- Earthy Mama

⁉¿? Wait a minute... Who are you?

Journaling prompts to find your identity when you're drowning in labels and subcultures

Let me be real with you. I'm a teenager, as I assume most of you reading this are (And if you're not, that's totally OK), and trying to find your identity often means trying on persona after persona, hoping that someday something will fit. Which, yes, it will, but I personally believe writing it out and exploring is so much more rewarding (and so much less embarrassing).

۶ৎ Create an overview

This is like writing a discord intro. Include your (Actual, chosen) name, gender identity, and so on, if you would like, but the most important part isn't that obvious.

How do I feel about my nationality? Am I proud of where I live? If I had to choose somewhere, anywhere to live, where would I choose?

What are my feelings towards my assigned gender? Where do I fall on the spectrum? Is my energy more masculine or feminine, or completely neutral?

What is my body image like? What do I like about the way I look, and what do I don't?

Do I actually feel like my bodily age? Younger, older?

Am I aligned with 'Human nature'? Do I enjoy being human, or would I rather be something else?

By taking these traits you were born with and evaluating, you start to get an idea of what you identify with, and what you don't. This is very important, but people often don't question things like this, as they seem a given (But end up unhappy with their view of themselves).

۶ৎ This versus that

Divide your page into a left side and a right side. On the left, write down your real-life answers to these questions. On the right, write what your 100% ideal version of yourself would say. Then compare.

How do I feel about going to school / university / my job?

How do I wake up feeling in the morning?

How do I express myself? (Clothing, makeup, art, music)

What does my friendship circle / lack thereof look like?

How does my brain think people see me? Do I care?

What does my living space look like?

How do I treat myself? Is it fair?

What goes on daily inside my head?

What are my goals in life?

How do I react to failure / disappointment?

What is my main coping mechanism?

What is the strongest opinion I have about myself?

How do my hobbies / activities contribute to my life?

What is my biggest vice?

What am I proud of, relating to my identity?

If it doesn't match up at all, no worries. The most important step to creating an identity for yourself is knowing who you want to be. For a long time I had no idea, and ended up becoming someone I strongly disliked, which is counterintuitive and mentally draining.

۶ৎ Words

Get yourself a blank piece of paper, and write down as many things as you can that interest you, describe you, or that you love. It doesn't have to be cohesive, follow a theme or anything like that, just words on a page. I'll do an example here:

Boba tea, meditation, blogging, Laufey, Cinnamoroll, studying, wonyoungism, skincare, medical dramas, Murakami, dusty pink, journaling, aquarium, cats, that girl/boy, Turkish delight, vanilla

۶ৎ Mood board / Vision board

As a highly visual person, I make collages from Pinterest all the time, and making one or a couple for yourself, or who you want to be, is a great exercise for identity and manifestation. Ideas for what to put on:

Photos related to your aesthetic

Indoor design that speaks to you

Photos of your hobbies

Items you would love to own, or already do

'Goals': photos of good grades, your desired appearance, money etc.

Fashion styles that you wear, or wish you could

Your future occupation

Photos conveying your mood lately

Media (Games, books, movies, shows) that you really enjoy

Your favourite album

An example:

Feel free to reply to this post with your answers!

𓂃˖ ࣪⊹ Kakao

I call it The Truck Stop Swipe.

There is a way of washing your body where you stand use just a damp wash cloth to clean yourself, and you don’t stand under water or in a bath. Do you call this a:

- top and tail

- pta/ pits tits ass

- dry bath

- other (put in tags pls)

- never heard of this

小红书 is literally my favorite app at this point. Sorry Not Sorry. It probably helps that the vast majority of users are educated adult women.

THE SWIMMING PIC HAS ME SOBBING 😭😭

I'm Sorry - Gator Days

Before I returned to Veterinary medicine, I was in Cabinetmaking and wood technology, and there were times I wondered why the fuck half the regs we had needed to be written down, why our safety briefings needed to be so damn long, I just wanted to build... then a kid the year behind me in trade school decided to skip a push stick on the jointer 7 months into his training, rushing through his spring project. Kid lost all function in his left hand, severed his FCU Tendon, lost part of his triquertum bone and required 58 stitches in his hand and wrist and a blood transfusion. The stain on the concrete never quite went away before I finished my program. Peroxide, concrete stripper... it wouldn't fully get rid of the brown stain at the base of the jointer. The next week we all had to go from a 10 hour OSHA certification to a 30 hour OSHA certification. Thankfully, he only fucked himself up ignoring safety regulations.

I've seen kickbacks fly at people operating equipment behind the tablesaws, had my own close call while running a CNC router table when someone else had a tablesaw throw a piece towards me, ruin a cnc bit and a $150 rough sawn price figured maple slab, but it got caught up in the running CNC and not me by about 7° difference in its trajectory angle at takeoff and about 18 inches from my face. The other woodworker didn't get impaled or lose a finger because they followed all their OSHA regs, I was following OSHA regs for the CNC router, but there still could have been a really dangerous incident there because of the routers location behind a tablesaw.

OSHA regs are just the tip of the iceberg for work safety, because our shop was set up for compliance, but having seen some of the shit I've seen, there are layout changes I would have made to our shop to be mindful of the fact that there were 20-40 people working in the shop at a time. I've had saws run away on me when their primary switches failed in the on position (part of why all tools need fail safes and backup power cutting options) I've had saw kicks and throwbacks, the dangerous shit that will happen to every woodworker if they work long enough, I haven't had any injuries from woodworking beyond splinters and blisters because I follow my OSHA shit.

Keep an eye out for safety problems on site when you're interviewing

Read up on your industry's safety standards

Read your material SDS sheets

Walk if your employer tries to shame or pressure you out of OSHA compliance

Keep up to date on industry safety briefings and case/post incident studies

Seriously WALK if your employer is trying to shortcut safety

I know the safety compliance/osha man is the brunt of a lot of jokes in the trades, mostly because a lot of them have forgotten that their job is supposed to protect the worker rather than the profits, but in theory, they are there to protect YOU and YOUR life, cut the fucker some slack.

"It doesn't help your credibility to exaggerate, most employers wouldn't literally work you to death" like, I used to work in distribution. If booking a truck driver for back to back shifts until they fall asleep at the wheel, crash, and die counts as being worked to death, I have personally met employers who've worked employees to death and gotten away with a slap on the wrist. It may not be universal, but it's a hell of a lot more common than a lot of us would prefer to think.

Sorry, I've been away lately, Y'all. The patients have been good and interesting, and instead of blogging about it here, I've been talking about it with my local Farrier (and living my childhood horsegirl's dream of dating & attending church with a kind and handsome farrier) so I've been a little busy, I'm also on Instagram now under the same tag. Sooooo yeah

There really... aren't solid reasons as to why the pope can't be female. It ties back to the semi-false idea that Christ only had male disciples and apostles (though Mary Magdalene and her title Apostle of Apostles calls this into question), there are also letters of Paul from the early days about women priests that, taken out of context, imply no woman should ever be a priest, but in the context of the times, was about the hedonistic lifestyle of high priestesses in ancient Roman and Greek religious life who utilized sex and sexual appeal as part of worship. There's a reason that the Anglican communion does not bar women from being ordained or holding positions of power within the church, as biblical scholars gain a deeper understanding of the contexts and meanings in texts as well as gain better understandings of the original texts in their native languages.

hi current and former catholics on radblr. is there a reason there cant be a female pope (i understand the requirement includes being male and baptized)? like is it actually something that makes sense-ish or is it just a long running tradition of only males having power. Or is it something to do with the original pope (peter). i am just curious