🧘🏻Your free meditation video of the week is a 5-minute Tense & Relax Meditation, aka "progressive muscle relaxation" or "PMR." It's an effective, quick way to release some tension from the body.

✏️My first ever Thrive piece is up: 3 Reasons That Self Love Is First Love. I'm curious what you think!

📖This book review was fun to read: "The book is very straightforward and approachable and appealing to even the biggest mindfulness skeptic." The woman writing this had previously had a bad experience with a mindfulness training, but found the book helpful, which warms my heart to know. I want to help everyone, not just the hardcore meditators!

Shine on With Reese is a new series on Netflix in which Reese Witherspoon shines her spotlight on amazing women. She basically just visits them and then tells them why they inspire her, and they respond by, well, being inspiring as sh*t. After the first two episodes (Dolly Parton and Ava DuVernay) I basically had to force myself to take a break so I could let it all soak in. It's that good.

Peanut Butter Falcon is a movie starring Shia LeBeouf and newcomer Zack Gottsagen, an actor with Down Syndrome. The movie is great and you should definitely watch it, but I want to share what I learned after: that the film was made my two men with zero film experience or connections to fulfill a promise they made to their friend Zack to help turn him into a movie star. It took them five years and many stars aligning to do it, and I'm so glad they stuck with it. (It's also beautifully cinematic.)

There is no doubt that being a woman in the world is hard–that's part of what Reese Witherspoon's show is about: celebrating women who make it in the freakishly unfriendly world of entertainment. And speaking of that:

I found this article fascinating (it's actually a double album review): Luke Combs and Miranda Lambert. Both bound by country's gendered rule book. (NYT) 

"It’s too simplistic to say Combs is the problem and Lambert could be—has been—the solution. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say in Combs’s universe, there is no problem whatsoever, and in Lambert’s universe, the problem is so intractable as to almost be worth ignoring."

I also loved this sentence: 

"There’s no meritocracy that benefits incisive songwriting, textured singing, bold attitude — not in Nashville or anywhere else."

But it could also simply say: "There's no meritocracy." I spent a decade working in open source software, being told (and believing!) that it was a meritocracy. And then I spent a decade slowly understanding what BS that was. After all, the community was made up of SEVEN PERCENT women when I started.

Anyways, the article is great! And widely applicable, obvs. 

I'm gathering a few things up for my annual holiday shopping suggestions. Should I consider including something from you, or someone in your life?

I focus on cool, sustainable things from small businesses run by marginalized people (women, people of color, LGQTQIA, NB, etc.) although I'd also consider things from businesses that support other marginalized people, too! 

If you have something I should consider spreading the word on, please lemme know! Just reply to this email to get it on my radar. :)

Two things that should be great for you but sometimes aren't:

CHILDHOOD : : A massive CDC study just proved what many have known for a while: childhood trauma is clearly linked to adult disease. (Washington Post)

(It took me seven years of living with chronic illness to understand that the roots are in my past, not in my current food, exercise, medicine, supplement, wellness regimen. I'm so glad this is getting broader understanding.)

YOGA : : A New York Times exposé about how touch is sometimes abused in yoga is making huge waves in the industry. It's a conversation way past overdue, and I'm relieved that is finally happening. (Full video on Hulu, trailer and summary on NYT.)

And one thing that you wouldn't expect to be so good, but is:

CAR AD : : This Renault car ad is pretty dang heartwarming (and barrier breaking.) 🌈🚗