STYLE ORACLE

Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts

If you are someone who keeps up with your best friends regularly, and goes out with them multiple times a week then you’ve got it together and I commend you. But, if you’re not as fortunate with time between juggling work, school, gym time, family time, traveling, turning your passions into real-life achievements, or just trying to save, then it could be a little harder to just chill or go out with your best friend, and that is understandable.

To the best friends who hold it down without question, the ones who are there at any hour of the day willing to console, support, love, and remind us of our greatness, thank you.

Your best friend is partly responsible for your sanity. Reread that for a minute, and bask in the significance of that statement. Have you ever really stopped and really thought to yourself, “What would I do without my best friend?” Probably not, because you might assume that he/she isn’t going anywhere. Who can blame you for that? They’ve been around for long enough and seen you at your best and worst and still stayed, so it’s probably a safe bet that they aren’t leaving.

But that does not serve as an excuse to have an unbalanced level of appreciation towards them. Are you thanking them and checking on them just as much as you turn to them to vent and ask for help? If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to make some healthy changes toward your approach. Stop what you're doing and check in on your support system.

Your besties deserve a whole day of love, even if you think they know how much you appreciate them. Our parents have an international day to celebrate them even though they know how much we love them too, so one for our best friends wouldn’t hurt.

I’m here to help you plan a “Best Friend Appreciation Day” just to mix things up, and make things a little more fun for a change. Instead of doing the normal activities you and your friends do, try something new and see how you both react. See if you find a new favorite thing to do together.

You could link up at the end of the week or month to go out for drinks/hookah and unwind. But why wait that long? Why not hang out on a Thursday night after work and cook dinner together? Talk about the work/school week, so there’s less of a build up. Talk about upcoming plans, and congratulate each other on any new achievements, even the smaller ones like waking up earlier in the morning.

Aside from the Best Friend Appreciation Day idea, smaller gestures work too. Get your best friend a gift they aren’t expecting while you’re out shopping for yourself. Pick up their favorite candy on your way to their house. And if you're looking for something that won't cost a dime, make a playlist of all the throwbacks you both love and text them the link. Any sweet gesture of a appreciation can go such a long way when it’s unexpected because it shows that you care, and that effort could turn their entire day around.

If you're looking for some fun new things to try with your faves, here are a few suggestions:

Visit an ice cream shop together that neither of you have tried before. There are Instagram pages to help you narrow down some choices. Some great ones to choose from.
If that’s not your thing, there are still a BUNCH of food options in the city, depending on your preference.you can find when searching food Instagram pages.
Even if you’re not in the same city, try out an escape room with a bigger group of friends.
Plan a sleepover “game night” instead of going out for drinks. Have everyone bring one item each: popcorn, wine, beer, food, and games like UNO, Head’s Up, Adult Loaded Questions, Jenga etc.
Take a trip to art gallery together, take pictures, and go out for lunch before or after.
Look up a set of questions to ask each other while you’re hanging out at each other’s house. You might think you know all the answers your best friend would say, but you’d be surprised at how much you could still learn about them.
Try a yoga class together instead of your regular gym routine.
Ask your best friend if they need help with any upcoming plans/events in his or her life. This might mean the world to them.
Pray for each other, and if you’re not religious, think good thoughts about their future and send good vibes their way. They don’t have to know about this one, but it’ll work wonders.
Try creating a care package for them! This one could be fun for you and them because they’ll feel all the love in that one DIY package. Include things like bath bombs, self-help books, lotions, candy, jewelry, anything that you know will put a smile on their face.

There are so many things to try that there is no way you’ll run out of ideas. But most importantly, you will be rekindling the happier sparks of your friendships and reminding each other of the reasons why you became so close in the first place. Whatever you choose, just be sure you don’t forget how important your best friend is to you and how important you are to them.

How do you celebrate your best friends? Let us know in the comments below!

I didn't encounter the words "feminized" or "feminization" until I started transitioning. Yet currently, both words occupy quite a few media inches, in reference to those who have had feminizing surgeries and, by omission, those who haven't. It's a trans concern, but one that ripples way out.

When I first engaged in talking therapy to try and resolve my issues around gender, people (professionals and friends) would ask me what I was going to do to become more feminine, what surgeries might I have done to erase the masculine features created by testosterone. Would I consider having my face shape changed, my brow line, my hairline, my chin, my nose, my lips? Bigger breasts, smaller shoulders, pretty hair? I would stand in front of the mirror and quite literally tug, pull, push, and attempt to non-surgically change my face from what now felt almost Neanderthal into Disney. My internal aim was to look like Kate Moss — ridiculous, I know — but I often spent days hating my face and wishing for her perfect, symmetrical elfin beauty. I felt like I had to be dainty in order to fit in. I had to be soft and smooth.

All around me people talked about the parts of me that made me stand out: my voice too deep, my shoulders too wide, my eyes too heavy-set, my chin too square... the list is eternal. This felt strange because, before transitioning, I had spent my whole life being told I was too feminine for my own good: I walked like a girl, talked like a girl, sat like a girl, read like a girl, played sports like a girl. These were pejorative, nasty, spiteful insults — which, ironically, I adored. But apparently, the instant I started to transition, I resembled Cro-Magnon Man.

I felt elated at the start of my transition, proud of my courage to be open and honest about who I felt I was. But the process of becoming me was draining. The need to fit a stereotypical binary model of femininity was utterly dispiriting. For years I felt that I was not good enough, that I was clumsy, unattractive, that if I didn't have bangs or soft, razor-edged hair I would seem masculine.

Hanging over me the whole time was the knowledge that I could change my face and body by undergoing feminization surgeries and training. I could sell my house to pay for it — my house which I had struggled as a teacher to buy and hold onto through the years when I could barely pay the mortgage.

My first act of womanhood was a commitment to my economic security. I held onto my house and realized that I couldn't afford the surgeries that may alleviate the dysphoria which at that point I saw as mine to own, not as society’s problem, as I do now. I spent lots of time coming to terms with my body and face and realized that the surgeries we trans folk can have may offer safety and success, but they might not be progressing the rights of all trans people. I wanted to linger, politically and personally, and occupy trans as a destination. The longer I have transitioned, the less important it is for me to be seen simply as a woman. The authenticity of trans, masculine features and all, is so often derided by our rush to pass through it and get to a place where we are perceived to be just like every other woman.

I'm not like every other woman: I'm fabulously and creatively transgender. There, I said it — and the sky hasn't fallen in.

The other day I read something like: "She had facial feminization surgery and the work flooded in." Our community should celebrate any trans person getting success — and I do — but the context in which our success is celebrated and our careers advanced is far too often still packaged in cis society’s desire to see the trans in us disappear. We are celebrated when we shake off our trans-ness.

The implication is that being suitably feminine is rewarded with work. The brilliant Janet Mock has been one of the few to shine a light on the presence of "pretty privilege" in the trans community. In an interview with Nylon magazine, Mock talked about how, after embarking on her medical transition at 15 years old, she saw her body change; she began "passing" as a cis girl, and with it, the reactions to her body changed. “With my gender nonconformity seemingly fading away,” Mock said, “I began to attract the attention of 18-to-24-year-old cis guys who began stopping to inform me that I was pretty.” She explains that she was suddenly accepted, yet “did nothing to earn the attention my prettiness granted me.”

I know writing this will make me unpopular. I know that the transphobes out there who attack us every day might think this article is for them. It's not. I am not criticizing any trans person who wishes to blend — fuck that. I want to blend: It means I get work, it means I'm safe(r) in this shitty #MeToo world of ours. But the entry point for success, aspiration, and affirmation is walking slap bang into sexist structures that reward smooth, youthful beauty. We need to be able to check that; it's privilege that is creating a two-tier system which leaves trans behind as the ugly, clumsy sibling.

This isn't new, women on television not being entitled to age, having to erase any signs of life from their faces and reducing their reactions, their facial responses, their fun, their joy, their anger, their laughter, to an ever-present, part-frozen, Botox-regulated grin. I have beautiful friends in their 20s who are already having Botox to ward off lines, to stave off aging. Lines, natural lines, are seen as unattractive, not viable for careers.

Age happens to us all, so let's not think that these cultural norms we are creating (beautiful trans folk equal success; aging in anyone equals very bad) don't apply to us. I know it's spectacularly easy to think we can demarcate young and old, and I know many will view me as old — perhaps the word "bitter" will appear on my timeline — but I assure you this is about politics and cultural submissiveness, which I witness becoming norms.

Botox will not prevent you, me, us, from aging and eventually dying. We all age, we are all temporary, but the important things are always deeper; we should be able to look in the mirror and celebrate who we are, bare-faced and naked. That's the kind of politicized equality I want to work towards: one where all trans people have the same opportunity for economic and personal success and safety, one where women are allowed to age and not be shamed into feeling that they are letting themselves go if they don't paralyze their expressions into porcelain smoothness. I want to reside in my trans-ness and celebrate my trans identity. I think I may just define myself as simply being trans from now on, because I do trans very well. Trans is my success point.

This year has been one of the country’s most intense and given us plenty to side-eye. But all that frustration can actually rob us of our own wellbeing. Bestselling author and Oprah Super Soul 100 teacher Gabrielle Bernstein is on a mission to help us all hit reset with her new book The Judgment Detox. Here she shares tips on how to pack light.

Recognize How Judgmental You Are
Yes, we are all judgmental. The first step to the judgment detox is to simply witness your judgment without judgment. When you start to track your judgments, ask yourself these four questions:

1) what or whom am I judging?

2) How does this judgment make me feel?

3) why do I feel justified make me feel?

4) what moment in my life triggered me to feel justified in this judgment?

Acknowledge We Are All Alike
Judging can instantly isolate us from everyone around us. When we let our outrage get the best of us, then we become part of the problem. Separation and judgment has been at such an all time high. We need to amplify a conversation around healing that separation. With that much darkness, there has to come light. The moment separation is healed, we can dissolve our judgment. Think about how you show up in the world. We have to ask ourselves. “What is the energy that I bring to the moment-to-moment situations in my life?"

Have Compassion for Women Still Wandering
Right now more than ever, women cannot judge other women. We must come together. We have to have a lot of compassion for the women that are voting for a pedophile, Because any woman that has it in her to vote for someone like Donald Trump or Buhari, obviously has a core wound that pretty much says, "I'm not good enough and I'm willing to take it." We can't look at them with disdain; we have to look at them with compassion.

Face Your Family Dynamics
Often the people that trigger us the most are our parents. They push our buttons the most because sometimes they're the ones that put them there. Not to be blamed, but these are the people that were meant to care for us, and if they had missteps along the way, that is a traumatic event for anyone. When we have those core wounds that we may or may not have worked on, when those core wounds are triggered, they will be triggered most by the people who placed them there. Commit to witness and heal that judgment.

Learn more of Gabrielle’s six-step process in her new book The Judgment Detox.

One of the biggest struggles I’ve had in my twenties is making friends.

And I know that might sound a little sad, but judging from what i have heard from other people is that they’re struggling with exactly the same thing, I know I’m not the only one!

Friendships in your twenties are TOUGH. With everyone moving cities, changing careers and living busy lives, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone. So in this post, I’m sharing 5 ways to make friends in your twenties – that aren’t awkward AF!

1. GET TO KNOW YOUR FRIEND’S FRIENDS

If you’re anything like me, when you meet your friend’s friends you normally don’t take too much interest. Sure, they seem nice, but you’re only going to hang out with them this one time so there’s no point getting to know them.

But getting to know your friend’s friends is actually one of the easiest ways to make new friends in your twenties. So take an interest and let your friend know that you’d like to do stuff with her group. And when you get invited, make sure you go! Yes, it might be a little uncomfortable at first but these are people that have already been vetted by your friend – so why not make the most of it?

2. VOLUNTEER

If you’re passionate about feeding the homeless volunteering could be the perfect way to make new friends. The key here is to make sure that you’re volunteering to help with a cause you’re actually passionate about – that way it will be easy to strike up conversation (and become friends) with your fellow volunteers. Bonus points if you take on an ongoing volunteering opportunity, as meeting people multiple times always makes things that bit easier.

3. GO TO EVENTS

I know this one is SO obvious, but leaving your house increases your chances of making new friends. Who knew?! Start going to those events that your acquaintances invite you to and have a look online to see what events are being hosted in your city around different interests.

bonus points if you attend the event by yourself (don’t worry, most of the other people there will be going by themselves too).

4. REACH OUT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

OK, I know I just said that leaving your house increases your chances of making new friends, but reaching out to like-minded women online is actually a great way to kick-start a real life friendship.

Some of my new friends have come from me reaching out to people on social media or from people reaching out to me. I know it might be different if you’re not a blogger, but if there’s anything you’re interested in then there are people you can reach out to!

Yes, it feels kinda weird. But remember, most women in their twenties are in the same situation as you and would LOVE to make a new friend.

Whenever I reach out, there’s a few things I like to do. The first is to make sure I never sound like a fan girl, because people want to be friends with their peers. And the second thing I do is give that person any easy out – I never presume they want to meet up with me or that they have the time. Not only does this let the other person know that I respect the fact that they’ve already got a lot of shit going on, but it also increases the chances that they’ll say yes because they don’t feel backed into a corner..

5. MAKE TIME FOR THE FRIENDS YOU ALREADY HAVE

I know this one isn’t really about making new friends in your twenties, but I know I’m not the only one that gets so caught up in my own life that I don’t make time for the friends I already have!

If there’s someone you haven’t seen in a while, reach out to them, schedule a friendship date and make it happen!

Have you been struggling to make friends in your twenties? Let me know in the comments below.

Influencers image used- @jasmineeheart @mayaalenaa