Enjoy the gift of today. Let the posts below challenge, inspire, and spark something inside of you.
by Angella Nazarian Angella Nazarian (AN): Can you tell us a bit about your journey? Taylor Babaian (TB): I grew up in South Los Angeles to immigrant parents, who held two to three jobs at a time. This meant us kids, who were two to eight years old, were often left alone for weeks and had to take care of ourselves. My parents split up and got back together often. During those splits, I went with my father and would stay in small apartments or his car. When I was fourteen, he left for good, and I got mixed up with a rebellious crowd and left home. I lived mostly in my friend's closets or at twenty-four-hour donut shops, Laundromats, and stairwells of buildings. I finally got in touch with my father and moved to Seattle, where I lived with him at first on a sheet on the floor and did my homework on a cardboard box. From there, my girlfriend took me in, and I finished high school, receiving countless awards and a scholarship. I worked three jobs while going to community college. At one of those jobs,... Read the whole entry » by Jennifer Pastiloff Take risks. That's what I got out of the writing retreat I just led with Emily Rapp and a whole bunch of bad ass writers last weekend in Vermont. There was the fifteen year old who came with her mom because she thought she'd "get to miss some school." Turns out she wouldn't get to miss school as it was over a holiday weekend, but she came anyway. She came, and we all watched her rise to the occasion—in her writing, in her relationship with her mom and with the world. I have everyone give each person at the retreat a note with the five most beautiful things about that person—so essentially you leave with twenty-six or forty (or however many people are there) love notes. It's part of my 5 Most Beautiful Things Project. The note I received from the fifteen year old blew me away, as did the email she sent me right after the retreat, which read: "Dear Jen, I can honestly say this has been one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. A few months ago, I overheard... Read the whole entry » by Christine Gutierrez I spent years of my life battling the insecurities and fears that plagued my mind and heart. I grew up with both love and abuse, an interesting mixture and a perfect way to be filled with constant anxiety and poor self-esteem. I never knew what the day would bring me. Some days, I was told good job, and some days, I was suffocated for just not getting up early enough in the morning. There was never any stability. Healthy parents are able to model healthy love, and, unfortunately, too many parents grew up with parents that didn't know how to properly love and nurture, and so the cycle of destruction and unhealthy love relationships begins. No one is given a manual for being a parent, so keep that in mind as I continue my story. We are all in this together, learning how to love ourselves and others better. Many people, I think, can relate to at least one moment where they have felt unlovable and unworthy. That inner pain and wound begins to leak out in the choices we make with... Read the whole entry » by Positively Positive Related Posts If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud. Life-Altering Steps to Create a Life You Want to Live In How You Can Live a Bad-Ass Life Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. [...] More Recent Articles | |
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