Christina Bruni is the author of the new book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. She contributed a chapter "Recovery is Within Reach" to Benessere Psicologico: Contemporary Thought on Italian American Mental Health.
This is an old tee shirt I bought from Nike before reading about the scandal an Olympic runner on the elite Nike track team wrote about in her memoir The Longest Race.
The way I protest is by wearing message tee shirts in the summer–and in the spring and fall over long sleeve tee shirts. A kicky way to speak out walking down the street.
It helps to have a sense of humor when you’re down for the count.
Like I’m fond of saying every one of us is a winner. Regardless of whether you win or lose you’re a champion simply because you’ve gotten in the ring to fight.
The 4-time Grammy winner singer Lizzo above was interviewed in the summer issue of Women’s Health. The photo is taken from this feature article.
Lizzo did what she calls “release weight”–choosing not to use the word lose weight–for health reasons. Her body radiated with back pain.
Ultimately she adopted the healthy lifestyle for mental health first of all. Admits that she is still in the “two-something to do something club.” And that weighing 250 pounds is OK. And if she gained the weight back that would be OK too.
Per Lizzo:
“Body positivity has nothing to do with staying the same. Body positivity is the radical act of daring to exist loudly and proudly in a society that told you you shouldn’t exist.”
It seems that when Lizzo lost weight fans booed her for betraying the singer’s ethic of loving yourself when you’re bigger–or as some people say–fat.
Improving your health is a valid motivation for changing an aspect of your life that you feel is out of balance.
This month–August–is National Wellness Month. I’ll be writing about wellness in my health and fitness blog.
How fitting that Lizzo is on the cover of Women’s Health for National Wellness Month.
To be whole and well you don’t have to be rail-thin. Lizzo is living proof of this.
Let’s celebrate each other’s curves and verve. Today is the day to get loud and proud about our bodies and our selves.
We can’t afford not to. As the girls coming up after us are having their self-worth shredded viewing photo-perfect Influencer images on Instagram. We owe it to our nieces especially to model that loving yourself at any size is the way to go.
Last week I ordered with a 50 percent off code a matte pink Lancome Rouge tube.
The answer to the question: I won’t leave the house without: is lipstick. As an older woman I favor shades like red and violet and deep not pastel pink.
I firmly think you can face the world with your face even when you don’t apply a full face of makeup.
After a friend told me that I don’t need to wear foundation I gave up using it except for headshots.
On an ordinary day it’s a swipe of lipstick and a stripe of eyeliner for me. My favorite is a Sephora collection aubergine eyeliner.
Little touches can inspire awe. I recommend reading the book Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness.
We don’t need to charge a costly vacation that we can’t afford to pay off to rekindle from stress. Often the secret to our sanity is right nearby.
Lipstick isn’t the only colorful confidence booster and cheer inducer. Bringing home fresh flowers to keep in a vase on our dining table can elevate how we feel. Colorful flowers give off a positive vibration too.
The cost of replenishing a wilted bouquet with new blooms shouldn’t deter those of us who can afford the indulgence. Really I make the case for figuring out how to find the extra cash to buy flowers even on a lower income.
I checked the book above out of the library. The copyright date is 2022.
To encourage followers to buy the book I will quote from it:
“We want to keep hold because beauty is so often a porch light in the darkness.”
The author ends the book by talking about a new beauty that we define for ourselves. It is a form of self-care. We’re no longer trying to fit into the standard mold of beauty that those in power with authority have dictated to us as being the only form.
To end the book Ella Frances Sanders tells us: “The new beauty is radical because it allows us to love ourselves in spite of being told not to.”
Shame thrives in secrecy, silence, and judgment. What if each us could stand in the truth that we’re beautiful precisely because of our imperfections?
What if our greatest struggle was the very thing that is beautiful because we emerge wiser, stronger, and more capable of loving ourselves afterward?
I’m reflecting on where I want to go in this blog. I titled the URL Girl on the Left originally because I lean left more so in terms of culture with books, fashion, and music.
I have an idea that I want to express to followers now that I’ve turned 60. It’s not a new idea–however the colors are shifting in the kaleidoscope of what I think.
My hope is that everyone is free to act true to yourself. We should let go of the people who are not our supporters.
I recommend you buy and read the book The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins.
Today is the day to let go of the need to control what others do and say according to the guide.
“Let Them” be who they are. “Let Them” think negatively of you.
To expect that others accept you and me as we are we must let them be true to their nature too. There are always going to be people who hate judge fear or shame you and me.
“Let Them.” Focus on your life and livelihood instead.
It’s called having compassion in our throat in terms of what we say to people. Not lashing out at the ones who lacerate us.
Going Left is doing things differently. This lies in not being afraid to walk down the street strutting who you are.
As I think there is no one right way to think feel live act love and dress. There are unique personalities living on earth and each of us has the right to do our own thing.
June is Pride month. Everyone should be proud of ourselves.
My stance is that each of us needs to have a loving response to ourselves when we look in the mirror. At 60 years old I like what I see in the mirror. After too long staring at my face microscopically in the bathroom mirror and having a critical view of the skin on my face.
What changed and why do I no longer care about this? I’ve seen an 87-year-old woman with no makeup on her face wrinkles all over and a few extra pounds. She did not resort to $100 face creams or a costly facelift or drastic diet.
My ethic is to frown on going under the knife or on getting fillers and using filters.
The fact that material objects like designer clothes and a Birkin bag are praiseworthy, and our physical pulchritude has always mattered more in society than our health and happiness is whacked.
I feel for Linda Evangelista who has joined the 50+ club. Beauty in traditional terms is often an accident of birth. Such beauty can open doors. Only what’s behind those velvet ropes is often not the best environment for feeling great about ourselves.
Under the strobe lights it can feel good when others stroke you. Wake up in the morning to frizzy tangled hair and the remnants of yesterday’s makeup and you’re back at the drawing board needing more affirmation.
Far better it is for each of us however old we are today to look in the mirror and like what we see. This is the first step in liking others.
Perhaps a dose of listening to the Billy Joel song “Just the Way You Are” is in order. He didn’t want his lover to go changing. The singer liked her just the way she was.
I say it’s time—it’s always the right time—to do what’s harder. It might have been the natural response to be harsh on ourselves.
Let’s take a beat to see the whole picture—that is the whole photo—instead of picking apart each part of our face or body. Find one thing we like about our body. Play that up.
The Beauty issue of Harper’s Bazaar this month has a playlist of songs you can download to listen to. The songs talk about being beautiful.
On the cover of the Beauty issue of Harper’s Bazaar this month is supermodel Linda Evangelista’s quote: “Beauty is Earned.”
It’s not a given that women feel beautiful about ourselves.
The fat on supermodel Linda Evangelista’s skin hardened after she used the Coolsculpting technique to tighten her body that was getting older and out of shape.
No longer beautiful in the way society always valued her to be the damaging side effect of Coolsculpting sent Evangelista into talk therapy.
Too sad it is that ordinarily women put everyone else’s needs first or worse cater to others instead of our own health wealth and happiness.
In a coming blog entry, I’ll talk about Christine Platt’s insight shared in her new newsletter about how each of us should act “self-ish.”
Too often supermodels are only human like we are. They travel the globe on photo shoots and spend countless hours racking up air miles. Even when closer to home their schedules are tightly packed and could be frantic.
Having to smile at the camera when inside you’re insecure about the very body everyone loves to look at.
Evangelista wrote that no one in her history of modeling told her the exact words: “You’re beautiful.” It was always a comment on how the clothes looked on her.
Evangelista vowed to tell her son and everyone else: “You’re beautiful” every chance she gets today.
There should be no judgment here about whether Evangelista took care of her health all these years.
In the next blog entry, I’ll talk more about looking in the mirror and liking what we see.
Of course everyone living on earth is beautiful. There’s no doubt about this. We can start by telling our loved ones and friends that they are beautiful.
The theme of my birthday is “No Tears at Sixty Years.”
This is the time to dry your eyes and live with no regret if ever there was a time to do this.
Like I’m fond of writing in Italian: Creo nell’ impossibile. In English: I believe in the impossible.
My life ethic is this: “Rule nothing out.”
Remodel the kitchen! Travel to Spain!
Be a risk-taker and rule-breaker at 60.
When the odds are against you has playing along in what others expect you to do gotten you anywhere worth going?
Sixty is the time to rebel the status quo and be yes a Rebel Flower.
In a future blog entry I’ll talk about Christine Platt’s belief that you should act “self-ish.” She wrote the Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living on Less. Her new forthcoming book is Less is Liberation.
In fact the less mental cobwebs cluttering our heads at 60 (or at whatever age we are) the happier and healthier we’ll be.
On tap in June: delightful digs into ideas that can bring cheer.
After reading hard-hitting non-fiction I’ve turned to bubblegum books like We Found Love: Song by Song by Annie Zaleski.
It features love songs from 1936 to 2019 from Fred Astaire’s “The Way You Look Tonight” to Harry Styles “Adore You.”
With anecdotes of how the tunes were ccreated.
The 1992 Cure song “Friday I’m in Love” has been one of my favorite songs of theirs.
You can check this book out of the library for a fun short read in a couple of days.
In 1966 the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” featured this band that was originally a set of characters in The Monkees’ TV show that I loved to watch as a kid.
In 1965 Sonny and Cher were famous with “I Got You Babe.” The section on this song detailed that Cher would be thrown out of restaurants back then because of the clothes she wore.
The 1986 Peter Gabriel song “In Your Eyes” is featured here.
I liked the Jeffrey Gaines “In Your Eyes” better. The singer performed at BB King’s pre-Covid before that music-and-food venue shut down.
Have you ever loved your outfit more than the guy who took you on a date to a nightclub who you were seeing not dating?
Not every song talked about in We Found Love narrates a rosy romance. A list of such songs includes Blondie’s “One Way or Another” which is about a stalker actually.
Spring is here. April is the month of Sprouting Grass Moon in the lunar calendar.
Time I say for casting aside the acrimony against each other. Time for using our voices to take a stand against injustice of course.
Yet more than this spring should be a time of yes rebirth and rejuvenation.
Reprising the parts of our lives that we loved that have fallen away. Rejoicing in the person we were meant to be.
Left of the Dial 