How to use this Page

A lot of you have written to me in the past few days thanking me for sharing my own struggles with sugar addiction (a.k.a. my kryptonite), and also for sharing Dr. Susan Thompson’s videos about what she’s learned as both a neuropsychologist and as a formerly obese woman about how to rewire our brains and finally get rid of cravings once and for all. Yes, please, now!

(And by the way, thank you for all your emails and comments! I really do love the solidarity we can have about this topic. It’s not something any of us are particularly proud of, but it feels good to be able to talk about it with each other!)

The third video in Susan’s series is now out, and it’s the best so far: about the 5 critical ways we can rewire our brains so that eating the right foods, and not eating the wrong foods, becomes completely automatic.

If you haven’t already watched videos one and two yet, I highly recommend them, since each is chock full of all sorts of cool science about why we crave what we do, why willpower fails us (it’s not the right tool), and other answers to questions you’ve probably had as you dive into that fourth serving of cookies, candy, cake, or ice cream. I know because I have been there, my friend. As recently as last week!

Hope you love this last video as much as I did! LEARNING! Love it!

~Robin

(Photo credit: Alex Jones, via Unsplash.com)

In celebration of the release of BOOK OF EARTH, the first book in my medieval fantasy warrior girl series THE BRADAMANTE SAGA, I thought we’d all like a little extra dose of some badass women. Enjoy!

When I was doing research for my novel REPLAY, which deals with near-death experience and reincarnation, I underwent hypnosis and past-life regression at a workshop with Dr. Brian Weiss, author of Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives.

The experience was amazing, cool, and a topic for another day. Or for a speech like the one I gave last week to a great group of librarians, explaining how that past-life regression was exactly like my memories of my childhood librarians. If you’re a great group of librarians, I’ll come tell you, too.

But the short version is that what I learned during that past-life regression is that it’s the feelings that endure. Not specific faces or long scenes with dialogue, but the feelings you experienced at various moments in any given life.

That’s why I love this beautiful little film dramatizing part of a speech by author George Saunders. As George points out, it’s our own kindness–or lack of kindness–that sticks with us in this life.

I think you’ll like it. Take a look:

Math is on my mind lately as I wrap up the Parallelogram series. (Yes, Dear Readers, Book 4 is coming! There are just so many words.) I, like my main character Audie in the series, enjoy quantum physics but do not enjoy the math. Or, to put it less charitably, cannot do the math.

But I can’t help wondering if I would have had a completely different attitude toward math in school if I’d had a teacher like this. Or at least seen a demonstration like this. Because there’s no doubt Arthur Benjamin makes math FUN. (Although no matter how fun it is, I still think there’s no way mere mortals could do what he does.)

Enjoy!

This commencement speech by Neil Gaiman about carving out a life of creativity is one of those things I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time, but never seemed to get around to.

Which is why we need people who say, “Here! Look!” and send you the link. Thank you to author and illustrator Guy Porfirio for being that person for me today.

And now I get to be that person for all of you. Here! Look!

Back when I was practicing law, I had a sign hanging in my office that said: Perfectionism is an elegant defense against real life.

I kept a separate note inside my desk that read:  If I don’t win your case, I’ll eat a bug. I leave it to you to decide how those two things matched up.

(And for more adventures of being a law student and lawyer, you can read my lawyer romance LOVE PROOF. It’s lots of fun.)

The issue of perfectionism haunts a lot of us. We’re never quite there. Wherever “there” is. And sometimes that feels like a moving target.

It’s why I was interested in this TED talk by Sarah Lewis about success versus the “near win.” About success versus mastery. I loved her stories of artists and writers who knew their work was never complete, but who put it out there anyway. (Or who ordered their friends to burn everything after the artist died, but too bad–friends hardly ever obey those crazy wishes.)

It’s why even though I know some of my novels aren’t perfect, I still let you read them. Because I like the stories and want to share them with you, even though sometimes when I look back at them I might wince at this line of dialogue, that awkward scene, some weird way of putting something that at the time I thought was cool. Oh well. I did my best. And I’m going to keep moving forward and write the next one, rather than constantly mess around with one I’ve already “finished.”

Which is my way of saying that if you don’t love every single word I write, that’s okay–I probably don’t, either. But overall I’m happy with the idea that you and I sat around a campfire one night and I told you this story from start to finish. And we had fun. There were marshmallows. And then the next night we moved on to some new story instead of me saying, “You know last night when I told you the girl in the story’s name is Rose? It’s Giselle instead. And that part about her hating her mother? Forget it–her mom died.” Etc. Etc. BORING. Move on. We already got to The End on that one–give me something new.

With that, I give you Sarah Lewis and her talk “Embracing the Near Win”:

I found this through Upworthy.com–a great site I highly recommend.

Last week it was what was possible as an 80-year-old. Today we’re going quite a bit younger:

I’m giving a talk to some librarians next week, and it reminded me to watch this video again. My childhood librarians played a huge part in turning me into a lover of books, and they are one of the reasons I grew up to be a writer. This video really captures for me that passion for the written word. I can’t ever seem to make it through to the end without crying. And why try?

Enjoy:

I love any and all TED talks given by Sir Ken Robinson. Take a look at his latest one about education and creativity and I think you’ll understand why:

And if you liked that one, check out this earlier talk that’s still my favorite, on how to nurture creativity.

WOW. And make sure you stick around for her interview after the performance. What a woman.

First of all, have you watched this yet? If not, do. Then we’ll talk:

Now here’s what I have to add to the topic of weight and body image and all that:

When I was quite a bit heavier than I am now, I went through Weight Watchers. And I’ll never forget what the instructor told us at one of the meetings: “Underwear isn’t supposed to hurt.” Changed my life, that statement. But maybe not for reasons the instructor would have expected.

She was trying to inspire us to reach our goal weights, and that was fine, as far as it went. But what it really said–to me, at least–was that we might not even realize we’re being mean to ourselves by wearing clothes that don’t fit us well. Maybe we’re so caught up in the idea of “these are the pants I’ll wear when I get down to X pounds,” we forget that we’re allowed to feel comfortable NOW, even before or while we work on losing weight.

Maybe some of you are like me, and you’re very good at being stern with yourselves. Being the drill sergeant, the disciplinarian, the one who makes up all the rules and then tries to come up with proper consequences when you violate them. So if you eat this cupcake, you’d better work out twice as hard tomorrow. Or my favorite at one time, the “bland days” that would follow a few days of unbridled eating. Then it was nothing but rice and vegetables or dry toast for me. Fun, huh? Really enjoying my life.

But I don’t do any of that anymore. Because I realized there’s no one making me be mean to myself but me. I’m a full-grown adult now, and I’m allowed to treat myself the way I would treat someone I love. I can’t imagine saying to my niece or to my best friend, “You ate half a bag of tortilla chips and a whole container of salsa this afternoon? Bad! You’re horrible! You’d better eat nothing but salads for the next five days!” Instead I’m sure I’d laugh it off, tell them I’ve done the same and more in times of stress (you have no idea how many cookies I sometimes need to get myself through the writing of some chapter that’s giving me fits), and then we’d go on talking about something far more important than whether her pants would be too tight tomorrow. Yes, they probably will. So what? Life goes on.

What I always found destructive in those times of self-criticism was the attitude of, “Oh, well, I’ve ruined it already. Might as well just keep eating everything in the world.” Uh, no. Might as well go do something sweet for myself instead, like take a hot bath or read a great book or pop in some rom-com DVD. Any of those take the place of chips or cookies–pure indulgence, meant only for me. Which means I’m also not allowed to criticize myself for goofing off. That’s right, I’m doing this right now. Because I’m allowed to be nice to myself.

I mentioned last week that I’m currently on a green smoothie kick, but let me be clear: It’s not a punishment of some kind. I’m doing it because I finally experienced what a proper green smoothie tastes like, I enjoyed it, I liked how it felt in my body, and so as a kindness to myself I’m going to drink some more. But if at any point I decide I don’t like the taste anymore or I don’t like that full feeling from having gobs and gobs of fruits and nuts and vegetables in what seems like a simple chocolate milkshake (by the way, I’ve been working on that recipe and have made it even better), then that’s it. No more. I’ll only do it if it feels nice.

That’s one of the pleasures of being an adult. A pleasure I wish I had learned back when I was a chubby teenager wearing clothing that hurt me every day, thinking it would motivate me to be skinnier. It didn’t. It just made me feel bad.

So I hope next time you pull on a pair of underwear with a waistband that cuts into your skin, you stop yourself and think, “Underwear isn’t supposed to hurt.” And that you take the next step by going to Target or wherever and buying yourself a package of underwear one size up. Or two sizes up, if you need to. Because that one simple thing might mean the difference between you feeling happy and comfortable in your body today, and you feeling miserable and guilty and unworthy. Such a simple fix. And believe me, you deserve it.

And the next time you go crazy eating something you’re sure you’re not supposed to eat, shrug it off. Do better tomorrow. Or do better starting a minute from now–the right path is always there waiting for you, whenever you feel like stepping back onto it. No worries, no punishment, no “bland days” or drill sergeant. The time to be sweet to yourself starts now.

It’s the kind of thing you can get used to.

Great talk for my teacher friends in the crowd–and for all of us who have had great teachers or just wished we had!

Come on, who hasn’t? Even in your pretend alternate life? We can be honest here.

Here’s a short video to whet your appetite, courtesy Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. (I’ve become obsessed with Amy’s website and all her many videos, so I can promise this won’t be the only one you’ll see.  But it’s a fun place to start!)

This video has been around for a while, but every now and then I love to watch it again and see if it still gets me all misty-eyed as soon as the violins come in. Yes, it does. And by the end I’m always in full-on happy tears. See if it doesn’t do the same for you:

OMG, this video had me bawling. So great. Love this whole idea of making the sky rain goodness over one person.

Enjoy!

I’m afraid of a nice variety of things:  Sharks.  Going too fast on skis.  Vomiting in public. You know, the usual.

That’s why I enjoyed hearing from this astronaut, Chris Hadfield, about the difference between danger and fear, and some strategies for changing your brain’s habitual reaction to your habitual fears.  It might involve walking through a hundred spider webs, or in my case, pointing my skis downhill a little more often instead of defaulting to the snowplow. I don’t know what to say about the vomiting fear, since I don’t plan on doing it in public more often just to reassure myself it’s okay. Because I’m pretty sure it’s not.

Anyway, here’s a fascinating talk by Astronaut Hadfield that includes some beautiful images of space and earth and a very relaxing tune at the end.  And in between, some very solid ideas about becoming braver.  Enjoy!

This is one of those things that falls into the category of Something I Wish I Could Do and Would Never Do In a Million Years.  Ever since seeing the movies Jaws at an impressionable age (which could have been in my teens or as recently as last week, since that movie has the power to scare you forever no matter when you see it), I am not a fan of the ocean. I don’t mind snorkeling in shallow waters where I can see the bottom, but once I swim past that shelf where everything beneath me is black and unknowable, forget it–obviously there’s a great white shark there waiting for me. I don’t understand people (like my insane husband) who purposely swim with sharks. I want to keep rereading the Harry Potter series every year. How could I do that if I were ripped apart by sharks?

Anyway, I love this video for the kindness and humanity of it, and I especially love what happens at the very end.  (That’s the puppy-ish behavior, by the way, in my opinion.  Although maybe it’s just my puppy-skewed world view.)  So keep watching. And wonder to yourself whether you could do what those people did. If so, I admire you, too!

)

Maybe I’m never supposed to admit this in public, but here goes:

When I was in high school, there was a soap opera called Ryan’s Hope.  And on that soap opera was a beautiful, smart, tough, sexy, overdramatic character that a LOT of things happened to, because it was a soap opera, and she had awesome hair and she was beautiful and smart and she was a lawyer.

I went to college and majored in English.  Then Philosophy, then Management Information Systems (the old-fashioned name for Computer Science), then Secondary Education, then Elementary Education, back to English, then Accounting very briefly (it was close to my senior year, and I knew very soon I’d have to support myself and needed a practical degree), then back to English (because forget being practical, this is ME!  I love books!  I might be an English professor!  Shut up!  I just want to read!), and by then I just needed to graduate, so I stuck with English.

And because I still needed to support myself, I thought what the hey, let’s take the LSAT  (the admissions test for law school) just for fun, and then I scored really high, and my course was set.

But really it was because of that character on Ryan’s Hope.  She made it all seem so cool and glamorous.  I’m really impressionable that way.

And now today I saw this.  And I’m telling you, if I’d seen that back when I was in high school or college, there’s no doubt in my mind I still would have become a lawyer.  Because Amy Poehler nails it:

And also this:

Love this video from the TED talks, via Upworthy.com.  Reminds me of Halli and Ginny from Parallelogram 3!  Feel like I’d better go climb a mountain now.  Or at least finish my taxes.  Bye!