In an effort to live life to the fullest and always strive in the direction my heart takes me, I’ve created a bucket list. And being the list cheater that I am, I’ve written some down that can already be scratched off the list…
Read More “Wellness Wednesday: HEART”
Y’all. I have a confession to make. It’s deep. It’s dark. It’s something I never thought I would admit to the public. But here goes.
A couple weeks ago, I watched an episode of The Bachelorette. If that wasn’t shocking enough, I took it one step further and I liked it. I’ve watched every episode so far this season, so I guess you could say I’m officially hooked.
You may be thinking, “Gasp! Courtney, no!” Believe me. I still kind of think that about myself. The whole idea behind The Bachelor and The Bachelorette used to make me queasy (okay, it still does). One dude with two dozen ladies all vying for his attention? It puts my feminist bristles up just thinking about it. But then they had to go and reverse it so that there was one lady with two dozen guys vying for her attention. Equality, right? Wrong! Basically, the dudes have to prove their “manliness” by doing macho things like saving the Bachelorette (this season the bachelorette is a woman named JoJo) from a burning building or playing a game of flag football (which included tackling) to determine who gets to go on a date with her.
I can’t count the number of times the guys have threatened to pummel each other or called each other “little bitch” or engaged in some other chauvinistic thing when they feel like their territory with JoJo has been crossed. Let’s also keep in mind that there were literally four men of color out of twenty-six contestants. I looked through photos of them to verify this number, and it turns out that one of the black men was practically cut out of the first episode and never seen of or heard from again.
I’ve been watching the show with my friend, Kolbe (whom you may remember from this post where she shared five tips for beginning runners), and when a message came on the screen about casting calls in Dallas, I jokingly said, “You want to audition?” She said, “I won’t make it.” And when I asked why, she said, “Because they only pick white people.” Yikes.
So how did this happen?
Read More “Wellness Wednesday: HEART”
“I didn’t even know Mexicans were that smart.” — Emily Austen
A few weeks ago, like many of you, I saw Fox Sports reporter Emily Austen “trying to be funny” on a Facebook Live video while appearing on the broadcast of “The Rundown” on Barstool Sports. With the recent influx of live videos on Facebook, novice handlers have been caught with their mouths open and pants down. In Austen’s case, her off-color remarks about Mexican immigrants, Chinese students, the Jewish community, and NBA player Kevin Love cost her a career. Like a bad scary movie, I watched in horror as she made one bad decision after the next. And like most actors in bad scary movies, it might be a long time before Austen appears on-camera again—if ever.
It’s safe to say that Fox Sports did what they had to do and parted ways with Austen immediately. I tried to do the same, but I kept hearing her words in my head—I didn’t even know Mexicans were that smart.
Through my experiences coaching women for the last two years, I’ve grown accustomed to spotting limiting beliefs. We all have them, and sometimes they’re a part of our daily dialogue. Insomuch as we become immune to the way they sound. They’re ingrained in us, but they weren’t always there, I remind my clients (and myself).
Read More “Wellness Wednesday: HEART”
I really love the word Christine Handy chose for us this month—heart.
It’s different from the words we’ve had in the past. It’s not an emotion or a positive characteristic to strive for. This word has so many definitions. If you look it up on Merriam-Webster, it can of course refer to the organ which beats in our chest and keeps us alive, or it can refer to a suit in a card deck. But it can also refer to a disposition, as in “a leader with heart.” It can refer to courage, as in “she never lost heart.” It can refer to that which is central and most vital to a thing, as in “getting to the heart of the matter.”
Most importantly, it can refer to a way of life, as in “she is a woman who lives with her whole heart.”
This last meaning is the one we’re focusing on today. I’ve put a little video together of the Behaviorists and me where we share what “living with our whole hearts” means to us.
Read More “Wellness Wednesday: HEART”