Being a Critical Consumer of Social Media: my imperfect birth story

My daughter is sleeping, one of her sporadic 2-3 hour breaks between diapers, feeding, crying, rocking and snuggling. I became a mother three weeks ago and I must say it has not been what I expected. I wanted to write a little about some things I have learned, or more accurately re-learned, during the last [...]

Toxic Habits of the Mind

Thanks to Martin Seligman (founder of the movement called Positive Psychology), therapists have a much better understanding of three of the most common self-defeating habits/patterns of the mind. In response to challenging situations in our lives, we often fall into habits/patterns of thinking that are excessively: Personal Pervasive Permanent To illustrate, let’s take a look [...]

Introducing the Womanifesto

Marsha Hudnall, MS, RD, CD, is the owner of Green Mountain at Fox Run, a pioneering healthy weight retreat for women.  Green Mountain has been working for 40 years now to help women stop dieting and change their focus from their weight to living their lives fully, and achieve health and happiness in the process. [...]

e=mc²

Energy = Mass x Speed of Light (in a vacuum) squared What is energy? Intensity or vitality of action or expression. All energy can be transformed or converted into different types of energy. Energy can also be refocused. The laws of physics state that total energy remains the same while only the type and focus [...]

The Blessing of Affirmations

When you look in the mirror, what’s the first thing you say to yourself? If you are like most women, it’s not something kind or complimentary. Most of us are WAY too hard on ourselves, and the media doesn’t help with that. Think about it…can you recall ONE company that promotes happiness with what IS [...]

“Act Like a Lady”? Nah.

I run the Facebook page “Pop Culture Feminism“, a page dedicated to presenting challenges to the media’s representation of beauty. I spend a lot of time googling around, looking for positive body images quotes as well as inspirational sayings. I have seen my fair share of the oddities that the internet can serve up (my [...]

BODY EMPOWERMENT – “Breathing”

As part of the weekly Wednesday posting of my ongoing YouTube series “Body Empowerment,” here’s “Breathing (Body Empowerment 58)” originally posted May 21, 2012, on YouTube.com by Caroline Rothstein. This video addresses and explores the importance of breathing and the breath as a coping mechanism in times of triggering anxiety or negative thought patterns. About BODY EMPOWERMENT: Founded [...]

Music and Healing

Songs: Tori Amos “Silent All These Years” Alicia Keys “Brand New Me” Welcome to my first column for We are the Real Deal! I am very excited to be contributing to the website and to share my appreciation for music and pop culture. To introduce myself, I have PhD in sociology and I study the [...]

Reclaim Your Body, Grow Into Your Edges, Change The World

There are moments in life where the light bulb goes off and suddenly a thousand tiny dots are connected in the flash of an instant.  This moment happened for me over the weekend at BEDA’s 2013 conference in Bethesda, Maryland, as I sat and listened to Carol Munter speak.  I had only ever heard of [...]

Emma Bell’s Painfully Powerful True Body Image War Story

The talented and generous Emma Bell shares with Real Deal her painful story of being bullied … When I was 6 years old I got in trouble for kissing my ‘boyfriend’ in preschool during reading. We thought we’d get married.  When I was in 1st grade I serenaded the boy I liked with a rousing [...]

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