{I was told} I was too much. Too dramatic, too loud, too wild.  So for years I would kinda be myself, check for approval,  then edit if eyebrows were raised.

To make other people feel better around my bigness, I’d compensate by being overly pleasing, overly tolerant, and overly conscientious.

I ask for what I want. I am dramatic, wild, and loud whenever I decide to be. I brag and invite others to brag around me so I can applaud them. I have no tolerance for gossip, whining, or hate.

36.  Find a VOICE you can use freely.

Be perfect.  Do better.  Turn the other cheek.  Smile.  Don’t be weird or different. This was my training.

But I am extremely imperfect in some embarrassing ways. Perfectionism was a plastic bag knotted over my face.

I’m pretty weird.  I can wear 8 different colors at the same time, and make ‘em work.

My voice is high, and I sound like I’m 12 on the phone.

I curse at home -far too much.

I can lift weights like a guy, I want to live in a houseboat at some point, jokes about farts, tits, and asses do NOT make me laugh, and prayer is how I create miracles.

I’d rather be all the things that I feel, especially when I’m creating living.

When I decided to write for magazines, I couldn’t get Michelle to spill the real deal. Maybe it would hurt folks. Maybe she wasn’t so nice.

I had to find another Voice to take my pen.

For a few years, I let SUMMYR write for me.

Summyr was my pseudonym. I used HER name for my published articles in online mags because she let me say things Michelle would be judged for saying.

summyr doesn’t have my ego or my fear of exposing the truths michelle swallowed.

she’s got nothing to tarnish or lose.

Find your VOICE and speak your truth. It will give you peace.

We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.  

–Dr. Suess

37. Discover what turns you on and off

What I ❥ and Like 🔥 I’m coming for ya..

Niagara Falls–seriously {have you seen it from Canada?}, paws of dogs, brownies that glisten, really great acting like in THE FIGHTER and DOUBT, Christmas lights all year, the smell of lilacs, espresso freddo from Greece, lifting weights like a dude, dancing like a goddess, RuPaul, headstands, imaging headstands without using my hands, reading other people’s lives, over-coming, ecstatic positions most women love, telling the truth, trustworthy friends, a spotlight, Barbra Streisand, bossa nova, listening, my journal.

My Disses 🌪 I’m not going near…

too much cardio, finding a man to make you whole, professional complainers, taking advice from folks who haven’t done sh*t, indecision, phobias toward any kind of human being, sneezers who don’t cover their mouths or farters who don’t leave the room or say excuse me – you really make me sick!, fast yoga, playas {not talking about beaches}, listening or talking to people who are not listening, beige.

I wanna diss meat.  Working on it, but i LOve pork ribs.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

 –Dr. Suess

38.  Have a WiLD tomato 

I am untidy and unabashedly blemished.

I like to use my hands to Write, imagine, Listen, and Declare every morning. For the last 4 years straight, I start the day by drinking inspiration and spilling introspection. I journal (and drink cold coffee in my goblet).

My free-writing style of journaling is raw and WiLD.

WiLD is an acronym for Writing to imagine, Listen, and Declare.

On the days when I can’t sit for my usual 40 minutes of WiLD journaling , I pare down to a sizable portion and dump out my feelings, describe my future, talk myself through a goal, or wade through my ideas to come to a decision.

For 25 minutes, I write WiLD.

I call those untamed  journaling chunks the WiLD Tomato.

Francesco Cirillo, is the creator of The Pomodoro Technique, a timed writing technique to increase focus and minimize distraction. An activity is chunked into a 25-minute block for total immersion. He used a kitchen timer shaped like a pomodoro tomato to keep time. Tomato is a nod to Pomodoro.

I even use my tomato timer.

Getting WiLD has given me life.

I’m gonna be sharing more deets about the WiLD tomato, the WiLD cherry (10-minute journaling blocks), and the POSSIBILITY journal in my new book, beyond words.

On Amazon.

So happy.

39. Keep a POSSIBILITY journal to fire up your energy so you can be magical

Your imagination can penetrate your reality.

That’s why I imagine my future once a week with my journal.

I started doing this in 2002. Eric Butterworth, of Unity Church, talked about writing the whole day the morning of the day.

That same year I wrote my potential day in detail for 3 weeks in a row, and, like wow, I got to experience pretty close to the experience I projected.

I’ve always imagined my future using visualization, starting way back in the kid zone.

Both techniques work, but doing the WiLD writing and the visualization has brought my life to a whole new high.  

Wanna try?

TODAY, write a day-in-the-life of YOUR future.

Write every detail as if it already happened! Like a memory.

Yep, yep, I’ll be explaining this technique in beyond words, too.

Your mind doesn’t know the difference between past, present, or future. It’s taking command from the pictures you show it and the words you use most often.

Your a boss.

And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!  

—Dr. Suess

40. Date yourself. Often.

The more time you spend hanging out and laughing with yourself, the more you’ll wanna date you again.

I went to RuPaul’s Drag convention below–with myself. It aroused my inner goddess. Plus, I got ta bond with some sexy, gorgeous strangers.

I went to coffee, then to write the other day–with myself. Michelle cracked me up. We enjoyed each other’s company tremendously.

I’ve been dating myself every other week. I think I’m in love. No.

I’m sure of it. 

I’ll be adding numbers 41-45 in 2 weeks.