Getting woo-woo for a moment

As I said in the sticky post, I moved my feeds to The Old Reader and have been weeding through blogs I didn’t read or that hadn’t updated in six months or more, and catching up with blogs that I loved but hadn’t had time to really sit with and read deeply.

I’d like to recommend some blogs of the latter type. They aren’t really about editing (see the sidebar for editing/writing blogs I like), but they share a focus on being your own self rather than projecting an image that you think is more likable or better at everything. Maintaining that image takes a lot of unnecessary work, and while the image can be a protective shell or a useful mask, it can also be uncomfortable and limiting. In the years before I took this leap, I was increasingly frustrated by the need to divide myself into a “work” persona and a “real” persona. I didn’t feel that I could be as feminist, as spiritual, as silly, as simply human, or as wholly myself while at work. So part of my work in building Last Syllable Communications is to set that image aside, take the risk of being my authentic self, and trust that clients who want to work with me — not just a warm body with X, Y, Z skills and Q years of experience, but me in particular — will connect with me and we can begin a working relationship, whether for the length of one project or over the course of years.

These are some of the blogs I read that encourage authenticity, risk, being your own self, and nurturing that sense of self.

• Captain Awkward, an advice column for the nerdy and awkward among us (self included)
• The Freelancery, which I recommend over and over here for freelancing advice and encouragement
• Momastery, a blog full of light and love and brutiful life
• Nurshable, about gentle parenting (you may find this blog less useful if you’re not a parent or have a very different parenting style)
• Beauty Tips for Ministers, advice on dressing fashionably and appropriately at the same time; geared toward clergymembers, but enormously useful to me as I transitioned into my thirties and realized I needed to learn to dress myself again