The disclaimer post

While it seems to be possible to push someone’s buttons regardless of the topic, many of the things I write about are known triggers for people.

Instead of writing a disclaimer in every post, urging readers to remember this and that, I decided to just write it all once, and I’ll link back to it as needed. (The first link back is tomorrow.)

So here it is: I’m not judging you. I’m not shaming you. In many cases, I don’t even know you.

I’m sharing with you my life experience. This is where I am now; this is where I’ve been. It’s not a contest.

In the past roughly 12 years, healthy living has been a priority. Changing what I eat, how I think about what I eat, (eventually) what I feed my kid, how much I sleep, how much I exercise, how I think about a wide variety of things … it’s been A Big Thing for me for a long time.

Some of it is easy. Some of it is hard. Most of it varies by the day.

My experience growing up in my family was substantially negative and has left all kinds of scars. I promised myself that as a parent, I would do better. It is a high priority for me—higher than healthy living (though they really go together)—to raise my son to be emotionally healthy and astute.

If I’m writing about something you’ve never really thought about, or thought about but haven’t put into place (or a million other possibilities), some of what I write might poke you. That’s not my intention—my posts are not written AT anyone.

But if you examine that poke and dig into it a little and figure out WHY it’s pokey—instead of blowing it off as “Heat is [your favorite putdown]”—you might learn something about yourself. And that’s how we grow.

Don’t compare your insides to my outsides.

I try to be transparent so you can see struggles where they exist(ed), but in real life, these are blog posts, and while I’m willing to share a lot, there are some things I’m not willing to share and some things that aren’t mine to share.

And there’s the issue of volume: there’s only so much I’m willing to write and there’s only so much you’re willing to read (if we’re all honest here).

I’m talking about what I’ve done in hopes that you take something from it and run with it, not so you can berate yourself for not doing better.

Start now. Pick a little something and do better now. Because you can.