Women everywhere are mysteriously disappearing.
I’ll never forget the time when I overheard a few guys in their early 20s giving their friend shit for sleeping with a 40-year-old-woman. One of them had walked in on the couple the morning after and copped an eyeful of the woman’s bare thighs as she slept. God forbid, the woman had visible veins and a touch of cellulite on her legs — and that grossed him out.
I get it. These dudes were young and inexperienced, but the way they critiqued the woman disturbed me. …
#2. It’s effortless energy.
The lovely Meryl Streep said:
“What makes you different or weird? That’s your strength.”
As far as I know, not many people get me. I can be somewhat left-field with my whimsical-like introverted ways. Eccentric. Direct. Reserved. Wild. Kind. Deep. You could say that I’m a walking contradiction, but aren’t we all?
I have little regard for social norms, am obsessed with the soul, love, and metaphysics, find most people draining, analyze the crap out of everything, and taste in music that is slightly eclectic. I also have a knack for unintentionally offending people. …
You’ve got to reconnect with the universe if you want to receive the signs.
“Please, show me the way,” I ask the stars. As if their cryptic shine will magically unravel the path ahead of me.
Do the stars answer?
When you ask, the answers are always given. Only, listening to the signs of the universe isn’t as easy as picking up the phone and dialing up the 111-universe help hotline. It would be nice if that were the case but it’s not. And that means it can be easy to ignore the signs when the universe is attempting to collaborate with you.
The trick is that it takes intentional practice to work out…
A beautiful face will get you everywhere. Almost.
Beauty isn’t all that. We’re so conditioned by the “Halo Effect” that we are fast to assume that beautiful people are happier or that they’ve got it easier because of their above-average looks. How did we wind up so hyper-focused on youth and exterior beauty, anyway? As if being or possessing beauty makes the secret sauce for all of life’s pleasures. Maybe it isn’t fair that some of us come into the world with an advantage like perfect symmetrical features or a multi-million-dollar inheritance. …
Writing | Self | Writing Prompt
August Writing Prompt
Okay, so most of us don’t wait to run off with a bag full of cash before we leap in blind faith. At least, I hope not. But sometimes, leaping from our comfort zones can feel as if we might have an ax-carrying madman on our tails, right?
Because leaping in faith is scary.
It’s diving into the unknown and facing uncertainty and unfamiliarity. Anything could go wrong.
But everything could go right.
Writing always feels like a leap of faith to me. Facing that blank page and finding self-belief can be intimidating and scary. …
Featured stories from the LOL creatives
Dear Readers,
The Living Out Loud creatives have done it again this July, penning some of their most inspiring, engaging, and heartfelt pieces yet.
I’ve sorted them according to Living Out Loud’s featured pages.
If you missed our exhilarating June collection, you may find the link here:
Continue scrolling to find July’s featured stories from our brilliant writers!
July 2021 Writing Prompt Stories
#DearmeinFiveYears
Women | Culture
Let’s take a peek down the gender norm rabbit-hole
The following might sound shocking to some, but I like to remove sections of my body hair. I’ve been waxing, shaving, and plucking for years. That’s right, I frequently annihilate unwanted hair in places like my armpits, bikini line, and lower legs and take great pleasure in plucking the odd outlier strand from unexpected regions, which I’ll refrain from disclosing here.
It can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
But I don’t want to be overly hairy.
Another surprise?
I don’t remove the hair on my body due to social conditioning telling me that feminine beauty is body hair-free…
He was really there. Freakish, huh?
It was after midnight. I’d been asleep for an hour or so when the sensation of my husband’s touch roused me awake. Well, somewhat. He combed the hair back from my face, and I squirmed at the stench of his alcohol-laced breath when he leaned in to kiss me. He had been out drinking with friends at the pub, so he was pretty loaded. We exchanged a few words that I don’t recall now. Apart from that, he told me he was going to fix something to eat. When I was alone again, I got out of bed to use…
A Slam Poem
“We have art in order not to die from the truth.” ~ Nietzsche
“Baby,” I’ll tell him. “Remember that your mother nurtured you, and your father showed you how to be a warrior, and you are a man of colors with soulful eyes and creative hands.
Remember that good things come in threes but so does the bad stuff and that I see you even when you cannot see what I see and that those tingles on the back of your neck and the heat we knew was never going to be like the swan skimming the calm, blue ocean.
Your voice travels far, and your spirit is strong, but it won’t ever…
It’s not what you see in the media.
There are so many mixed messages and pressure on what men expect from a woman nowadays. I mean, it is so easy to get confused when we are bombarded with “touched-up” images that show us how to be desirable. Not to mention, swamped with articles telling us what we should be wearing, doing, saying, or not saying if we want men to find us alluring — memorable.
But a woman doesn’t need to look like a supermodel to be memorable. She doesn’t need to be perfect. At all. …
Kim Petersen
Woman | Aussie | Rebel | Writing about the Soul. Love. Humor. Passion. Spirituality. Sensuality. Sex. Life. | https://kimpetersen.com.au
