Jessica Crow & Co

I bought new sheets yesterday. It was a first. Not the purchasing process. The selection process. These are for me. On my bed. That I get to wrap myself in. No one else got a say. No one else figured into the decision.

We don’t come with instruction manuals. And we sure don’t receive instructions on starting over. If, in the future, an instruction manual is produced, might I suggest that “New Sheets” be a chapter?

What a difference a cut makes! The green shirt was before and the last two are after. If you are a curly person and in the 901 check out Elizabeth at Great Lengths.

Where are the Queens and Goddesses that have passionate, free-thinking child(ren)? Raise your hands 🙌🏼 in the comments.

I’m doing this new thing…

If you ask how you can help, I’m going to share how I feel *you* can help.

In the past, ya know like 3-4 weeks ago💁🏼‍♀️, if someone asked:
“Are you okay?”
“How can I help?”
“What do you need?”

I would lie and say:
“I’m fine.”
“We are so good, really.”
“Uh, nothing?” Or “I’m not sure?”

I realize people can’t help if I don’t allow help. Allowing is a terrifying concept for those of us with abandonment wounds. We’ve asked for help, we’ve reached and the need hasn’t been met.

✨AND✨ it’s something we get to practice and work through. We get to find the people that are truly for us, with us at not just our best but our worst.

We get to keep testing the trust and allow muscles. Sometimes it rips your heart out. And sometimes you find the salve for your wounds.

The salve is worth the risk. 💖

🌟Today feels emotionally heavy. I choose to be still and listen.

🌟This is how I’m taking care of myself:

🌟Writing my intentions for the coming month. (Planting seeds.)

🌟Staying in my comfy clothes and a sweatshirt

🌟Honoring my body. Asking it what it wants to eat? Drink? How it wants to move? What does school looks like today?

🌟Gentle, tender, loving, nourishing…beginning with me, then my loved ones. Not selfish, filling my cup so I have some to pour out.

🌟How are you taking care of you? *Are* you taking care of you?

🌟You don’t have to do it alone this time. I’ve got your back, Love.

🌟Drop a message

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🌞 I know what living life for everyone else is. It’s empty, soul-sucking, and wondering when the heck it’s going to be your turn? If you aren’t putting yourself first, making decisions for yourself, allowing everyone else to decide what’s best for YOUR ONE PRECIOUS LIFE, the answer is- never.

🌞I know it seems easier, safer even. You can’t be wrong if you don’t make a choice. It seems like if you don’t make a stand, you have a smaller chance of upsetting anyone.

🌞Except…you are upsetting people. You are disappointing yourself. You are showing your kids how to be walked over, to be a victim.

🌞There wasn’t a single magical moment when I decided I’d be where I am today. There were, and still are, so many individual moments where I reclaim my power.

🌞January 2019, I began releasing expectations in my relationship with my Dad.

🌞November 2019, I broke up with diet culture and began treatment for orthorexia and binge eating disorder.

🌞July 2020, I told my Mom that she wasn’t a safe place for me because of her own eating disorders.

🌞May 2021, we put our house on the market having no clue where we were going. And my husband relocated 30 minutes away.

🌞August 2021, we moved back to Germantown.

🌞October 2021, I became a single Mom raising a high-needs kiddo.

🌞December 2021, kiddo and I moved into our own home. The boundary kiddo established for our home- “No traumas happen here!” And I will do everything in my power to hold that boundary with them.

🌞These are the really BIG moments of self-reclamation. There were many smaller ones. These aren’t life choices I could have made on my own without tremendous healing. Achieved through deep work done in multiple Coaching Containers, BreathWork Sessions, and having people that I trusted see my potential and hold me accountable- never forcing, just reminding me of the desires I expressed.

🌞I had to borrow others' belief in me until I believed in myself. Are you ready to borrow my belief in you?

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✨Out with the old and in with the new!

✨Thank you for the growth and lessons 2021- you really shook things up!

✨Happy 2022!

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⭐It’s only been the past few years that I have acknowledged my resiliency. That even when the purpose wasn’t evident I HAD to keep going.

⭐I didn’t know who I was separated from Mom, Wife, Daughter, Sister. I clung to those identities because Jessica didn’t seem worthy enough.

⭐I often felt selfish or that I was not being a good Christian/wife/mother/human if I looked for what lit me up if I attempted to find who I was separate from those socially acceptable identities.

⭐And then… a kiddo made choices that altered our lives forever. From that moment forward, nothing could remain the same. I had to, instantly, learn to stand on my own- for me and the kid. In doing that, we reshaped our world.

⭐Nothing and no one else mattered, we were in survival mode. It was life or death and I fought, clawed, begged, and prayed for life. In doing that, I found my courage. I found I no longer had tolerance for bullsh1+ and was done living by other people's rules and playing others games.

⭐Today, I sit in my very own living room. With my kiddo laughing on the phone with their friends. Life won. Love won. We are actively rewriting our World, our “rules”, our boundaries. Strictly committed to one thing- ourselves, our truth.

⭐You don’t have to wait for drastic situations to cause you to wake up to your power, truth and commitment to yourself. You are worth it simply because you live and breathe. If you need to borrow my belief in you, until you have it for yourself- I am honored and humbled.

⭐Schedule your clarity call?

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✨Diet culture is everywhere. I opened my laptop this morning and the first thing I see is an article titled, “How Your Diet Affects Your Mental Health.”

✨What they don’t mention is if you live in a food desert how detrimental THAT message is to your mental health.

✨They don’t mention what to do when whole, clean, healthy foods are not readily available to you.

✨They don’t mention how you can’t control what’s out of your control and the negative effect THAT has on your mental health.

✨They don’t mention what to do when a trip to the grocery store is more than 30 minutes away, one way, or there’s no public transportation, it’s not feasible to have fresh foods year round. Or money is so tight (or a storm, a flood or a pandemic) that the only way the family eats is if the kids go to school and get free food there- and it’s not fresh, it’s not high quality but it keeps you alive.

✨And how the smaller local grocers have a produce section smaller than 1/8th the store's footprint.

✨They assume that you have the privileges they do. And if you don’t they aren’t worried about YOUR mental health.

✨I’m here to tell you, you matter. You are valid. You are important.

✨And to tell diet culture to F-OFF!

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**kdietculture ❤️

🌟History wasn’t my greatest subject. I think most of us can agree we were taught a white-washed story anyway.

🌙 Basically, how I understand it- there were these white people that didn’t like being told how to do things, so they got on some boats and came to “undiscovered” lands.

➡That was actually inhabited by an entire civilization of people that were then murdered and/or forced from their land.

➡ These same people that didn’t want to be told what to do, committed genocide and made up all these rules for US to follow. Full stop.

☀As I have stated before, I’m a weirdo. I don’t like being put in boxes. I don’t like fitting in and I’m done following those folks' rules.

☀I am choosing to create my World the way I want it to be for my children and grandchildren. Join me in breaking cycles and standing up for what is right- basic respect for each individual?

☀I love you all!

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🌙This is not an invitation to eat a pint of ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You ARE the boss of you, though. This is an invitation to find your hunger cues, to begin to reconnect with your body. To discover how your body feels when it’s consistently fed.

🌙 How’s your mental fog? Irritability? Sleep quality? Pay attention to how your portion sizes change as your body begins to believe it will be fed regularly.

🌙This is also an invitation to consider your relationship with yourself. Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to modify your body?

🌙 The one precious vessel you have in this life. The one that has breathed every single breath up to this moment. Holding the heart that has pushed your blood exactly where it needs to go. Your eyes blink without thought.

🌙If any of the reasons why are “ I’ll like myself more” Sis, I’m here to tell you no, you won’t. You may feel that you meet societal standards, or feel that you fit in more.

🌙Do you really want to be like them? A carbon copy? Or do you want to be YOU?

🌙The one and only one that will ever be. Have the courage to be you, Boo. The World needs you as you are not as you are trying to be someone else.

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**kdietculture

Let’s do the darn thing! 🌈

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**kdietculture