Saying NO to the people you admire most

Posted | 12 comments

There’s a ton of good advice out there reminding us that sometimes the best answer we can give is No.

Turn down the invitation because you need a good night’s sleep.

End the partnership that’s no longer a good fit for the direction your business is moving in.

Set boundaries with the relative who’s always hitting you up for a discount.

Many of us have grown up with an inclination to please others with our quick Yeses, so Hallelujah! we’re getting better at doling out the love-filled No.

But here’s the branch I’d like to add to that tree:

A rallying cry for beginning again

Posted | 6 comments

He doesn’t notice anymore, so why bother wasting money on a dress like that?

I had pancakes for breakfast and lunch so I might as well go all in and have ice cream for dinner.

Our family has come here for years so I don’t want to rock the boat.

And so we keep on keeping on. We suck it up one more time.

Cue the stagnation.

We keep eating crap, wearing saggy jeans and handing our money over to a mechanic who never explains anything to us because we’re just a girl.

We stagger through the bits that aren’t working because beginning again is dark water.

Beginning again requires us to say that we’ve changed our mind. It requires us to set a new standard and ask anyone who isn’t hitting that high note to hit the road.

Beginning again takes us into unfamiliar territory and dark water gives us the heebie jeebies.

But what if

The danger of seeking a shared experience

Posted | 10 comments

“If that happened to me, I would be furious. Violent, even.” 

That’s what a friend said after I told her about my crazy weekend.

And then she immediately followed up with a list of suggestions for how I could unleash the rage she was sure I had to be feeling.

Have a good cry. 

Swear like a sailor.

Crack open a bottle of wine and get to work. 

Scream like the house is on fire. 

Problem: despite the shittiness of the weekend, I was not furious or violent at all.

My friend had given me a list of release-the-rage activities even though I had no rage to release.

The Celebration Series

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Today’s post was supposed to be a big Wooohoooo!! announcement because my revamped website was scheduled to launch this week.

In fact, I was so ecstatic about sharing the new site with you that I asked 10 bloggers to join me on a blog crawl called The Celebration Series. I asked them all to respond to the question, ”What do you need to celebrate?”

But then the site didn’t launch.

I was hugely disappointed so the thought of smiling and prancing around in celebration sounded about as appealing as licking a cheese grater.

What I’m going to stop doing (Burning Question style)

Posted | 11 comments

Have you heard about The Burning Question?

If not, run over to daniellelaporte.com and sign up. It’s liquid loveliness.

As some of you know, I’m in the middle of sexifying my digital space and the process also has me rethinking the blog and where it’s going.

And because the universe always sends us exactly what we need, right in the middle of all this rethinking, my inbox dinged with this: