#BeReal – HASTYWORDS

/ April 22, 2016

Welcome to the #BeReal series!

I want to showcase real people.  You will judge them.  That’s okay.  And it will be natural for you to do that.  To read all the #BeReal posts to date you can click HERE.

  

I put together this series because teens everywhere are jumping on this #DontJudgeMe bandwagon.  Well, I think the trend needs some context.  The hashtag #DontJudgeMe seemed to come from nowhere.  But it spread like wildfire, and was used millions of times in a very short period of time!  If you don’t know what I am talking about, just Google “#DontJudgeMe” and you will see thousands of teens making #DontJudgeMe videos. You can read more about what I think of the challenge HERE.

We live in a kaleidoscope world where we’re all different.  We are living art.  Being viewed and critiqued by those around us.  We are quickly assessed and categorized.  We are judged by everyone we meet.  That’s how we work.  It’s part of living in a society with other people.  Our brains make snap judgments in order to survive.  So we can protect ourselves, or know when it’s safe to let our guards down a little.  We judge people before we even realize we have seen or heard them. We judge books by their covers.  It’s what we do.

What is #BeReal?

Not everyone will agree on what it means to be real. The great thing is that we’re all individuals with our own thoughts and feelings.  So to kick off this series, I will go first.  Here’s what I think being real means:

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If I could pick only one image for you to judge, it would be this one.  This picture tells you the story of who I most want to be.  I hope you see a happy person who loves to make people laugh.  But chances are, your own experiences told you a different story about the girl in this picture.  Even though our brains judge their surroundings using templates and defaults, we also have the ability to judge further.  We can dig deeper.  Find the truth underneath the assumptions our brain makes.

This morning, I was driving out of my neighborhood when several baby ducks suddenly darted into the street.  Right in front of my car.  I stopped and watched them, while they SLOWLY dawdled across the street.  Once they were clear of the road, I drove on.  I noticed an elderly neighbor walking around a lake path.  He was easy to spot, because his hands were held high.  He was clapping, and he had a huge smile on his face, cheering for what he felt was my compassion.

This man made my heart feel joy.  And in the span of only a few seconds, I judged him to be good and beautiful.  That is the kind of real I want to be. I want to move people beyond my image.  I want to show people something more meaningful.

If you were to ask me who I think the real me is, I would tell you I am… searching.

I am a combination of everything I’ve done and the decisions I have made.  If you read my blog, you probably have a good sense of who I am as a person.  I have mental illness, so not all my realness is positive.  But, because I have friends who dig deeper and know more about who I am, I have become brave enough to share parts of me that aren’t all that pretty.  Why?  Because by doing that, I can help other people become brave enough to be themselves.  And there is beauty in that.

The real problem isn’t that we judge each other.  It’s that we don’t take the time to judge with compassion and love.  If we practice being more compassionate, we can learn to dig deeper.  Then we can override the quick assumptions we make about others.  If we can do that as a society, we will see more people being comfortable in their own skin.  And then we can all do things which are more productive than worrying about the images we project.

WHAT DOES BEING REAL MEAN TO YOU?

If you want to be part of the #BeReal series then email your post, your picture, permission to use your name, and a bio with all the links you want to promote to: hastywords@gmail.com  No rules, No deadline… I want to include your voice. 

OR

If you like the idea of the #BeReal series, and want to share your views on it, please link up with us.  You can help make this a bigger, brighter movement than it already is.

All opinions welcome – it’s about being real, after all!

To help spread the message, read and share one another’s posts.

And remember – be YOU!  #BeReal.

 

Bio:

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Hastywords is an anxiety driven over-analyzer. With a mind full of rainbows and devils she began giving her thoughts a way out of her head by writing poetry. Writing began as therapy for her depression and helped her gain perspective by putting her tears and laughter into words!

She uses the money she makes on her books to support other writers.   Purchase her books, The Darker Side of Night and Depression’s Dance, here.

Darker Side of Night – Modern day poetry from the shadowy corners of an overactive imagination. Whether we embrace the night or we fear it, one thing is for certain: almost anything can be hiding in the dark. Take a peek at what is hiding in wait.

“I found this extremely raw and emotional and at times even haunting. The writer has no shame or hesitation in sharing her vulnerability with the reader. It’s endearing and inspiring. Loved it all. A must read!~ Anthony Ortalano”

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Depression’s Dance – Depression has a way of sneaking into your life and before you know it you are caught in a dance you can’t cut away from. This is about my dance with depression complete with the moments of desperation as well as the moments of hope.

“In Depression’s Dance, depression is also given a voice, “I have convinced you to believe you are broken beyond repair.” It speaks throughout the book as an enchanter, luring Hasty to walk away from those she loves, from her desires and things that make her happy, and essentially her life. Hasty skilfully creates the voice as if it is spoken just under the surface of the conscious, sensed, but unheard. It implants negative perceptions and sabotages the ability to dispel them. While depression is an underlying influence which aims to destroy her, Hasty’s own voice is shared through her poetry. ~Sage Doyle”

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59 thoughts on “#BeReal – HASTYWORDS”

  3. I know the real you. I see you. And you are beautiful, inside and out. Even you darkness is beautiful. Because it’s never totally dark. It’s like the night just before daybreak, with streaks of light just waiting to get in.

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  4. This has given me some things to think about, as you have asked me to participate in this. I’m afraid to Be Real. I worry that, in my attempt to be honest, I will instead only pick myself apart until all that remains is the bad stuff.

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  5. Judging you by the picture I’d say you’re the type of person who would come to a screeching halt to let family of ducks pass in front of your car 😉 No really, you look cute and fun-loving in the picture, but I think if the picture is worth a thousand words, your actions are worth a thousand pictures.

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  8. I love this concept. I’ve spent a lifetime judging myself harsher than any other could, a survival technique, designed and honed for my own protection. Only recently, have I become more aware of my self sabotage, keep your distance, I’m broken goods, attitude. And now, when I feel a judgement threaten to strike, I remind myself that it’s just who I am. Broken, yet beautiful, and just like the rest, learning to love. x

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  9. I know about you as much as you revealed over a couple of years (that long? wow!) We never interact but I do read most of your posts and do understand your depression, part because I carry my own mental illness and part because of my profession. We are visual beings (men more than woman) and your pictures always fascinated me because there is so much congruity between what you write and what you visually express. Maybe more than you think. I think I go lost here, so I’ll stop. I like what you are doing here and wish you success 🙂

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  12. Beautiful post. Cute picture. You look all fun loving, which is a judgment I guess based solely on a picture. I have a tendency to look at people and try and find something I like there. Although the walls to my fortress are very high, it does not stop me from seeing beauty in others. Okay admittedly sometimes it is darn hard especially when the person gives you “that” vibe.

    Love this series. 🙂

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  13. Well Sunset, in this Blogosphere, you KNOW I judged you by your picture first – it was that red wig, which grabbed my eye and made me want to know more…and then it was your poetry; your creativity and intelligence; your soul-deep reality poured onto the page; your determination to be authentic, even in conscious juxtaposition to the images you make; your desire to be truthful about your emotional landscape in an effort to help others; your sense of fun; and your willingness to do something incredible for a complete stranger, just because you were asked…that’s why I stayed.

    And now, as you know, I would not be without you, and entirely love you, Anyway.

    (this is a GREAT intro, btw – I like reading more about your reasons 🙂 )

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  16. What an awesome thing you are doing, Hasty! Although social media gets a bad rap (understandably so), I think social media and blogging has taught me NOT to judge, particularly judging people based on their looks because I fall in love with people’s words before I get to see what they even look like. It reinforces the fact that we are all different yet we share so much in common. Looking forward to reading more #BeReal posts. 🙂

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  22. For sure, a fun girl, full of humour and worth, worth listening too, worth sharing with, whether your feet are inflight as you breathe in all that you find, experience, or your feet are grounded within the earth and you share its fruits in all manner of ways, all mixed in with the rain and sunshine, you’re the vibrant blue in contrast to those many hours inside each changing day.

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  24. I have to admit when you asked me to write for this, I cringed. And then I kicked myself in the butt because this is an amazing thing you are doing. I don’t mind being judged. It has happened many, many, many times before. I am guilty of it myself and as I’ve gotten older I realize that each of us are here, doing the same thing – trying to live life on life’s terms. I’m happy to say that I may finally be getting the hang of it. Most days anyway.
    I think you are on of the lovliest people I have the pleasure of knowing. I have never know you to be anything but kind, so very generous with your heart, honest, and passionate. I adore you.

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  25. I’m looking at ways in which I can stand to be real. It’s a very interesting exercise, because as a person who doesn’t have much to hide, I realize there are still things that automatically go through my head as “off-limits.”

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