Guest Post: An Open Letter to Anyone Who’s Ever Had Their Ass Kicked

This is for anyone who knows what it feels like to get your ass kicked and still insists on coming out on the other side more alive, present, whole, and human than you ever dreamed possible. You’re not alone. I get it. To say what you’ve been through “sucks” is a gross understatement and if you’re still pissed about the whole thing, that’s freaking fine. Healing takes time. So does forgiveness. So does growth. Don’t rush yourself. My name’s Heather, I’m a pro blogger, and I write exclusively about dream chasing over on Hiya Tootsie! Writing and cheering on other chicks to jump head first into their passions is my jam. I made up my mind to lead the charge when I decided to leave the personal shit show that was my previous career.

This decision was a true sorry-not-sorry awakening of heart.

To be fair, when I have my good moments of remembrance, the terrible parts were peppered with hallelujahs. But if you’ve stared into the gaping throat of hell in any capacity, you’ll know what I mean when I say it doesn’t always feel worth it. As a former missionary, I don’t think I’m allowed to say that, but I’m also not about to dishonor my story by sugarcoating the truth.

I used to work as an advocate and activist in the porn industry. When women and men were ready to get the hell out, I was part of helping them make the transition. I also worked extensively to educate the often painfully clueless public about the horrific nature of what their porn consumption contributed to.

In my career, I’ve been to 15+ porn conventions, met, befriended, and aided porn star after porn star after porn star, educated hundreds of fans, countless addicts, and more misogynists than I care to shake a stick at, went before lawmakers and health officials, encountered severe sexual trauma, suicide attempts, ER visits, mental hospitals, drug and alcohol addiction, and incessant cover ups.

I was bombarded with personal stories and high def footage of [gratuitous and horrific violence (edited for That Hummingbird Life readers)]. The constant flash of cameras capturing chaos, everyday men with giant smiles labeling it all “exciting,” couples who somehow thought violence and degradation would spice up their sex life, lifeless eyes, voices stuck around the age of 7 because that’s what sells, disease, addiction, and mental illness. I could go on. This is just the little bit I’m comfortable sharing at this point.

It fucking got to me.

And you know what? I’m not sorry for telling the truth, for choosing to use colorful language, or for still being in process. I took an entire year off to attempt to recover. I’m nearly three years out and I still deal with ramifications from the work, only now, to a much lesser degree. I had no idea how to take care of myself and though people prayed and applauded the work, I sure as shit didn’t have folks knocking down my door to ask me how I really was. Looking back, that’s what I needed. But then again, I felt like there was too much I couldn’t talk about and I didn’t actually know how I was until I got out. I had never heard words like vicarious trauma, burnout, compassion fatigue, and adrenal fatigue until long after the fact.

During my full-time healing year, I decided that the only thing I wanted to do was figure out who the hell Heather was again, revive her spirit, and give her room to swing her truth around in wild, raucous joy.

I started practicing self-care – therapy once a week, regular naturopath doctor visits, daily supplements, as much sleep as I needed, prayer, yoga stretching, bubble baths, massage, writing down my feelings, actuallyletting myself feel, practicing strict boundaries, letting go of toxic relationships, diving head first into Brené Brown’s work, and dreaming about what could be next.

All I wanted was a chance to take the girl who just wanted to help people, ended up getting the shit kicked out of her, and encourage her to march to a new beat. Only this time around, I wanted the beat to sound like “human” instead of “warrior.”

I have my degree in words. They call it Professional Writing, but really, it’s just a degree in sheer Word Nerdery. I’ve long believed that the power of life and death is in the tongue, and despite the trauma, this was the major reason my previous career was worth it to me. I learned how to connect with human hearts, story, and speak life into people. That’s all I ever wanted to do and it’s still my constant prayer. The difference now is that I am doing it in a way that honors and includes me.

Hiya Tootsie! is not just a blog. Hiya Tootsie! is a mother effing line in the sand. It represents making it out alive, figuring out how to do human well, not just hanging onto my faith but strengthening it, and carving a path to follow my dreams.

Baby, if I can do it, so can you.

I know a lot of you have been through serious shit. But the shit show does not define you. I didn’t let it define me and you don’t have to either. You have more worth and purpose prancing around inside of you than you’ll ever know what to do with. Who cares if you need to get some healing under your belt? Who the hell doesn’t? You’ve lived. This journey we’re on is about catapulting from survive to thrive and it’s about time we freaking rock it.

The new path will not always be rosy. I can personally attest that there are old landmines here and there along the way. You will get triggered and you will get through it with dignity, grace, and a deeper understanding of your holy, beautiful self. The only difference between your then and your now is that just like me, you’ll get better and better at spotting those landmines long before they have any shot in hell of blowing up your progress.

 Go do what is in you to do.

Your story is what makes you who you are – the great, ugly, heartbreaking, and hilariously triumphant.

We are a sisterhood of badass broads who know that the word badass means “vulnerable” and the word vulnerable means “brave.” So be your vulnerable, brave, badass self. I got my ass kicked and I’m doing it. Show up, prove to me that I’m not alone, and tell me who you are. We’ve got lives to live and dreams to chase.

Let’s rock this shit, kittens.

Heather bio

You can find Heather here: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Guest Post: Encouraging and inspiring through creative afternoons

When Meg asked me if I could write a guest post about this, I was over the moon - the opportunity to be on her fantastic website and to share the experience I've had hosting craft afternoons, wow! But when I've tried to write it, it's been more difficult than I expected. It's so hard to capture the emotion and the level of supportiveness and the small changes in people that occur. So please forgive me if I overuse words such as excitement and support and inspiration.

I love listening to women talk about creating

There's an excitement and a passion which shines through. And so often, these conversations are with people who "aren't creative" but who thoroughly enjoy knitting or cross stitch or whatever it is. Somehow being creative is so intrinsically linked with fine art that many people just can't get away from that. For the record, creativity is a huge spectrum of different techniques and processes and outcomes.

A creative afternoon

As well as listening to women talk about creating, I love getting women together to create. I had the honour of doing just that in August. An email went to friends, acquaintances and friends of friends inviting them for croissants, tea and making stuff. They were invited to bring works in progress, their own equipment or just to turn up and have a play with my stash of materials.

At previous creative afternoons I've taught some basic bookbinding, women have taught other women to knit and everyone has got involved. There has been an amazing organic nature to these afternoons, synchronicity that I could never have planned.  This was no exception. Despite the normal "I'm not creative " protests, everyone went home having made something. It ranged from mixed media art work to cards to decorations and more. But the thing I hope everyone took away was inspiration and a feeling that they can be creative.

I think the key to these afternoons is very much the women themselves.  I could provide the most amazing craft materials, books with instructions and inspiration, detailed tutorials etc but without the women, it would fall flat.

Women are often considered to be nasty, bitchy and judging when they get together in groups. But not these groups. This was a group of mostly strangers who were sat round my table, creating away and providing positive encouragement to everyone else.  It's something I would love to see so much more of.

Genuine encouragement

I don't think I can begin to express how heart warming it is to see this in action - genuine support and encouragement between strangers, the amazement when people see that they have created something and the twinkling of the idea that maybe they are creative.  It's beautiful.

 So if you have a table, a bit of craft stuff and a kettle, get emailing! Invite everyone you know to a tea and creative (creativi-tea if you will) afternoon.  I know it's an invitation I would love to receive.

Since I wrote this, I've come across

Mind's Christmas Crafternoons:

Crafternoon means getting together with friends, family or colleagues and holding an afternoon of festive crafting to have fun and raise money for Mind.

Make someone's Christmas and help us make sure no one has to face a mental health problem alone.

Helen bio

You can find Helen here: Flickr | Blog

Guest Post: How Consumption Influences our Creativity by amber thomas

When I started writing for NaNoWriMo last November I dedicated myself to reading a half hour a day. It seemed annoying some days, why not spend that half hour writing instead? I noticed my progress wane on days I’d skipped my “warm-up reading” and felt a nudge that quality consumption was influential in my creativity. As a soul who loves answers to seemingly proverbial questions I created an experiment.

An experiment

Two days a week I began my writing time with a book. Two more days I’d write without any use of transitional materials. And the final two days a week (assuming I take a day off), I’d prime my mind with Facebook or Instagram or even a recorded TV show. I needed to see how my choices affected my creative output. You’re not going to be entirely surprised to find out my word counts and the quality of my writing suffered immensely on the free-for-all consumption days.

Your mind isn’t critically engaging with your Facebook friends, it’s merely surveying their current state of life. You aren’t thinking about the tone or theme or depth of characters on your Instagram feed, instead you’re making binary choices: double tap or scroll. Television can be educational, but it’s a passive brain activity not requiring you to opinionate about storylines or perspective. However, you do all these things while you read.

I proved to myself (and now to all of you) that the way I started my writing time was a valuable source of inspiration and creative energy for the work laid out ahead of me.

Nourish yourself

Draw your creative process back to lessons we’ve learned in nutrition: in order to expend energy (creative or otherwise), you must nourish yourself with rich sustenance. While marshmellow fluff is delicious (never before have a refused a serving of that cloud-like heaven), it doesn’t leave me feeling fuelled and hardy in the way scrambled eggs do. Are you taking in all kinds of light, airy treats without providing your creative process with the fuel it needs to keep momentum? Often the answer is no, but we avoid the real work of cleaning up our habits of consumption.

It’s simple, really, to avoid empty forms of inspiration. The hard part is identifying where the empty sources lie

Three ways to clean up your consumption

1.     Avoid being a voyeur

We’re all guilty of keeping our eye on the trainwreck as it’s happening.  But then the carnage and mess traumatize us. So, why not unfollow the mess before it gets started? You know those people you can see ruining their businesses with angry backlash at dissatisfied customers or those hate forums on the internet or the Facebook friends who could star on a soap opera they're fascinating. But your fascination turns into valuable time wasted keeping tabs on their mess instead of pouring into your latest project.

2.     Be honest about your viewership

This seems easy and natural. But as a fan of the Real Housewives of Orange County from the beginning, I’ve dedicated an hour a week to watching the women get together and raise hell in each other’s lives. Just recently my husband watched an episode with me and when it finished he turned to me and said, “So you watched women fight over fancy dinners for an hour?” I wanted to defend myself, but couldn’t. Because that’s what I was watching, grown women –who are my mom’s age- fight over nothing. And suddenly, my diehard fan-girling seemed pathetic, not loyal.

3.    Track your time.

I know you’re hearing this all over the web and beyond. Have you tried it? Honestly, I was terrified at the end of my work day. My day job is balanced delicately with my Etsy shop and blog and plethora of writing and marriage. I feel like I manage my priorities well and may have been known to brag about my ability to get the work done. But the serving of humble pie that I was served after tracking each minute of my time for three days was enough to make my brain explode.

Another experiment

Though I’d like to claim the title of quick learner, I am not. So when I opened my handmade art Etsy shop, I assumed my mind would always overflow with ideas for new pieces. Alas, it did not.

So I tried the experiment over again: two days started with reading, two with visual observation online, and two with no outside inspiration. And the results were the opposite of my writing habit.

On the days I scrolled through Instagram or Pinterest ideas flowed, colors complimented, and my time in the studio was fruitful beyond belief. In contrast, the days I started with reading were slow-moving, awkward, and frustrating.

Be mindful

Be mindful of how your eyes allow inspiration into your brain. Be aware of the way one creative endeavor is different than another; so different, in fact, they may be opposites. All these words and examples boil down to one thing: your consumption matters for your process.

Amber bio-2

You can find Amber here:  INSTAGRAM | Shop