Natalie Audelo

I saw something wonderful recently about how creatives should never apologize for taking the space to create. How wonderfully, stupidly obvious is that? Whether it’s your work or your pleasure, creating grounds us, fills us, lets the most alive parts of ourselves enter into the world to further germinate and flourish.

I have also come to understand that trying to fit into society’s understanding of a “good girl” is a trap, the same way that the “model minority” and the “good gay” and the “good fatty” are all traps. Even when you succeed at it you lose, because these roles are all ultimately means of containment: of circumscribing power by putting exacting, contr... See more

The only things I allow myself to feel regret about are past food, clothing, and hair choices. Everything else, I think of as part of my path, my journey. All the steps we’ve taken have led us to where we are. For some reason, in this culture, we always want to win, be right, comfortable, and happy. There is, however, tremendous value in losing, in... See more

Compliments are an other-oriented token that don’t demand a response from the person they are directed to. They also don’t usually require the receiver to reveal anything — the compliment affirms that what they chose to reveal has been seen and noted.

I might have approached the librarian with something along the lines of, “I love your dress. I had ... See more

Anxiety, of which worry is a component, is essentially just unfocused fear.

We design our lives by every choice that we make—from how we plan our days, to how we approach our relationships, to our interactions with our environments. The question we can all practice asking ourselves, she offered, is: “Is what I’m about to do conducive to life?”