How I’m prepping to THRIVE in my 40s. #TransparentTuesday Hey friend, My “half birthday” is coming up, which means I’m only about 6 months away from turning 40, and halfway through the year-long “glow-up” experiment I set for myself! I haven’t written much about this experiment yet but it’s been incredibly rewarding, and now that I’m halfway through I’ve decided I’m ready to share! To be clear, I know the term “glow-up” is most often used to describe an “aesthetic improvement

I think the Gottmans got this one wrong. #TransparentTuesday Hi friend, This week I heard a disgustingly fatphobic clip from Mel Robbins interviewing John and Julie Gottman, and I am PISSED. If you don’t know who these people are, Mel Robbins is an annoying “white girl feminism”-style motivational speaker and author who I’m not a fan of…. so it’s really not a big surprise to me that her work wouldn’t click with me. But John and Julie Gottman happen to be world-renowned clini

The hidden assumptions behind "romantic" gestures. #TransparentTuesday Hi friend, A few weeks ago, a man tried to twirl me, and I hated it. No shade to anyone who enjoys being twirled here—I know plenty of people who do! And maybe you’ll hear this story and be like “Jessi it’s just a twirl, it’s not that deep.” But as a person whose literal job it is to point out when things are deeper than they appear, I have thoughts, so buckle up! Ok, so what happened was that this guy and

Seeing ourselves helps us heal. Seeing each other helps us grow. #TransparentTuesday Hi friend, I'm reading a book right now called Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, and I am completely obsessed with it. It’s the first book in a YA science fantasy trilogy, which is very much my jam already. But then it’s also written by a Chinese non-binary author, it features a non-binary protagonist (so rare!!) and it takes ideas that are already deeply interesting to me—think: gender, identity