."

Kristoff laughed as he pulled down three mugs. "Why?"

"It's like, this super cool secret, you know? Like okay, at school I'm president of chess club and I have these big glasses--"

"Hey, I've got glasses too!"

"...but secretly I'm friends with Anna Arendelle. I've known her my whole life. She like, changed my diapers probably."

"Nah, that was all me. She helped teach you how to walk, though."

Elise's face brightened as she stirred her cup of creamer with a splash of coffee. "Really?"

"Yeah. And then how to dance so you could have living room parties together. You could barely say my name, but 'dance, Anna', that you had down pat."

She took a sip from her mug, mirroring him once again. "Are you guys gonna get married?"

He glanced back at the living room, where Anna was finally sitting up and stretching, awoken by the smell of coffee. "Hope so."

Ellie grinned. "Me, too."

They carried the coffee into the living room as Anna finished folding up the sofa bed. She thanked Elise with a hug and Kristoff with a kiss on the cheek, which earned an exaggerated groan from the younger Bjorgman, even as she smiled. He could almost forget the tension from the previous day with Ellie sitting cross-legged between them, but then he stretched his arm over the back of the couch, his fingers brushing Anna's shoulder, and when she turned to meet his gaze there was still a hint of trepidation in her eyes.

"I'm gonna go shower," she said suddenly, rising to her feet. "El, yell if the Snoopy float comes by so I can run out and see it, yeah?"

"Mmhmm," the girl said, engrossed in a commercial about some new Disney channel movie. He tucked that little fact away in his mind for Christmas shopping and gave Anna a smile.

She smiled back at least, but there was still something hesitant about it. He deserved it, he knew, but it stung all the same.

He settled back on the sofa, nodding whenever Ellie pointed out something she liked or commented on the performers, but his mind was elsewhere, running over what he planned to say all over again. He’d had it all so clear in his mind yesterday in the car, but last night’s revelation that he’d made it sound like he wanted to break up meant he needed to start over.

 An elbow suddenly jabbed into his ribs. “Quit moping, Kris.”

“Moping? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You literally just watched the Pikachu float nearly take out a whole marching band and didn’t even smile.”

“Ah, shi— shoot. Tell me you’re DVRing this?”

She scoffed at that. “Obviously. Lilly wants to watch all the Broadway performances, but she was up late talking to a boy again.”

“What boy?”

“I don’t know, she won’t tell me, but— Anna! You’re back! Get Kris to stop pouting, okay? He’s annoying me.”

Anna laughed softly, still rubbing a towel through her hair. “I’ll see what I can do. Kris, you wanna shower while I dry my hair and then go for a walk?”

His heart suddenly picked up speed; he nodded mutely and headed upstairs on Anna’s heels. It still hadn’t slowed down by the time they were outside, walking slowly by the banks of the creek that ran behind his parents’ house and meandered into the woods. 

“Um,” he said finally, wishing she would at least hold his hand. “We are okay, right? Like, okay enough to figure this out?”

She nodded. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“You know I don’t want to, um, break up with you though, right?”

“Yeah, I believe you. It’s just...why did you say those things, then? Like, I totally get it if you don’t want to live together—“

“It’s not that,” he said quickly, “sorry to interrupt, just— sorry.”

She offered him a crooked little half smile. “Good to know. But anyway, like, just the way you explained it made it sound like you didn’t think there was going to be an us in the future. Which was kind of weird, because you sounded so certain when Sam asked if we were in this for the long haul. So…I don’t know. Mixed messages, I guess.”

“I— it’s complicated. Because I love you, and I want to be with you for as long as possible.”

“And it doesn’t feel possible?”

“Not that! Just that...I don’t know. So much is changing right now for both of us, and I’m so happy for you, seriously. But like...what if we change? What if you ask me to move in, and I did, and then later we fell out of love, and now it’s not just a breakup, it’s a whole big...thing? What would you do then?”

Anna chewed on her bottom lip. He resisted the urge to pull it free and kiss her.

"I don't know," she said finally. "I don't know what I'd do. I've never gotten this far with someone before, or even, like, wanted to. But I want to do it with you. Or try, at least. I don’t want to give up now in case it might get hard later.”

His heart was suddenly in his throat. "Fuck, Anna, I'm sorry for being an idiot. Of course I want to try, I just-- I don't know. I guess I thought I...I just didn't want to end up being something you regret."

"Never," she said immediately, her eyes suddenly fierce. "Even if something goes wrong. But I-- god, Kris, maybe I'm crazy, but I really don't think it will. Like, with us, I mean, enough for us to ever want to break up. I just...I don't know."

He cupped her face in his hands; his heart was still pounding, but somehow it helped steady him, holding her like this and seeing the way she looked at him, the way that this time, somehow, didn't scare him anymore.

"Me either," he breathed, and a little smile started to grow on her face. "I just-- I never get tired of you, Anna, I can spend a whole weekend with you and still look forward to calling you to say goodnight. And I thought I missed you a lot when you were in Romania, but now that I know what it's like to have you, it's like...fuck, I'm not much good with words, but I just really, really love you, Anna, I-- I think maybe you're it for me."

Her smile broadened. "You're it for me, too, Kris."

He leaned down to press his forehead against hers, his thumbs stroking gently over her cheekbones. "Will you forgive me?"

"Always."

He kissed her as softly as he could. "Do you still want me to move in with you?"

"Promise to split the last piece of pizza with me?"

"Of course."

"And hold my hand at the end of Titanic?"

"If you don't tell anyone that it makes me cry, too."

"Promise to fuck me silly when we've had a really bad day and need to--"

He laughed against her mouth as he kissed her again. "All of it, Anna, anything you can think of. Anything that means I get to come home to you."

She smiled and pulled back to look at him. "That's all I want, too. Just you."

"That's a yes, then?"

"Yes," she laughed, "yes, I want you to live with me. And I think the only person happier about it than me will be Sven."

a/n: 

i might drabble some stuff i cut from this chapter later, including:

-anna talking about how suddenly all her distant cousins wanted to have a big family thanksgiving for the first time in years, but she still just did a quiet dinner with elsa and now this -ellie telling anna next year she has to bring two pies, and anna just immediately saying "of COURSE" and kristoff's heart melting bc she didn't even hesitate about "next year" -kristoff's parents just smiling fondly at their rowdy lil bunch of kids and anna looking just as happy -lots of hand holding under the dinner table and cheesiness about what they're grateful for

(or maybe it'll end up in the next chapter WHO KNOWS but in case it never gets written, i want y'all to know all that happened)

[thatgunskid]

Jeff Woods is not as bad as you think (but it's still pretty bad)

A study in how to make a cringy creepypasta character even cringier

               I recently finished my first viewing of Jeff Woods, a webseries formerly part of the Fear Mythos that got uncanonized along with several other stories related to an entity called “The Architect.”  They went and formed their own universe, called The Architectverse, which I may cover in a future entry. The inclusion of scenes from The Architect saga as I have named it (which spans four channels and is extremely confusing if not viewed in context with the other three channels) made to make a story that already overstayed its welcome even longer.  That is not to say that the series is without merit, there were several things I enjoyed, from the inclusion of Jane the Killer (Who didn’t really do much and only showed up in person at the end even though she was hinted to all the way back in Video 4) to Jeff’s younger brother Liu (who thankfully wasn’t written in the same way as his CreepyPasta counterpart) to the way it dealt with Slenderman (who honestly is not a great plot device unto himself but works well as a side character or an ominous presence and thank God not in any fan-fictiony way).  Keep in mind that it may seem like I am being overly kind at the start, but that’s because this series was made at the start by twelve and thirteen-year-olds, so a small amount of cringe is to be expected. I will be keeping a running tally of horror webseries tropes and appearances of Slenderman.

               The series opens with Jeff and Logan, who appear to have been best friends for years and are going to keep in touch by uploading videos to the same youtube channel talking to each other a la vlogbros back in the day.  And right out the gate, within the first six videos we have no less than five horror tropes [check total video time on this]. First one is kind of meta, it’s the naming conventions of the videos, Test Video, Video 1.avi, etc.  Then we have a typical found footage camera test, driving footage twice, and white text on a black background. The latter shows up an awful lot in this series, and while I don’t have a problem with it per se, it becomes an issue when used in conjunction with the character using it speaking to the camera SECONDS BEFOREHAND.  Aside from these issues, the series starts out strong, establishing who the characters are, why we should care about them, (despite them being a bit cringe but again, they were 12-13 at the time so). We’re introduced to Jeff’s main antagonist for Arc 1, the leader of the bully gang, Kyler, who has no real reason to bully the new kid other than plot.  This is where my issues with the story really start to come out. In Video 6.avi, Jeff’s brother Liu gets attacked with a knife by Kyler’s gang, Jeff tries to defend him, and Jeff is the one to get in trouble, even having to appear in court DESPITE HAVING RECORDED THE INCIDENT ON HIS CAMERA. Then, two days before he is set to appear in court, the gang breaks into Jeff’s house and tries to kill him.  He gets pushed into the water heater and somehow it explodes (which wouldn’t happen unless they shorted the power to the inside of the heater somehow), destroying his camera and burning his face in the process. Then Jeff goes all murder-hobo and kills all the kids in the gang, with Chris and Kyler managing to escape. I’m going to skip to the video Message at this point, where Jeff does Jeff things, fights with Logan because everyone is against him apparently, and who should appear but old Diddle Fingers himself, complete with audio and video distortion.  Then nothing much of note happens, Logan meets up with Kyler to go find Jeff and talk some sense into him, they break into Jeff’s house, Jeff threatens Logan’s family, Jeff fights Logan again and brings Jeff to Slenderman, and Kyler and Jeff both disappear. Jeff is being chased by a group called The Sentience, kind of a Slenderman Cult, and they want him to become one of their gods by dying and being reborn. Jeff meets Alex from North Woods (another of the Architectverse series and the first that he interacts with), and Derek, the secondary protagonist for the series shows up.  His whole deal is that he’s trying to save his brother from Jeff, an admirable goal but he goes about it in all the wrong way. Granted everything in this universe works kind of the opposite way you would think, but there you go. Anyway, it is revealed that Jeff went off his meds, Jeff attacks Logan again, and kills him, saying “I don’t need friends” showing us that he really is beyond saving. Derek starts uploading to Jeff’s channel (which I will discuss my opinion on later) and giving us background for a lot of the events that happened (it is in his second video that it is revealed the water heater exploded).

               In what I am dubbing the second arc of the series, Jeff starts fighting a masked guy who is linked with Edward from Sirens in the Night named Reaper, who is looking for masks for some reason.  Jeff finds one of the gang who escaped, kills him, kills Liu after Liu trying to stop him (also underage drinking, don’t do that kids). Logan survives, attacks Jeff with a knife, loses, Jeff pulls a Habit and murders him to a song.  We find out that Jeff, Edward, Alex, and the guy from Mayhem Theory (the other main Architectverse story) are all marked for something. Jeff finds a mystical shiny thing and takes it, it turns into a burned stick. Derek tries to attack Jeff but they get teleported away.  Then we find out that Jeff is being controlled by The Virus, he attacks Derek and Chris, Chris ended up stabbed, Jeff ended up shot, according to Alex the west coast got nuked (the first of many nukings), Edward’s channel got taken over, and Mayhem Theory bowed out of all the craziness after discovering that he lives in an alternate universe.  Jeff calls out Derek and they fight, Derek gets saved by Zero from Sirens, Slenderman teleports Jeff to Texas. Zero shows up again, shoots Jeff who doesn’t have his powers, the Virus comes back and Jeff teleports home, passing out in his garage. He wakes up to the news that Alex and his gang nuked Texas to kill Jeff even though they were working together literally five videos earlier.  Then in the most ambitious crossover event before Infinity War, Alex, Edward, and Jeff find The Architect, fight him, and kill him ultimately. It is also revealed that Zero was Edward from another universe. Then for some reason Alex is killed by Edward. Then Jeff packs up a box of tapes, says he is going home, and leaves the camera in the middle of the road. He also calls out Derek and Derek feels like he has lost.

               In what I’m calling Arc 3, Derek has been scouring all of the old videos for a lead to where Jeff has gone.  He finds a clue in Logan saying that Jeff used to live near him, so if he can find Logan’s house, he can find Jeff.  He finds a girl in the woods wearing all black, finds a diary in a box in the woods. It belongs to Jane, and details how Jeff killed her family by burning their house down, and dates that prove she was around the whole time.  Jane steals her diary back, and runs away after discovering that Jeff is still alive. He eventually finds him by following a blood trail through the woods (later revealed to be Jane’s). Jeff breaks his arm, and gets shot in the gut.  Then Jeff gets his back broken by the Virus. Then we find out that Jeff isn’t really dead, Derek finds his old house, gets a box of tapes with everyone’s name on them. Kyler’s tape just shows Derek and Chris near Kyler before he gets killed (even though it didn’t happen).  The tape with Chris and Derek’s names on it won’t play. Jane’s tape shows her getting stabbed in the gut moments before Derek showed up. Logan’s tape shows a different version of Video 6 than we saw, it showed Logan talking about Jeff burning down Jane’s house. The Virus went after him because he knew too much.  Jeff’s tape shows the first time the Virus took over Jeff. He murders some kid in the park and finds a note telling him that he needs the Virus. Jeff shows up, kidnaps Chris, and Derek chases him. He shoots Jeff in the leg, fights him, then kills him for real this time. Derek sits near the lake contemplating life, then tosses the diary into the lake.  Then they decide they need to GTFO (because doing that earlier just wouldn’t make sense), Derek finds Jane’s diary outside the house soaking wet. Jane wants Derek dead because she was supposed to kill Jeff, she kidnaps Chris and Derek gives chase again, finally finds him in the garage. Jane knocks him out, then monologues at him after Waking up. She leaves to kill Chris, Derek breaks out of his bonds, grabs the gun, Jane kills Chris, then gets shot in the face. He reads a note from Jeff that tells him they really aren’t all that different. The series closes on Derek driving away and police sirens blaring in the background.

               So like I said at the start, there are good things in this series.  It began brimming with the potential for a fresh take on Jeff the Killer.  What we got was typical edgy thirteen year olds not knowing what to do with the source material they had, and the potential then suffered for it.  One of my biggest gripes is that Derek was uploading to the same channel as Jeff. From a logistical standpoint it makes sense, easier to upload and all that, but it kind of takes you out of the immersion.  Why are they both uploading to the same channel? Why doesn’t Jeff lock Derek out? Another gripe I had was that the majority of Arc 2 could have been skipped and nothing would have been lost storywise. And the shit that people give them, nuking Texas and all that, wasn’t even Jeff that did it, it was just mentioned as something that someone associated with Jeff did and people assume that means that Jeff was responsible.  Anyway long story short Jeff Wods is objectively bad, but there were parts that genuinely made me think it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and then some parts that just made me cringe to much. All in all I give it a solid 4.5/10 for wasted potential.

[maybeapizzatrophy]

Thoughts on beauty and the beast 2017

-Audra McDonald is boss, but that song is weird.

-prince Dan is super sassy.

-prince Dan does not deal in a plant based economy. 

- Honestly, I feel bad for anyone who just got a job there. I filled out my w2s, excited for new life adventure annnd now I’m a rug. Thanks Potts for recommending me.

*song Belle*

- ohhhhhhhh, emma can’t sing. Hopefully that won’t be too distracting.

-belle is mean 

-are those boys checking her out?is that lady checking her out?

-Damn LeFou! Mark your territory.

-so I guess in disney if you really think people are talking about you behind your back, they are not. They are singing about you behind your back.

-wow gaston gets distracted quick. Have fun with the ladies. Don’t get syphilis!

-ooo, belle asking her dad for a rose just like in the original story.

-Belle: I invented a washing machine to make your lives easier! 

               Towns people: witch!!!

-Gaston, are you trying to guilt her for not having a baby? What are you her judgy aunt Edna, wondering why her sister’s not a grandmother?

- uggh the singing. why didn’t they just dub over her?

-Maurice in the woods. Just snow….in June. Perfectly safe. Totally normal.

- Phillip, the baller horse, saves his life,. MAURICE repays him by leaving him outside to be killed by elements and wolves. No stables huh?

- Pro Tip! When wandering into someones house, don’t eat their food. This might happen!

- Maurice, run for your life, but there is always time to smell the roses.

-Beast smelling Maurice’s blood. Is the beast a vampire? That would explain the capes. And fangs.

- Yell at that horse, belle! Get a straight answer! POS Phillip. 

- God does Lumiere hit on everyone that comes into that house? Maybe that is why the Beast has crappy housekeeping.Wonder which object is his lawyer?

-Maurice “how did you find me?” that is a legit question, Belle.

-she’s either Sherlock Holmes or can talk to animals. Maybe that’s why she calls chicken “little people.”

-Prince Dan has changed his mind about a plant based economy. Flower for a life. Sounds fair.

-Beast: you’re a fool. True looove?? At this point he’s gotten more action with her dad.

- Lumiere is giving belle a new room. belle has a vagina so that means you get nicer commodities. Also they don’t want another poor yelp rating. 

-is Lumiere hitting on her again ? “ oh you are very strong. this is a grreat quality." 

- is he priming her up so she won’t get crushed by the beast when they have sexy time later?

-# beast in the sheets

-"why should I be startled, I’m talking to a candle.” lols. OK, you got me movie.

- “whats in the west wing? Monologuing.” 

- the East wing, or as I like to call it, the ONLY wing!

 -does Lumiere know the definition of modest?

-Lumiere! Not in front of the kids! Keep it in your pants, if you want a PG rating.

-Belle talking to a brush. She may need some therapy after this.

- did the wardrobe just fall asleep? Does the humanoid objects need sleep?

- Lefou has got it bad.

-spelling is hard. Poor baby.

- uh oh. Maurice is raving again.

-when prince dan enters the room, he makes an entrance.

- Prince Dan does not like hanging with the common folk. Ewww. She better not touch his cloak and make it dirty. Her father is a nobody!  (seriously maybe he should have kept Maurice around)

#Always warm in Beasts bed

-Lumiere: show me the smile!

-I’m so sorry I lost my train of thought.

-Prince Dan does not think mental health should be a laughing matter. You should not call people crazy. He gets Bimonthly visits from his therapist couch.

-Go starve! Be my guest! And don’t even THINK about having an elaborate song and dance number with all my staff based on this same title! (runs off to the west wing and can’t hear fireworks due to another great speech by President Bartlett)

-*petal falls, castle shakes* flower based economies can not save your crumbling infrastructure! 

-*belle is trying to escape* so she’s an active heroine because she’s trying to run away? Lets be honest, I don’t think this movie could pass the bechdel test

-Lumiere: they are fighting, oooh so hey must be in love. Umm does Lumiere have a problem?

*Be our Guest*

- yay you’re hungry, so your food will dance in front of you but you can’t eat any of it. seriously he gives her food and then takes away her fork.

-Side Note: I used to have the biggest crush on Ewan Mcgregor when I saw Moulin Rouge in High School. His singing can make me feel so many things. 

However, singing in a fake french accent is just making me cringe.

- Mrs. Potts: you can change him! Great advice. that totally works. 

Belle wanders into beasts bedroom and is surprised he's upset. Actually think he's in the right here.

-Hey wolves, you don’t mess with Phillip!

-What are the wolves waiting for? The music to become more dramatic?

-Its a motherfucking growl off

-Yep Maurice doesn't know where he's going. So Belle is definitely Sherlock or talks to animals.

Newsflash. In breaking news, Gaston is dick.

Belle and Beast arguing over her being in the west wing: You shouldn't have been in the west wing. DUDE. You're in the west wing now.

ANOTHER NEWS BULLET. This just in- Beast isn't cruel, hes a brat

-Audra McDonald has the voice of an angel.

-WAIT A SECOND. WHAT the hell is this curse?! The prince gets stuck as a monster and everyone else DIES. Or stops existing. Boo freaking hoo, this prince has had a hard life but that doesn’t mean you have to die for him! where is the loophole. Agatha is a bitch to servants.

-Oh girl! Beast knows Romeo and Juliet. And he is mocking her. What is he going to quote his favorite Shakespeare Titus Andronicus? Or Fall out Boy?

Oh nice library.(Bitches love libraries.)

The ice is thawing. SYMBOLISM! 

Ughgh the autotune.

So she's not “glancing at you,” shes staring at your hairy ass. She’s wondering if the rumors are true.

Lumiere please don't light the library on fire! its the only reason Belle is staying there. 

LOL. when Mrs. Potts says chip it sounds like shit.

The pep talk for the beast took a weird turn.

Like how they brought back the organ/harpsichord from the crap sequel.Tim Curry!

-Prince Dan: Do you love it here? How much time has past, a week? you can’t leave! do you love me yet? 

-Ok I know he has to let her go so she can save her dad but he's condemning all of his people to death. I’m pretty sure if someone explained this loophole to her she would give a shit.

Oh, beast wants to love and be loved in return.

Damn Dan can sing

Ok belle put the phone down. Gaston thinks he can be a politician

Gaston is sounding horribly familiar. That beast is a bad hombre.

LeFou- Wrong “monster" is released. ehhem. 

Wow they fortified quickly. Maybe one of the servants was a former military general.

Oh I think its the coat rack.

Reading is fundimental! Illiteracy kills!

Man, Lefou is fickle. Guess he’s  good guy now because he has a conscience and only tried to kill Maurice...for love.

Gaston, never look up your exs new boyfriends on facebook. You are only going to depress yourself.

The power of love will save you!

What is that, like the third time gaston shot prince dan in the back?

You came back? Oh course. You have a great library. And those rumors better be true.

Ok i am actually sad about the dog and chip, and Mrs. Potts.

Good job general coat rack. You were amazing. *getting emotional*

Belle loves the beast but has to say it in front of Agatha. Otherwise doesn't count.

Prince Dan is human again. Now change him back! He was hotter before.

Ugggh ewan in a french wig is not attractive. Nope can’t unsee that. and now neither can you. bleh

Who tells their 6 year old they smell good? Like really?

Mr. Potts story is ridiculously sad. He always knew he was missing something, and that something was not right in his life. Turns out his family was taken away from him and he was forced to forget about them but never really could. Fuck you Agatha.

Oh and cogsworth had a wife? But he hates her? weird tonal change...

Yep, Dirty Dan get a beard. He looks fine with a beard

And lefou hooks up with a cross dresser. All well that ends well?l

Moral of the story, invest in something other then plants. Diversify your stock portfolio..

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/how-to-love-yourself-with-on-being-humans-jennifer-pastiloff/

How to Love Yourself with On Being Human's Jennifer Pastiloff

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

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Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person’s point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that…

I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who’s witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other’s names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we’d only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered “I am afraid,” who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F’ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen’s earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, “Girl, you know you wanna gossip.”

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

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[krisiunicornio]

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

[cedarrrun]

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

[amyddaniels]

5 Ways to Radically Love Yourself Today

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Sundance 2019: The Wolf Hour, Selah and the Spades, Adam, Premature, Sister Aimee

Naomi Watts further proves that she's one of the best with "The Wolf Hour," a largely one-woman show directed by Alistair Banks Griffin that takes place in a sweaty, anxious New York City during the Summer of Sam. Watts is a major factor to the charisma of this movie, expressing her character’s isolation and anxiety; she makes each mysterious buzz on her apartment all the more nervous, and her conditions are the more visceral. 

Watts plays June, an author who has essentially holed herself up in the apartment of her late grandmother. There’s an air of chaos outside, with a serial killer on the loose who terrorizes women that look just like her. Every now and then, someone mysteriously buzzes her apartment, making her all the more uncomfortable, and us too. Watts has a peacefulness when she is not disturbed, but then a vivid sense of chaos when it comes to watching the violence unfolding on the streets below her. The cinematography by Khalid Mohtaseb captures the darkness and the griminess of the apartment, ambitiously dangling the film over the edge of being too bland but finding specific light and texture to make the film visually dynamic. 

Griffin's script works through a great deal of atmosphere in some of its passages, and threatens to be inert if not plotless in some passages. But it gains energy when it needs to by bringing in additional characters played by the likes of Emory Cohen and Kelvin Harrison Jr., and slowly revealing the past that has made her afraid to go outside. Watts is so strong in this part that even an exposition-heavy moment in which she watches her previous self in interview still contains nuance, mystery. 

The atmospheric ambitions of the story only falter by the end, as “The Wolf Hour” doesn’t wrap itself up with brilliance in its 15 minutes. But as “The Wolf Hour” is engrossing for much of its anxious timeline, it’s the inner journey Watts provides that sticks with you most of all. 

“Selah and the Spades” tells a story of high school factions, building a world out of a quintet of high school cliques in a fancy boarding school. In the style of “Dear White People” and “School Daze” before it, the story centers on a group of kids getting caught in some dirty business, and making up their own rules. Selah (Lovie Simone) is the leader of a group called the Spades, and she incorporates Paloma, a new member into her group (Celeste O'Connor), younger and more naive, but malleable. Paloma becomes our surrogate into the goings-on and the power struggles. 

“Selah and the Spades” shows a great deal of promise for writer/director Tayarisha Poe, who demands your attention with style and story in her directorial debut. Some sequences can really pop, as with a center-framed monologue in which Selah talks about her agency as a cheerleader. But the inconsistent energy makes its more dialogue and plot-driven fragments about drug-dealing feel like a crash from a sugar rush. 

More than its sporadic practical effects (like a stairway covered in glasses of different-colored water, or neon lights in the woods), the film’s most consistent style comes from former Ebert Fellow Jomo Fray’s cinematography. He elevates the reality of this story through tilted angles, negative space, and the center framing. It’s a great example of how cinematography can influence storytelling, and how being thoughtful with framing can affect how the overall presentation lingers. 

“Adam” is a headache of a movie, however great its intentions. Here’s the pitch: a young cisgender white kid named Adam (Nicholas Alexander) goes to New York City to spend the summer with his older, queer sister Casey (Margaret Qualley), and witnesses the LGBTQ+ scene. But he pretends to be a transgender man when a queer woman (India Menuez) he’s smitten with is convinced he’s trans. We spend much of "Adam" waiting for his ridiculous, insensitive lies to be called out. 

If your eyes rolled out of your head reading that, that’s fair. This premise (adapted by Ariel Schrag from her book) very likely wouldn’t work at all if it didn't prominently feature so many transgender actors, or if it hadn't been directed by a transgender director. Thankfully, this is not the mean-spirited sex comedy that could have been made from a similar concept in previous Hollywood eras. But "Adam" is a textbook example of the quandary behind progress with representation—does a movie make up for its shallow center focus by showing people on-screen who rarely get the screen-time, giving them cinematic lives? Or is “Adam” still just as bad because we spend so much of it with a nauseating protagonist? 

“Adam” is given a smoothness from promising director Rhys Ernst, making his directorial debut. The film is always in control of its tone, whether it's in the studio teen comedy-esque beats, or cringing moments in which the dunderhead nonetheless learns a bit more about someone else’s life experience. But it just becomes so cringeworthy to see Adam become the main focus of the story, especially as the side characters reveal themselves to be more interesting and frustrating. Adam takes a clumsy journey to enlightenment, but at what cost? I wanted more of the characters outside of his cheap con, like his sister Casey, new confidant and Film Forum employee Ethan (Leo Sheng), temporary roommate June (Chloe Levine) and other characters who appear in the parties, clubs, and campgrounds that Adam navigates. 

I have no idea who will find this movie offensive, but at the end of the day I do think the film deserves an audience—a far-reaching entity like Netflix should pick this up—so that viewers can at least see a whole bunch of actors who are talented but also gravely underrepresented in film. I can’t wait to read the critical and supportive pieces that are bound to be written about it. 

“Premature” is an excellent showcase for future-star Zora Howard, who co-wrote this script with director Rashaad Ernesto Green. It largely concerns a summer in the life of Ayanna (Howard), a 17-year-old girl who is intelligent and focused, and has an electric group of friends we sporadically get to hang out with. Ayanna's life is thrown for a bit of a loop when she meets a music producer Isaiah (Joshua Boone), a slightly older man who seems worthy of her time, and quickly woos her. The film emphasizes the romance of their relationship with its Kodak 16mm cinematography, which offers a dreaminess to the scenes of them sharing intimate New York sights with each other, and a great classic grain to its flat-out sexy passages. 

As the script takes place in the different days of Ayanna, sometimes it can force along its conflicts with convenient timing, like when an ex-girlfriend of Isaiah’s suddenly pops into the frame. But for the most part, the story works through some of its potential melodrama with finesse and truth, making some of its more developments feel like normal affectations of Ayanna’s most dramatic summer yet. 

As it gently moves from one major life experience to the next, Green and Howard are the crucial forces that help make “Premature” feel so wise while telling its delicate story of coming-of-age. The movie gets its charisma from its lived-in moments, the scenes that are filled with her friends razzing each other, or show Ayanna finding ways to take on the world's latest curve ball. Like the love expression Ayanna later co-writes for Isaiah, “Premature” is a tender ballad—not just about love but age, opportunity, timing—that gets stuck in your head. 

“Sister Aimee” is inspired by bizarre a true story, but it doesn’t take full advantage of the incredible factors within it. Anna Margaret Hollyman plays the evangelist and swindler Sister Aimee, who, as this story goes, raised a bunch of money from people by pretending to heal people, and then faked her own death in 1926. But this script from co-directors and co-writers Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann takes a less exciting approach to her disappearance, and reveals bits of her past in flat scenes where characters are interviewed by police. There is also a surprising focus on a badass woman named Rey (Andrea Suarez Paz), who helps Sister Aimee and her lover in their journey to Mexico, but the character details exist as if to fill in time. 

There’s a lot of missed opportunity here, especially with how the story admits in opening texts that it is playing with fact and fiction. The script is more about the getaway of an enigmatic con-woman, trying to be light on its feet and dysfunctional like a Coen brothers period piece, and it just doesn’t have as much energy. "Sister Aimee" hits its desired absurdist note when Hollyman gets a song-and-dance number, but that's at the very end. But it's too late, as "Sister Aimee" is far from the film you had originally hoped it would be. 

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