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“Where’s my husband?! Where is he?!!” I joked to camera while filming the first season of my BRAVO reality show, “Miss Advised,” late in 2011.

I was 30 years old, with a decade of Carrie Bradshaw-esque dating columns under my belt, and no ring on my finger. Actually, screw the ring — I was having trouble just keeping a steady boyfriend. The producers found it ironic: relationship columnist unable to actually maintain relationship. [read more...]]]> ON LOSING ALMOST EVERYTHING – AND THE START OF A HAPPY ENDING
XOJANE
FEBRUARY 13, 2013
BY JULIA ALLISON

With my love coach Annie Lalla at New York City's Lincoln Center

“Where’s my husband?! Where is he?!!” I joked to camera while filming the first season of my BRAVO reality show, “Miss Advised,” late in 2011.

I was 30 years old, with a decade of Carrie Bradshaw-esque dating columns under my belt, and no ring on my finger. Actually, screw the ring — I was having trouble just keeping a steady boyfriend. The producers found it ironic: relationship columnist unable to actually maintain relationship. Har, har, har. Hilarious!

I cried myself to sleep every night … and then I found Annie.

I met her at a conference, during which we were asked to say something about ourselves to the hundred plus crowd. I stood up and announced, “Soooo … I’m actually looking for a husband — if you know someone up for the job, point him my way! Um … Not already a husband to someone else, preferably?”

(Keep in mind that this was a marketing conference, not some sort of relationship summit. No one else confused it with IRL eHarmony.) The room erupted in laughter; my mannerisms suggested I was joking.

I wasn’t.

But as it turns out, I also wasn’t being completely truthful, either. Not just to the conference attendees, but as Annie pointed out later, to myself.

You see, Annie is a love coach. Yes. A love coach. When I’ve described her as such to friends of mine, the response tends to run toward incredulity, as if that’s the most arcane job title they’ve heard in their (terribly worldly) existence, as if she makes poets look prosaic. Their somewhat judgey subtext: employing a love coach seems as much of an unnecessary luxury as employing a doggy masseuse.

But we have doctors to tend to our bodies, dentists for our teeth, stylists for our hair, dermatologists for our skin, ministers for our souls … and no one nurturing, guiding, unblocking that most sacred vessel in our lives, our hearts? What’s crazy is that everyone doesn’t have a love coach!

Annie specializes in “love, sex and conflict resolution,” the former two I don’t have nearly enough of, and the latter I have altogether too much. She tells me that she helps her clients “resolve toxic patterns, develop romantic esteem, assuage shame/blame and cultivate deep, resilient relationships that last a lifetime.”

Basically, Annie laundry listed my romantic problems. My love life: toxic. My romantic esteem: in the shitter. My dating past: riddled with shame and blame and regret.Desperate for solutions, I’ve medicated with a particularly modern concoction of self-help books and slightly obsessive girlfriend-enabled over-analysis for years. Despite all that, I can’t seem to figure out the one thing I most long to have: a lifelong love.

I want to fold her up and put her in my suitcase and take her home with me until I work out all my ish.

But back to the conference, and Annie’s skeptical face. “If you really wanted to get married, you would.  There must be a way being single is serving your needs, although you might not consciously know it. Is what you really want a husband? Or a fulfilling relationship between two individuals?”

She was right. I didn’t really want a “husband,” per se … I wanted a partner, a teammate. I wanted a last call of the day. I wanted someone to hold me at night, to hug me and kiss me. I wanted someone — besides my mother — to worry about me. I wanted someone to wonder where I was, and if I didn’t come home, I wanted someone to notice. I wanted someone to want my love.

But after 15 years of repeatedly falling in love, only to watch it fall apart, my heart slowly rendered numb by the scar tissue, I had become a cynic.

“Cynics,” Annie points out, when I ask her forlornly if I’ll ever recover from the insidious disease of disappointment, “are simply failed idealists. All cynics started out as romantics, but their dreams got bashed against the sidewalk. So they give up, they say ‘Fuck it, it’s never going to work. I’ll never find true love.’ But inside every cynic is this tiny burning ember of a romantic ideal. They’re just too terrified to reopen that dream.”

With my love coach Annie Lalla at New York Fashion Week

I was terrified. God, how I was terrified. Love had become dangerous to me, full of inevitable pain. I’ve seen men I love cheat. I’ve seen men I love leave. I’ve seen men I love tell me I’m their everything, I’m the one, I’m all they ever wanted … and then I’ve seen those same men change their minds. I’ve seen men who told me they wanted to marry me … marry someone else.

My relationships — far from the safe harbor I so yearned for — were not safe. And that belief was not only devastating — but, Annie said, it was undermining me receiving the one thing I so desperately wanted: lifelong, lasting, unconditional love.

I began my work with Annie that evening, and as the months stretched out, so did our conversations. With a degree in human biology and philosophy, she integrates psychology, evolutionary science, neurochemistry, sexuality and social dynamics into her coaching … and I watched as she unraveled some of the knots that have been tying me up for years.

“I don’t know how this is ever going to change,” I tell her, almost in despair one evening. “My heart is surrounded by armor. I don’t want to let anyone in …”

“Julia, my open-hearted priestess-of-love in the making,” she said to me (yes, she talks like that). “That’s fear. Can we invite the fear in and welcome it? There’s a part of you that is terrified of opening up your heart again, then losing it, and having to feel the pain. There’s another part of you that’s young, idealistic wonder-filled kid that is open to adventure. And both of them are interested in your development.  Both parts are fighting for you to stay happy and survive — they’re not enemies. That fear is a part of you that’s taking care of you. Not your enemy. The fear has a commitment to making sure you don’t have pain. We honor the fear.”

“You talk about your heart having scar tissue,” on she went. “The heart is a muscle. How do bodybuilders build muscle? They make little tiny rips, which grow back with scar tissue, making the muscles bigger and stronger. Whether you realize it or not, thanks to that pain, you have a profoundly enlarged heart. Think of it that way.”

And I do. I sit with that for a minute, and I take it in. A profoundly enlarged heart. I like that. I breathe, and I feel my heart relax, just a little bit. It’s a start, I think. And it was.

But seven horrific months of going on first dates, plus love coaching (with cameras rolling) later, I’d given up. Our season was a wrap, and it ended with me sobbing hysterically as yet another completely uninterested adolescent-esque 30-something asshole dumped me, about an hour after he asked me to run to the corner store to pick up some beer for him. Classy!

I’m over it, I think. Not just him, but all of it. Men. Dating. Love in general. I’m over it in the most cliched bitter cat-lady way possible. I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore. My heart can’t take it. I look into freezing my eggs, and it’s not for a punchline.

Maybe love wasn’t meant for me. Maybe I’m not anyone’s One.

Annie senses my heart needs tending, and she calls me. Letting go, she tells me, isn’t the worst thing in the world. Releasing my white-knuckled death grip of control over my life will allow me to actually experience whatever I was meant to experience, she argues. In other words, I don’t get to decide everything, including when I fall in love.

Exhausted — by the invasiveness and intrusion of cameras, by 15 years of dating, by my repeated inability to love myself — I let go, metaphorically — and literally, I crumple to the floor, aching, alone. I grieve.

And then, in that moment of surrender, a paradox emerges: I sense a crack, an opening in my heart. Just a tiny one, but it’s there.

It feels a lot like relief, even joy, or some strange emotion that isn’t entirely negative. My logical brain cannot fathom how that could be possible. In my darkest moment, contemplating the rest of life sans a partner to love me, how could I feel relief?

“See?” says Annie. “You’re beginning to let it unfold,” she quotes the tattoo on my left wrist, three tiny letters “LIU” I emblazoned on my skin in honor of my Grandmother, who wisely repeated it as a favored aphorism to her list-obsessed granddaughter.

My Grandmother's hand and mine, with the Let It Unfold Tattoo

To bastardize a “Sex & the City” quote, perhaps you have to let go of the life you thought you would lead in order to lead the one you were meant to lead. It somehow made sense. I’d been holding so tight to my fantasies of this perfect man, who would finally fill the gaping void in my self-esteem, and that man wasn’t coming. He just wasn’t.

And so I began to imagine a future in which — yes, it’s shocking, I know (sarcasm intended) — I made myself happy. I took care of myself. I nurtured myself. Most importantly, I loved myself. All rah-rah self-help-isms, to be sure — and all of which I simply wasn’t doing.

Two weeks later, my beloved Grandmother passed away, at 4 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I got the call from my father, and fell to the ground, hysterical. My Grandmother taught me everything about love. My Grandmother WAS love.

During our last conversation, my Grandmother had asked me her favorite question, “Have you found your true love yet?” When I answered that I wasn’t sure I ever would, she looked at me and said softly, “You will. And you’ll be a good wife and mother, even if you don’t think so now.”

With Grandmother at my brother's wedding rehearsal dinner in 2010

It was May 9th, the day she died, and I stumbled out to the beach near my house, watched the sun rise, and sobbed. I hadn’t ever experienced loss like that, loss of a primary love. I had never felt that kind of pain. I had meetings that day, which I canceled, of course. But I also had a first date that evening, with a young man I had never met before.

All logic told me I should cancel the date … but I had an inexplicable feeling that I shouldn’t. My Grandmother was a very spiritual person, with a deep and abiding faith. She believed there was more to this world than meets the eye.

So I didn’t cancel the date. And as he met me that evening, for a sunset walk on the same beach I had gone to grieve my Grandmother 12 hours earlier, a sense of calm I couldn’t explain washed over me.

“Oh,” I thought. “Something’s different.”

Several hours later, he kissed me for the first time, and wrapped a blanket around our bodies as we cuddled near the shore. I felt waves of unconditional love wash over me, and I felt my Grandmother’s presence, like an angel.

The man I met the night of my Grandmother’s death is now the love of my life. We’ve been together 9 months, and it feels completely different than any relationship I’ve ever had. He is the kindest, most honest, most humble and giving human being I’ve ever met. It’s like every movie cliche: He makes me want to be a better woman. I like to believe Grandmother sent him to me, as her final gift. I know that I cherish him all the more for it.

My Grandmother and Annie have something in common: They were both my love coaches. In fact, we all have love coaches in our lives, people who allow us to see our heart’s potential, who never give up on us experiencing the exquisitely wrenching dance of intimacy, who teach us that love and pain and fear and joy cannot be separated, they can only be embraced together. People who teach us that love and loss are two sides of the same coin.

My boyfriend Devin in Central Park

And so this story has become the greatest lesson in my life: Love giveth and love taketh away; out of the pain of love lost was the ecstasy of love gained.

This is the meaning of life, in all its devastating glory. Let it unfold.

PATEL: So, you wrote this beautiful article for Elle magazine called the Guinea Pig of Love: Lessons Learned and please [directs to viewer] check that out, Google it, read it.  [To Julia] So, you have been dating for a decade, can you tell us a little about that?

ALLISON:  Actually, a little bit over a decade. I had my first date when I was fourteen and I am thirty-one now — so, that’s a lot [read more...]]]> Done With Being Single – Experts Reveal Secrets To Finding & Keeping Love
Interview with Kavita Patel
September 2012
New York City

PATEL: So, you wrote this beautiful article for Elle magazine called the Guinea Pig of Love: Lessons Learned and please [directs to viewer] check that out, Google it, read it.  [To Julia] So, you have been dating for a decade, can you tell us a little about that?

ALLISON:  Actually, a little bit over a decade. I had my first date when I was fourteen and I am thirty-one now — so, that’s a lot of dates. I actually have an Excel worksheet I write them all down.  [laughs]

PATEL: Oh my god, I love it!

ALLISON:  Yeah, it’s really sad.  I had gotten to this place in my life where I really felt as if it wasn’t going to happen for me.  I just wasn’t going to find this guy.  I had dated such a wide cross-section of people that I felt that I had seen everything there was to see.  Which, I mean, I don’t even know if that’s humanly possible but in as much as . . .

PATEL:  It felt like that.

ALLISON: Exactly. In as much as anyone could reasonably date in one lifetime, I felt like I had done it. And I just thought, well, I guess I’m going to have to freeze my eggs — I’m not even kidding, I really thought this — and prepare for a life of having a dog and a baby of my own and a house full of pink, because there’s no man to tell me to get rid of it.  I had resigned myself to that.  But right before I did resign myself, I went though a series of challenges. I wrote about it for Elle and I called it the Guinea Pig of Love series.  I had read every self-help book there was on the subject and I had talked to all my girlfriends, who are not the    most . . . I love my girlfriends but they’re not certified love coaches.  Be careful of that, by the way! [laughs]

So I decided that I was going to try some unconventional methods, some unconventional experts.  I tried everything from a Tarot card reader, to a Mind Architect, to a Love Coach, to a Pleasure Expert. Oh god, I tried everything.  And what happened was really remarkable.  I realized two things. First, I had no idea what I was doing.  Despite the fact that I had been writing about dating professionally for ten years, I actually didn’t realize I wasn’t as honest with myself as I think I should have been, or could have been, about how my behavior was affecting my relationships.  I was very good at getting a date, but keeping a relationship healthy I wasn’t good at.  And then the second thing I realized, was that the most important thing in many of our lives — well I would actually argue the most important thing in life, are our relationships.

PATEL: I would say the same exact thing.  They are the most important thing.  Like essentially at the end of your lifetime, you know, I hate to bring up death but . . . at the end of life, when you think back at everything you have accomplished and done, what stays with you is the relationships and the power of those relationships in your life.  Right?  And everything stems from there.  You know, how you feel, how you look, what you believe, how satisfied you’ve lived your life.

ALLISON:  Exactly. I was thinking relationships are the most important factor in our happiness, and yet we have no one to help us excel at them. Yet we go about our lives and we have a doctor for our health, and we have a mechanic for our cars, and we have an eyebrow waxer for our eyebrows, and a hairstylist for our hair, and a trainer for our bodies, but we don’t have anyone who coaches us on love?  This is deeply confusing!  I don’t know of any subject anywhere that anyone can do without coaching.  You go to the Olympics — they all have coaches!  There isn’t one Olympian who is like, “No-no-no, I got this! I don’t need any of your [motions quotation marks with fingers] help!”  You know there aren’t people like that!  NBA stars — they have coaches!  Everyone who wants to be really good at something has a coach! I decided I was not happy with sub-par relationships, so I threw myself at the feet of some pretty exemplary coaches.

PATEL:  Yeah, and I want to get into that in a moment.  And I really want, because there’s so many women out there that are sitting there like, “Oh well of course, you’re beautiful…”

ALLISON: [laughs]

PATEL:  You can find, you know, you can be on so many dates and you know have a lot of dates— I know you just mentioned you had a lot of dates but weren’t able to maintain relationships — but there was a deep sense for you around feeling undeserving of love right?

ALLISON: Yes.

PATEL: Can you tell us about that?

ALLISON: Well, first of all, my adolescence was awkward at best and [pauses] horrific at worst, I suppose you could say.  I felt incredibly unattractive, really dorky.  I just didn’t like the way I looked.  And I felt like I was never going to get a boyfriend.  Now, the truth is I actually always had boyfriends — real geeks, but at every point in my life I think I was loved more than I loved myself.  Sorry to sound really cheesy but . . .

PATEL:   What do you mean by that though?

ALLISON:  I would look in the mirror, you know, honestly even in my twenties I did this.  Sometimes even now I still do this.  I look in the mirror and just find everything wrong with me.  It’s not that hard to do!

PATEL: We all do it.

ALLISON:  Right — everyone does it.  And one of the things I went through when I was younger, even in my twenties; I got rejected all the time.  So my theory on this was just — if you’ve ever taken a lot of photographs, you’ll know this.  You take two photographs and you hate both of them.  But you take twenty and you get one photograph you really like!  And then you post that one photograph and everyone thinks you’re photogenic, but the truth is you’re not photogenic!  You just took twenty photographs!  That is how I feel about dating.

PATEL:  That’s a great analogy.

ALLISON:  It’s not that I got so many dates!  It’s that I tried twenty times and I succeeded maybe four of those times.  I got rejected the other sixteen times.  I really did.  In fact, I have been dumped more than everyone I know.  I’ve also gone out on more dates than anyone I know.  So it’s sort of a . . .

PATEL:  The ratio is the same.

ALLISON:  And I don’t think getting dates is as hard as people make it out to be.   I honestly don’t.  I truly mean this when I say this: if you take care of yourself in terms of your health and you try a little, or even sometimes not at all – that’s enough. Men love that!  They honestly just like a friendly person.  I always say, the biggest mistake women can make in dating, to get a date specifically, is to decide that it’s too hard.  I hear this all the time.  New York City is such a hard city to date in.  LA is such a hard city to date in.  San Francisco is such a hard city to date in.  People say this about every single city!  Well, it’s not possible that every city is a hard city.  Because in every city, someone is dating and someone is getting married.  So, I don’t buy it!

I have been to every city and I’ve dated in every city.  Here is the big determiner of whether you find it hard to date in that city: if you decide it’s hard to date and if you act as if it’s hard to date.  If you walk down the street in New York City, and you’re frowning and you have your iPod earbuds in and you have your sunglasses on and you’re looking at the ground . . . are you going to get asked out?  No!

PATEL: No.

ALLISON: But if you smile and talk to people?  I can’t even tell you how many dates I’ve gotten because I started the conversation.  I didn’t say, “Hey, would you go out with me and possibly propose to me in six to twelve months?”

PATEL: [laughs]

ALLISON:  I just said, “Hi,” in a really friendly way.  Men are so tired of getting rejected themselves that a lot of the time they don’t want to ask you out until you give them a small sign that you might actually go out with them.

PATEL: Yeah, that’s great.  So, I want to hit upon this first: the biggest thing is if you just make the choice to look around and smile.  It doesn’t even mean because a lot of women are like, “I’m just waiting for them to approach me,” “I’m old fashioned, I’m old fashioned, and I’m waiting for them to approach me.”  I’m like — it doesn’t matter!  You don’t have to do that.  It’s not required.  I don’t like that game or that rule.  Whoever made that up a long time ago, it’s total crap, and . . .

ALLISON: You have to give men some sort of bud of hope that they won’t be shot down.  Because, how would you like it every single time you asked someone out, they metaphorically chopped off your balls!

PATEL: That’s true!

ALLISON:  I mean, you’re going to have a Pavlovian response of [hand gestures].  You’re not going to want to do it!  So, I think a lot of women underestimate the friendly thing.  I swear to God this works.  And here’s the other thing that I find works: I tell everyone I’m single when I’m single.  Everyone.  I don’t have any shame about it.  There’s nothing wrong with being single.

PATEL: There isn’t.

ALLISON:  There isn’t something wrong with you.  For whatever reason, the universe has decided that that person hasn’t come into your path yet.  So, what I have found is – and this is actually the reason why I met my current boyfriend and a lot of my boyfriends along the way – I mention to people, women, men, my mom’s friends, random strangers in the street . . . I’m not even kidding!

PATEL: I love it!

ALLISON: … at conferences.  “I’m single, if you know anyone.”  It’s so easy!  If. You. Know. Anyone.  Four words.  And then you just trail off like ‘wink, wink!’  It works all the time because they might not be your target, but they might know someone.  And actually usually they do.

PATEL:  They do!

ALLISON:  It’s worked for me!

PATEL: And you trigger that in someone else and they’re like “Oh! I didn’t know you were looking,” or “I didn’t think about that before.”  And then all of a sudden you plant that seed and they’re thinking about all the men they know.

ALLISON:  I have had people contact me weeks and months later with men they have thought about because I planted that seed of what I wanted.  Don’t underestimate the kindness of random strangers to set you up.  That’s how I met my boyfriend.

PATEL:  I love it! That’s how you met him?

ALLISON:  Mm-hmm.

PATEL:  Tell us a little about that.

ALLISON:  So, I had given up completely on being ever together with someone really special.  I actually had a seventy-three-point checklist which I talked about on my show and was much maligned on the Internet like, “That’s so ridiculous, how could you have a seventy-three-point check list, you’re so picky!”  But the truth is, I sat down and I really thought through what I needed in a partner.  And these weren’t things like, “Drives a red Corvette.”  They were things like: is kind, is honest, is authentic, and is physically attractive to me. [gestures to Patel] I had had some problems in the past where I dated guys who I didn’t want to sleep with.  Because I didn’t think I deserved that.

I realized, through the help of my love coach, that I had a worldview I wasn’t even necessarily conscious of.  I could either have a guy that I was attracted to but he didn’t really love me or treat me well, or I could have a guy that treated me well and loved me, but I never wanted to sleep with him.  And those were the kinds of guys I dated.  I had a pattern.  I would alternate, one to the other, one to the other.  And I just never could merge those two.  What my love coach discovered for me is that all of this was based in a dearth of self-esteem stemming from my adolescence.  That I didn’t deserve to have everything I wanted in a man.  That I was never going to find it and that I had to compromise on some essential level with what I wanted.  And I will tell you, true story, my boyfriend is every single thing on my checklist.  It gives me goose bumps.
PATEL:  I have to give you a high five for that. [High fives Julia]

ALLISON:  Thank you!

PATEL:  I want you to also tell the difference between a checklist that a normal person may go through like, “I want an MBA grad, somebody that came from Harvard who makes a million dollars . . .”

ALLISON:  No, no, no!

PATEL:  Tell the difference.

ALLISON:  Ok, so there are two big things to realize.  The first is that your checklist can’t be an arbitrary collection of characteristics that you think might make you happy.  It’s almost looking at the end product of things and writing down that instead.  So “What is their exact job” and “What kinds of suits do they wear?”  These things are not important.

PATEL:  They’re not.

ALLISON:  But what is important are their internal characteristics.  I’m trying to figure out a great way of explaining this.  It’s almost as if you drilled down … hmm — O.K. here’s a good example: I thought that getting a TV show would make me happy.  No, it did not.  It did not!  What I really wanted to do was to influence people.  So, was the TV show the right way to do that? [Shrugs] I mean I don’t know.  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.

PATEL:  But you put yourself out there.

ALLISON:  The key is to figure out what your core goals are.  What truly makes you happy; not what do you think makes you happy.  You might say, “Oh no, they are the same things!” Maybe, but I doubt it. They weren’t for me.

PATEL:  They’re not for a lot of people.  I think the distinction you’re making was that your checklist was almost like, “How do I feel with this person.”

ALLISON:  Thank you.  I was having a hard time describing because it’s hard to delineate.  There were a lot of men I dated who had all the characteristics on my checklist when I was, say, a college student— back then I wanted to be part of a power couple — there were all these things that I wanted, that I thought were important in a relationship. And they weren’t.

PATEL: I want to be whisked away on a private jet.

ALLISON:  [whispers] Yes, I had that.

PATEL:  [laughs]

ALLISON:  As it turned out, I tried all those things out that I thought I wanted.  There’s some value to trying out things that you think you want.  But then pay attention!  Are you really happy?  I am an entrepreneur and I have complete freedom with my schedule, which is very important to me, but the guy I dated before my boyfriend was in the military! You can’t get any more tied up than that in terms of schedule.  No freedom whatsoever!  I loved him, but it doesn’t matter because the kind of life that I wanted wasn’t compatible with him.

PATEL: Didn’t match.

ALLISON:  So, that’s the kind of thing where I see people running into these huge roadblocks, because they haven’t thought, “What kind of life do you want with someone?”  Not “Is he going to be a great boyfriend,” but “Is he going to be a great partner for you?”

PATEL:  And there’s a balance factor there too, right?

ALLISON:  Right.

PATEL:  I love that.  So you found a person that met everything on your checklist.  But your checklist was everything you wanted to feel with this man.  Everything you wanted to create with him in terms of a lifestyle, right?  Which is amazing.  I love that you’re saying this because a lot of people know what they want and they say, “Well, I know what I want, why can’t I have it?”  Or like, “I’ve created a list, I’ve done law of attraction, I’ve done that work but it’s not coming in.”  That’s the difference.

ALLISON:  Well, here’s the second big thing that I learned.  I do think its valuable to come up with a checklist of things that you feel are really important in your partner . . . the ways you want to feel with them, what values you want them to embody.  But you have to have two things after that.

The first thing is that you have to have enough self esteem — or whatever you want to call it — to know that you deserve that.  But, the second thing is a little tougher.  You have to be the woman that that man would want to be with.  And that was where things really changed for me.  My love coach Annie Lalla said to me, “Are you right now the kind of woman that this [hand gestures] man,” (because at that point he was imaginary) “would want?”  And I never thought about it that way! All I would think about was, “What do I want?  Where is what I want?” I was very self-centered.

So I switched my paradigm and I thought about it from this imaginary future partner’s perspective. I thought about who I was as a person: low self esteem, didn’t respect myself enough, all of these things . . . I hated my body, wasn’t comfortable with sex . . . a lot of other issues. . . perfectionist.  Why would he want to be with someone like that?  Now, it’s not to say that you have to be perfect.  You wouldn’t want your man to be perfect.  Even your perfect man isn’t perfect!  But you have to start thinking, “Okay, who am I?” and . . .

PATEL: “How am I doing?” and “How do I feel strong in who I am?”  And I want to go back to two things.  One is: women are going out there — and you seem to have this way about you so I want you to impart your wisdom around it — but how did you go out from date after date getting rejections, getting some yeses, but having a lot of rejections . . . How did you keep going?  Because a lot of women, they get one rejection and they’re done, you know.  And a lot of us are!  And it makes sense because it’s hurtful.  It hurts! Right?  So how did you keep going?

ALLISON:  I am a cockroach.  I have literally been called this before. I just keep going. But I’ve cried a lot.

PATEL:  A beautiful cockroach.

ALLISON:  I honestly cry a lot.  More tears than anyone I know.  I hit what felt like rock bottom romantically so many times. I would get to this place after a particularly bad breakup, or frankly – even rejections after two or three dates can be oddly painful.  I used to call them “paper cuts on my heart.”  A tiny little cut that shouldn’t hurt and yet because it’s cut after cut after cut after cut, you’re just like, “What is wrong with me?”

So, this is how I got through it.  One: I allowed myself to grieve after every single rejection.  Everyone says, “Oh, you shouldn’t be so heartbroken, you only dated him for four months,” or “You shouldn’t be so heartbroken – you went out on, what, four dates with him?”  It’s a rejection.  Allow yourself to grieve.  And then you can continue.  Part of the grieving process is that you get over it at a certain point.  But you only get over it if you allow yourself to grieve.  You don’t if you internalize it into this hardened ball or put on armor or  build walls — which I see a lot of women doing.  And I did this too, frankly.  I built up the walls. Walls are not attractive!

PATEL:  They’re not.  They’re not.  They push people away.  I mean that’s what a wall is.

ALLISON:  That’s exactly right.  You have to just know that it’s okay to be really devastated to get through it.  Because every single time I went through something like this, I would wake up day after day and I knew one day I would wake up and it would feel a little better.  And the next day, a little better than that.  And then you know that day that you have after a breakup —  maybe it’s three months down the line, maybe it’s six, I don’t know how long it takes.  Maybe it’s a month! And you’re like, “Oh my god! I feel like a human being again!”  And you feel better than you ever felt even when you were in the relationship!  And you think about all the things you can do now that you’re not with him! And then inevitably, I swear to God the second you feel like that . . . that’s when that new man comes along.

PATEL:  Yes, that is right.

ALLISON:  It’s because they can smell it.   They can smell it!  They’re like, “She’s happy.  I want it.  I want a part of that.”

PATEL:  Yeah, because a man ultimately doesn’t want to engage with a woman where he feels like he has to do all of it.  He wants to take on your happiness.  He does.  He willingly wants to do that.  But he doesn’t want to take on all your emotional stuff and your happiness and all of that at the same time.  Then they’re like overwhelmed and they’re like, “Whoa, you’ve got to take care of that for yourself.  I’m here to provide and I want to be there you, but I can’t do all of that.”

ALLISON:  See, you make a really incredible point.  Men . . .  [pauses] One of the things that I have learned is if they come to a situation where you are suffering somewhat — they can take on a little bit of that.  But the truth is, you really need to be in a good place, more or less.  And then down the line when you’ve established the relationship, then if something happens, he’ll be there to take care of you.  But the beginning it’s tough.  And I think that women don’t realize this, but you can’t fake it, unfortunately.  I’ve tried.  And that’s what [the 1995 bestseller] The Rules is about.  The rules are actually . . . basically, what the authors did was take a happy woman and reverse engineer her behaviors. They figured out what a happy, self-sufficient, just in love with life kind of woman would do, and then they wrote down all those things that a woman would do like, “forget to call you back,” you know . . .

PATEL: Not seem so available . . .

ALLISON:  Right!  She’s so busy having an awesome life!  The problem with that is (and they’re not wrong, by the way, about the symptoms) but the thing they don’t say is that men can sniff it out if you’re faking it! They can.  If you try to outsmart them, you will fail every time.  So don’t try to do that.  It will save you a lot of time if you just don’t try to do that.  If you’re having trouble exhibiting those symptoms of happiness, then you really have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s going on in your own life.

PATEL:  Yeah, you can’t fake that.  That is huge! I love that you’re saying that because a lot of people are trying to fake it.  They’re like, “Well, I tried that and it’s not working!”

ALLISON:  Well, here’s the other thing.  People kept saying to me, you should just be happy on your own.  You know, I will tell you what is true: I am happier with him.  That is not a question. I just am.  However, I am happier with him in the healthiest way.  I’ve had relationships where I’m very codependent on needing the self-esteem injections, almost like a vitamin boost every day.  That was my last relationship; I needed it all the time.  With this guy, I am genuinely happier with him.  But it’s not this clingy, clawing, needy happiness.  It’s like, “Oh my god, life is better with a partner!”  Anything is better with a partner! You can do more with a partner!  He can boost you up and you can boost him up.

PATEL:  I say all the time . . . my husband is like the foundation to the platform of a trampoline from which I achieve even bigger and better things in my life.

ALLISON:  Yes! That’s how I feel about my man. And I think that’s considered to be un-pc now to say that.  Which I find disturbing — because it’s just true.  The other point I would make about this is I try to envision it as: almost think of yourself as a daily special, or a deal or a value add.  What are you going to add to his life?  I know that with my boyfriend, I add so much to his life.

PATEL:  O.K. so now you’re in this relationship where you feel like you’re in a powerful place.  So, what was the shift for you?  I know you did all this work.  You worked with a love coach, you worked with witches, you worked with tarot card readers . . . Tell us a little about that and what was the thing that shifted for you?  And there may be multiple things, but what was one of the biggest things?

ALLISON:  The biggest thing was I had lost hope.  And I couldn’t believe that I had lost hope.  I happened to be an empirically optimistic person.  I came out of college with this sort of big idea of how my life was going to go.  I was engaged, and I broke off the engagement.  Then I embarked upon a series of relationships, a couple of which were actually pretty good, but I wasn’t ready for them as a woman.

And then at the age of twenty-six I got out of my last long term relationship and thought I would just try things out, date around.  And at the end of “trying things out” at thirty, I was a shell of my former optimistic self.  I turned into a bitch, frankly.  Because I just thought, “Great, you’re probably going to hurt me, this isn’t going to work out.” I’d even say that, early on.  I’d be like, “This will last a month.”  And the guy is thinking, “Uh, okay, I guess.”  I had just gotten very brittle.

When I was twenty-three and I was dating these older guys, guys a decade or so older, I remember asking them why they would want to date a twenty-three year old.  (By the way, I just still don’t get it.)  And they said, “Well, the women our age are hardened and they’re angry!”  To men they’ve never even met before!  Men who’ve never even done anything to them!  And I remember at twenty-three not understanding that, and now at thirty-one I get it.  On a visceral level I understand that anger and that deep sadness.

I was heartbroken and I didn’t know how to reclaim that optimism.  My love coach told me, “Every cynic is a failed idealist.”  I really was an idealist and I thought my Prince Charming was going to come along and I just had to wait and not do anything.  And the truth is, that wasn’t the case.  I really did have to work for it.  Going through the therapy that I went though was key. And it really was therapy, albeit unconventional therapy, but it was therapy nonetheless.  In fact, I think it was far more effective than traditional therapy.

PATEL:  Absolutely agree, yeah.

ALLISON:  It was work!  It was the hardest work I’ve ever done, I think. Because it involved me going to places that I did not want to look at.  I didn’t want to look at my childhood.  I didn’t want to look at how my parents influenced my models for what a relationship is.  I didn’t want to look at my past relationship behavior.

PATEL:  Ok, so I’m going to stop you right there.  One of the biggest things I teach about is really what you’re bringing to the table to these dates every time is all of this stuff of how you see men from your parents.  And how you see relationships from what their relationship looked like.  So what did you discover about that?  I really wanted to focus in on that.

ALLISON:  So, I discovered I was modeling, in many ways, my parent’s relationship. Now, they’re happily married since 1978, so in some ways that was good, but in others, it wasn’t quite right for me. For example, my mom is a very strong woman and . . . without getting into it too much . . . I was dominating men, for lack of a better term.  And as it turns out that’s not very sexy.  Not just for them, but frankly, for me too.  I wasn’t achieving the proper balance of feminine and masculine energies.  That’s not to say that a woman can’t put on her masculine and go out into the work world and kill it.  But as I got older, I developed my masculine more and more.  And if you think about the masculine energy as being an energy that gets stuff done, accomplishes things, is direct, is forceful, is just very direct. I had gotten very sarcastic and rather cutting with my humor.  Whereas the feminine is open, warm, loving, nurturing, loves music and dance . . . Just in general, okay?  I’m not . . .

PATEL:  Yeah, these are general categories.

ALLISON:  Generalizations. And men and women both have both of these energies in them.  I was putting forth this intense masculine energy that was basically completely emasculating all the men I was going out with.  And I also then wasn’t feeling taken care of or feeling sexually attracted to them . . .

PATEL:  Because you were taking care of them constantly.

ALLISON:  Yeah, I was being a mom to them.  Not sexy.

PATEL:  Who wants a mom?  Another mom?

ALLISON:  No one!  They didn’t want a mom and frankly, I didn’t want to be a mom.  That’s not to say that you can’t be sweet and take care of him when he needs it . . . like my boyfriend got sick a couple weeks ago.  I love taking care of him in that situation, so it’s not 100% of the time.  But in general . . .

PATEL:  But you see him as your partner, your equal.  You’re not looking at him as if like, “I need to save him.”

ALLISON:  Right, that’s exactly right.  And I was doing that with other guys.   I was trying to metaphorically arm wrestle them.

PATEL:  And in your parents relationship?

ALLISON:  My mom is very, very strong.  That was what I was bringing into my relationships.

PATEL:  Just to drill down a bit, you admired your mom for being strong.

ALLISON:  Oh, yeah!  I completely admire my mother for being strong and I admire my father for being sweet and kind.  By the way, nothing wrong with either of those.  It’s just not quite the relationship that I wanted.  It wasn’t giving me the relationship that I wanted.  I can’t speculate as to what my parents want – I think they want what they have!  But I know I want a man who I feel is stronger than me, or at least as strong as me.  And what I was doing was I was trying to test him, (not a good idea), to see how strong he was.  I would set up these tests . . . like I would insult him through sarcasm.  You know, I thought I was being funny.  And the guys would just be like “I’d hire you,” “I’d hang with you.”  Or they’d want to be friends with me.  But they didn’t want to marry me.

PATEL:  Yeah.  So, what was the belief that you had that kind of shifted things?  And I know you worked with a love coach so was that the thing that had the biggest impact?

ALLISON:  My love coach was amazing. And even, hysterically, the witches were really helpful.  I used them all as coaches.  So, I did energy work, I did a lot of healing yoga.  Jena’s Pleasure Camp actually was really big for me.  Because one of the other huge issues I had was that I was not okay with pleasure. I was raised in a Protestant work ethic household where you work.  You’re not really encouraged to play.  That was a huge barrier to me enjoying my relationships.  Who wants to be with Miss Stress-a-Thon? No one wants to be with that!  Frankly, I don’t want to be with that.

But I was putting forth this, “I must work all the time and be perfect and be powerful and strong and never let go . . .” and then I would inevitably fall apart because you cannot be like that all the time.  And the guy would be like, “What just happened?”  So, from Jena’s Pleasure Camp I learned that men need a safe harbor for their sexuality.  And that I wasn’t actually comfortable with sex.  Which, by the way, was not something that I knew.  I thought I was fine with sex!  Then I found from my love coach, Annie, that I need to come to terms with my patterns and trying to break those patterns.

PATEL:  Because what I’m seeing is you rejected your parent’s relationship.  Okay.  If I were to ask you: did you reject it a lot, or did you put it on a pedestal?  What did you do?  If you could put a percentage on it.

ALLISON:  I think I put it up on a pedestal.  And because it wasn’t the right relationship for me, I kept running into this problem.  Because I would recreate their relationship and I’d be like, “This doesn’t feel right . . .” then I would destroy it.  And then my parents — I mean they cried when I left my fiancé, who was very much like my father.  You know, my parents live in the same house I grew up in, they lead a very steady, very stable, very “normal” life . . . It’s just not me!   It’s just not who I am.  But they absolutely love each other and I was like, well, my parents are happily married and I want to be like that!  But if I recreated that relationship, it’s not right for me.

PATEL:  For you, right.  And you didn’t know you were doing that.  It was not conscious.

ALLISON:  Not conscious at all.

PATEL:  I kind of rejected my parent’s relationship.  But when you put them up on a pedestal, this is what I see.  We recreate that.  And then you’re like,  “wait, I want more than that,” or different . . .

ALLISON:  I’m glad you brought this up because here is the other thing that happened that was crucial.  I stood up at a conference my love coach happened to be attending; this is how I met her, actually.  And I said to a hundred plus people, “If you know anyone, I’m single.”  And by the way this was not a love conference.  So, it was mildly inappropriate.  But, I got a couple dates out of it [smiles].

Anyway, my now love coach came up to me and she said, “I don’t think you really want to get married.” And I said, “I absolutely do!  Are you kidding?  I’ve been working on this the last three years, I definitely want to get married.”  And she said, “No, you don’t.”  And I said, “Why do you think that?”  And she said, “Because you would be married if you wanted to get married.”  I said, “That seems rather circular and doesn’t make any sense to me.”  And she said, “There is something deep in you that you haven’t confronted yet that you are not willing to give up in order to get married.”  And I said, “Well, what would I be giving up, loneliness?” [laughs] And she said, “No, no, no, I think that there’s something else.  What is it that you value most highly?  Other than lack of loneliness?”  I said, “Well, I value my freedom, my independence, my ability to make autonomous decisions, my ability to travel at will,” … all these things I started listing and she said, “Mm-hmm.  Exactly!  What does marriage represent to you?  When you get married are you going to have to give up that stuff?”  And I started thinking, “Well, that’s what my parent’s marriage is . . . it’s very settled in one place.”

It had not occurred to me that I had created basically a Venn diagram where in these two circles there were no points of intersection.  So, of course I couldn’t get one set of the things I wanted!  Because in my head, in my belief system, it meant giving up another set of things I deeply wanted.  So, what she helped me do is realize that there is an intersection in my venn diagram, that I needed to create that overlap.  It doesn’t look like my parents marriage, but you can create your own rules!  This was a revelation to me!  ”I can create my own rules?  What are you talking about?”  And she’s like, “Yes! You can marry someone who will give you that freedom! You don’t necessarily have to settle down in one place.  You don’t necessarily have to have a 9 to 5 job.”  I was just…

PATEL:  Floored!

ALLISON:  Floored! Unbelievable.  It seems so obvious now, but it really wasn’t at the time.

PATEL:  And that released something for you.

ALLISON:  Oh, that was crucial.  Crucial!  Because all of a sudden, I thought, “Oh! Well maybe I can have a husband and freedom! Hmm!”

PATEL: Try that on for size!

ALLISON:  Yeah.  So that was just mine.  Yours may be something completely different.  But for me, that was what I wanted.  And I believe a lot of people have that . . .

PATEL:  That block. That thing they don’t want to give up but feel they have to because their parent’s relationship is their role model.  So, we think we have to give that up, but we don’t.

ALLISON:  And it was totally subconscious!  I did not realize.  I suppose it would work with anything that you want right?

PATEL:  Yes, absolutely.

ALLISON:  If you haven’t gotten it, and you’ve been trying for a while . . . there’s got to be another reason!  There has to be something you’re afraid of giving up, deep down.

PATEL:  Absolutely.  Awesome.

ALLISON:  You pulled that out of me! I had forgotten about that one! I’ve gone through so many limiting beliefs one by one.  Like, I’m in a jungle with a machete or something.  Which is what it feels like.  It feels like you’re in a jungle and you’re never going to reach that river or whatever you’re looking for.  And you can see trees all around you and you think, “I’m not going to make it through.”  But, you will. You will.  If you keep going you absolutely will.

PATEL:  Ok, and this is great! And Julia, you are amazing because you have so much wisdom around this and so much to share with women.  I think that’s where BRAVO’s Miss Advised came from and how much you had to share with women through that forum. And you continue to.  So, there were lots of nuggets in there.  [gestures toward viewers] Please take the two or three things that she said that really resonated with you and get into action around it!  Because we see this all the time.  If you’re not doing the work, if you’re not trying to really go through those areas where you don’t really want to go to sometimes, it’s going to be hard to find love.  So do that work.  Do that work.  And I think one of the big things that you were saying overall was to be the person that you want to date, essentially, right?

ALLISON:  Yeah, I like that!  Be the person you want to date.  That’s actually a great way of summarizing it.

PATEL:  And also, go deeper.  Go deeper.  It’s not just how you look, it’s not just how you feel.  Even if you’re just confident and you come to that date with that confidence, and you jazz yourself up . . . there’s more to it that you’re bringing to the table.

ALLISON:  Think about how you’re making him feel.   At the end of the day, as women we think so much about, “What do men think of us, what do men think of us?”  Think more, “how does he make you feel? Does he feel like a man around you?   Does he feel strong and smart and capable?  Do you believe in him?  Does he feel that you believe in him?”  All these things are important.  And I swear to God.  The most important thing is never, ever give up hope.

PATEL:  And you gave up hope but you kept going!  So, what I want them to get is keep going!

ALLISON:  Yes! You’re right. You can give up hope but keep going! Keep a small flame; like a pilot light! A pilot light of hope.  So, if someone comes along with a match, or a lighter they can light you up.  Just as long as you have that pilot light.

PATEL:  That’s right.  And keep going.  Keep going!  Don’t let the setbacks or the hurt . . . and we’ve all been through the hurt and it’s devastating . . . but grieve it!  And get back on the saddle.  So awesome.  Julia imparted so much great information to all of you and she has more to share.  She is a lovely writer.  She is amazing as you can see on camera and on through her videos.

ALLISON: Thank you!

PATEL:  So, where can they find you?

ALLISON:  You can find me in three places online.  Well, lots of places, [laughs] but three primary places. One is my website and that’s xojulia.com, the other is my twitter feed that’s @juliaallison, and you can find me on facebook.com/juliaallison.  [Smiles] Thank you again, Kavita. This has been an honor to share with your viewers.

Julia Allison, 31, approaches appearing on a reality television show similarly to how she embarks upon practicing yoga.

Before Allison started shooting “Miss Advised,” a Bravo series about three women hunting for boyfriends, she set her intentions. Which are, she says: “Be authentic”; “Don’t take yourself too seriously”; “You can make a lot of mistakes and still be happy.”

It has [read more...]]]> Julia Allison of “Miss Advised” Does Yoga to Stay in Reality
The Wall Street Journal
By Katherine Rosman
October 1, 2012

Julia Allison, 31, approaches appearing on a reality television show similarly to how she embarks upon practicing yoga.

Before Allison started shooting “Miss Advised,” a Bravo series about three women hunting for boyfriends, she set her intentions. Which are, she says: “Be authentic”; “Don’t take yourself too seriously”; “You can make a lot of mistakes and still be happy.”

It has long been Allison’s intention to get famous, as she herself would tell you, or at least to get a reality show. Living in New York after graduating college—she went to Georgetown University and while there wrote a dating column for the student newspaper and built a website about herself so her family could read her columns–there was nary a media-industry party she didn’t attend or wish to and hardy a camera she wouldn’t smile for. “I was active in social media before social media was called social media,” she says.  She parlayed it all into a career as a writer (Cosmopolitan magazine) and TV spokeswoman (Star magazine).

But she was best known for the fact that, among a certain techy Web world, she waS known. In 2008, Wired magazine put her on its cover and published a story titled, “Internet Famous: Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self-Promotion.”

And, yet, she wasn’t happy. She was ripping through boyfriends. Her relative fame was eclipsed by that of a dozen others who’ve seen theirs eclipsed by thousands more. In 2009, Allison spent nearly a month at an ashram in upstate New York and began to realize she was disenchanted with the Big Apple. “I was getting insecure and cynical,” she says. She traveled for 14 months and realized that she longed to live in a community that didn’t value thinness and career success above inner-beauty. She moved to Los Angeles.

A few weeks ago, she returned to Manhattan for a visit. It wasn’t her first trip back but perhaps her most triumphant because she was toting with her the long wished-for reality-show cred and a new boyfriend to boot. Still, by the end of the week, she was ready for a little yoga.

As a vegan chef prepared snacks for Allison and her boyfriend Devin Stetler to enjoy after the practice at the apartment of a friend they were crashing at, we ambled up to the roof of with Aarona Pichinson, a friend of Allison’s who is a fabulous yoga instructor. Stetler, a technology entrepreneur, joined us. He was sporting short-shorts and was being a very good sport, even asserting that it didn’t make him squirm to hear his girl friend tell a reporter that she knew by the second date that he was The One.

It was a glorious September day: sunny but not blinding, hot but not in the shade. At first we were oriented such that our views of the park were to our left. But we all moved our mats so that we could do Tree Pose while gazing over the treetops, finding stability in imagining our leg rooted into the ground, finding grace in imagining our arms as swaying branches.

We did a lot of heart-openers: poses that require a certain amount of back-bending. Allison is a graceful yogi and she has excellent balance. She looks serene and focused as she practices—even with a video camera trained upon her. But that is her natural habitat.

The heart-openers were apt: Allison is clearly a woman with a very open heart. Currently, it’s open for Stetler with whom she was set up on a blind-date for May 9. Earlier that day, Allison’s grandmother died. Even in grief, she didn’t cancel. “I lost her in the morning and I found him in the evening,” she says.

As the months roll on, she finds him increasingly perfect. He meets so many of the 88 items on the list of must-have-attributes which she wrote a few years ago and then published on Bravo’s website. They include “loves me unconditionally,” “talented lover” and “will be on TV with me without throwing a massive fit.”

So, it is all coming together for Allison: the boyfriend, the not-(potentially-not-yet)-renewed show and a column for Elle.com. Also, she is writing a book. “It has to do with transformations and it focuses on how I’ve transformed myself and it will help others transforms themselves,” she says.

I didn’t find the session transformative, even though I loved Pichinson’s manner and the practice she moved us through. The difficulty in doing yoga with a reality TV personality –or, probably, in doing anything with a reality TV personality – is that her very being is a distraction. What is her reality, really? Is she the product that she markets or the creator of a product that she markets?

Either way, it’s a lot to think about when you’re trying to balance on one leg.

And so my chapter as a Guinea Pig of Love comes to a close. (Spoiler! This chapter has a happy ending).

For me, this moment is a long time coming, a process that started when I was twenty-one years old, a junior at Georgetown, when I made the choice that would change the rest of my life: to write a column about dating.

They say you teach what you yourself need to learn.  Perhaps I knew then (subconsciously) that I didn’t have [read more...]]]> GUINEA PIG OF LOVE: LESSONS LEARNED
ELLE
AUGUST 7, 2012
BY JULIA ALLISON 

Photo by Michael Hoy

And so my chapter as a Guinea Pig of Love comes to a close. (Spoiler! This chapter has a happy ending).

For me, this moment is a long time coming, a process that started when I was twenty-one years old, a junior at Georgetown, when I made the choice that would change the rest of my life: to write a column about dating.

They say you teach what you yourself need to learn.  Perhaps I knew then (subconsciously) that I didn’t have the tools for a healthy relationship, and my subsequent decade of dating – and writing about dating – grew out of that.

I started this column to “visit unconventional experts and delve deep into toxic patterns I may have unconsciously been replicating in my love life.  I’ll talk to a tarot card reader, work with a love coach, visit witches, attend a pleasure workshop, and sit down with a mind architect, all to see whether I can actually move toward the thing I want most in this world: love.”

What I had expected happened: The experiments were messy. They were sad.  I cried more than a few times. But I did learn to believe in love again. And, most importantly, I found peace – and a new theory on love and relationships:

I believe that you receive the partner best suited to whoever you are, whatever lessons you need to learn, whatever stage of development you’re at, and however you see yourself.  If you don’t believe you’re deserving of love on a deeper level (I’m not talking about what you say, I’m talking about how you feel inside), you will be met with unavailable, disinterested, or non-committal partners—or you’ll find men who love you, but whom you don’t find to be a good match. You’ll feel those insidious doubts and you’ll wonder, “Is this it?” You will feel frustrated, like you’re banging your head against a wall.  That’s because you (metaphorically) ARE.

The real issue always lies in you.  Always.  Every time.  It lies in you to make the changes that you need in order to have the relationship you want.

When I look back at my relationships over the years, I’ve gotten exactly what I—deep down—thought I deserved.  And it’s clear that sometimes I didn’t feel I deserved very much at all.

With every expert I visited, I changed.  I listened, I learned, I confronted issues within myself that I had buried for decades.  And I found the question inside me shifting from “How can I find a future husband who embodies everything I want in a man?” to “How can I become the woman that man would want to marry?”

Would my man want to marry a woman with low self-esteem?  Of course not. Would he want to marry a woman who didn’t love her body? No. Would he want to marry a woman who was frantic or stressed all the time? A woman who was desperate? A woman who is frequently defensive? An uptight perfectionist? Absolutely not.

So I evolved myself, and in the process, a miraculous thing happened: I stopped caring about the end goal—this future husband, this future marriage.  It isn’t that I stopped desiring a life partner.  It’s that I started loving myself, and I felt enough. I felt whole. Prince Charming wasn’t coming, and that was actually okay. Instead I choose to focus on creating a life so full of adventure, love, and growth that I’m fulfilled without such a man. I stopped looking outside myself for validation and started knowing (not thinking, but knowing, on a deeper level) that although I am not perfect, never will be, I am lovable and I am enough.

And of course, the minute I gave up … truly gave up – and started loving myself, guess what happened?

I met the very man I had been looking for all along.

This man is now my boyfriend, and I love him more than I thought possible.  The relationship we have is more satisfying than any I have had in my entire life, due entirely to the work that I did on myself and my ability to give to another person.

All of us have people in our lives to help us do things: We go to an accountant to help us with our finances, a mechanic to help us with our car, and a doctor to help us with our health.  Yet many of us languish with no guidance, no expertise, no assistance whatsoever in the area most important to us: love.  I can say for sure that I would not be in this happy, healthy, deeply-fulfilling relationship were it not for the help I received from these unconventional experts.

If there is one lesson I can leave you with, it’s this: Every relationship comes into our lives to teach us lessons we need to grow into the people we’re meant to become – and the relationship that teaches us the most is the one with ourselves. So whether you’re single and frustrated or in a relationship you don’t quite find satisfying, turn yourself into your own guinea pig of love. Experiment. Learn. Grow. Love yourself more. Make new mistakes.  Dance with your fear instead of fighting it.

Most of all, know that you can create any sort of life and relationship you want – if you’re willing to do the work to become the woman your ideal man would want to be with.  It’s certainly not easy, but I can tell you from experience … it’s worth it.

 Julia Allison, one of the Web’s biggest self-promoters, explains how to define your brand before others do it for you. 

I was convinced that trying to build a personal brand, especially for the average small-business owner, is a waste of time. And I was admittedly kinda smug about it.

Then Julia Allison put me solidly in my place–in the nicest possible way, mind you.

Here’s [read more...]]]> One Word That Defines A Great Personal Brand
INC Magazine
By Jeff Haden
August 6, 2012

 Julia Allison, one of the Web’s biggest self-promoters, explains how to define your brand before others do it for you. 

I was convinced that trying to build a personal brand, especially for the average small-business owner, is a waste of time. And I was admittedly kinda smug about it.

Then Julia Allison put me solidly in my place–in the nicest possible way, mind you.

Here’s another in my series in which I pick a topic, connect with someone smarter than me, and we discuss. (There’s a list of previous installments at the end of this article.)

This time, I talked to Julia Allison, Elle columnist, speaker on all things branding related, and star of the Bravo series Miss Advised. She was also profiled in Wired a few years ago for her personal branding savvy.

Jeff: If I say the average small-business owner shouldn’t worry about personal branding, what would you say?

Julia: I would start by laughing.

Founders are the best advertisement for their companies. The best ROI you can get is from developing your personal brand, because your personal brand is linked directly to the value of the service or goods you provide your customers. It’s all the same thing.

Whom do I do business with? Someone I trust, someone who’s honest, someone who treats me well.

Jeff: Unfortunately, I think of a personal brand as an artificial construct, like Tom Wolfe’s white suits.

Julia: A great personal brand isn’t artificial. It’s authentic. A great personal brand is analogous to a great reputation, which is based on providing exceptional service to your clients.

Obviously, that’s often not manifested in popular culture; if you hear “personal brand” and Paris Hilton is the first thing that comes to mind, you might see “personal brand” as a pejorative. But personal branding doesn’t mean duping someone. It doesn’t mean you’re manipulative or self-aggrandizing.

What it means is you are incredibly efficient at getting across to your customers who you are and what you stand for.

Jeff: But shouldn’t the focus be on what your business provides, what value customers receive, what problems you solve? Isn’t that more important than trying to establish a personal brand?

Julia: Forget “trying to establish a personal brand.” You already have one. Everyone has a personal brand–he or she just doesn’t know it.

A small-business owner’s personal brand is inexorably tied up with the brand of his or her company. Those two things are one and the same. You can have huge impact if you use yourself to be almost a transitive property. The brand is your company.

Jeff: I get that everyone has a personal brand. But as for the transitive-property concept, you lost me.

Julia: Take a step back. You have a great brand when people immediately associate a positive term with that brand–the term you want people to associate with your brand.

Take Mercedes: If you think “luxury,” it’s happy. Or Kathy Griffith, the stand-up comedian: If the first word that comes to mind isn’t “funny,” then she’s failing. Tony Hsieh: You think “Zappos,” but you also think “culture” because of the outstanding business culture at Zappos.

Or take Donald Trump, one of the best personal brands in the world. If he wanted his personal brand to be “humble” or “kind,” he failed. But he doesn’t care if you like him; he just wants to communicate “rich.”

Jeff: I’m old enough to remember the Trump of the ’80s; “rich” was definitely his mission. That’s evolved a little since then. Now, when I think “Trump,” I do think “rich,” but I also think about politics and Miss America and The Apprentice.

Julia: A personal brand shouldn’t be static. It better evolve as you change and your business changes. When a business grows, the brand should grow–and so should the personal brand of the owner. Still, in Trump’s case, those other things that come to mind are still extensions of “rich.”

Jeff: OK, then, take Bruce Jenner. I’m old enough to have seen him in the ’72 Olympics. For years, I thought of him as this muscular guy with wavy, long hair who won a gold medal in the decathlon. (To this skinny, insecure 12-year-old, Bruce Jenner was it.)

Now he’s like this hapless pawn with “plastic surgery face” who is caught in the vortex of his kids’ reality show. I don’t think “athlete” or “champion” when I think of Bruce anymore. I think “Kardashian.”

Julia: Here’s the thing: We don’t know what Bruce wants to accomplish. In order to know whether his brand is a success or failure, you have to look at it from his perspective. You think it’s an odd move for him, but he may be achieving exactly what he wants to achieve. Maybe all he cares about is supporting what his family wants to do.

Everyone has different success metrics. I did an interview with my parents’ local paper; I could have gotten a lot more exposure elsewhere, but to my parents, seeing me in the local paper was awesome. That was worth my time and effort, because I want my parents to be happy.

Jeff: Good point. Sorry, Bruce.

Julia: Also remember that a lot of people relate to Bruce. He has this big extended family and faces family and interpersonal issues, and he’s doing the best he can.

People relate to people. They don’t relate to companies. That’s why companies have spokespeople. It’s not rocket science. I can’t relate to a company, but I can relate to someone who smiles at me.

Jeff: When I talked to Shama Kabani, she made a similar point: Letting people connect with the CEO of a company is incredibly powerful, because then it’s like you know someone at the company.

Julia: The most important reason to have a personal brand is that you are your company. Your company is who you are. If you aren’t taking care of your personal brand, that will negatively affect the brand of your company.

Take American Apparel and its founder, Dov Charney. If that’s not convincing as to why a personal brand matters to the company, nothing is.

But on the flip side, nothing can be more positive. In terms of getting press for your business, the most powerful asset you have is you as a founder.

Mark Zuckerberg’s story is fascinating. If a VC fund had hired a bunch of talented programmers to build Facebook, the company story would be a case study, not a movie.

Jeff: OK, say I’m a small-business owner. Where do I start?

Julia: Start by deciding on the word you want to define you.

Quite frankly, I made a big mistake early on: I didn’t set the word before it was set for me. You must decide on your word before other people decide it for you. One of the reasons I know so much about personal branding is that I did so many things wrong.

Make a list of the adjectives you want people to repeat after they meet you, talk to you, see or read about you… What do you want your customers to think of when they think of you–and by extension, your company?

Maybe you want them to feel happier, healthier, more energetic, more confident, safer… make your list. Then boil it down to one word you want to encapsulate your personal brand.

Jeff: What’s on your list?

Julia: Mine includes words like “irreverent,” “humorous,” “intelligent,” “insightful,” and “relatable.”

Jeff: So I make a list. Other than making me feel a little self-conscious, how does that help me?

Julia: For years, I would do interviews and then read the article and think, “Wait, what just happened? That’s not the interaction I thought we had. That wasn’t my intention at all.”

So I wrote down my intentions. Not in a manipulative way, but in a way to help me focus. I thought about what I wanted people to get from their interactions with me; once I did, things started to change.

Before I did the TV show, I wrote down things I wanted viewers to get from our “interaction.” I wanted them to be able to relate to me; to feel like they can laugh about things that are depressing, like having a crappy love life; and I wanted to make them happy. The feedback I’ve gotten is almost exactly that.

Jeff: So you just extend your list to all your interactions: with customers, suppliers, employees, PR and media opportunities.

Julia: Exactly. And that’s why a personal brand is so important: It allows people to trust you. When you’re authentic, people can trust you–and they want to do business with you.

So instead of trying to be something you’re not, be exactly who you are and intend to be.

Jeff: One of the risks of promoting a personal brand is that you open yourself up to criticism, especially if you have strong opinions. In a world of online reviews and instant feedback, many small businesses will do anything to limit negative “coverage.”

The more you’re out there, the less control you have.

Julia: We live in exceptionally difficult times for unwarranted and ad hominem attacks. The key is to realize that comments fall into one of two categories.

The first category is genuine complaints you need to address. Once you’re finished cringing, fix the problems. Then, respond to every single comment on any public forum with every ounce of kindness and class and diplomacy you have ever mustered in your entire life.

The second category is angry people who criticize you unfairly or just for spite; there’s nothing you can say or do to make them feel better. Every public figure gets those comments. You just have to accept it.

If you want to be successful and make a difference, you will run into people who are unhappy and take that unhappiness out on you.

Sometimes people say really nasty stuff to me. It’s not easy to take, but you have to take the bad with the good. That’s just how it works, so knowing how to separate those two kinds of comments can make the difference.

Jeff: I’ve seen some of the stuff people have said about you. I’m not sure I could get past that.

Julia: The good that will come from establishing a great personal brand totally outweighs the bad. Part of life is learning how to deal with criticism. It’s not fun; it’s not been my favorite activity for the last 10 years; but it has taught me how to deal with unhappy people.

Sometimes things go wrong. Go forward with humor and a humble attitude and a willingness to do right–even if you didn’t screw up–and you will win over 95% of your detractors.

Also, don’t be afraid to show weakness. We live in a culture that celebrates bloopers. If you can apologize for your mistakes and address them in a classy, funny, and humble way, people will forgive you.

Just do your best, and apologize when you fail.

Jeff: Even if you don’t get criticized, it’s still a little scary for the average person to think of setting out to be more public, whether that’s media opportunities or just networking.

Julia: I jumped out of a plane last week. That’s scary, but it also makes me feel more alive.

For many people, getting in front of a television camera or talking to a journalist is like jumping out of a plane. It feels very dangerous, scary, and antithetical to survival. It’s not: It makes you feel alive.

If you have your own business and you’re relying on yourself, you’re already a risk taker. Why not go that extra 2 inches?

Talking about why you’re so passionate about something you chose to devote your life to–compared to starting a business, that’s easy. And the return can be incredible.

This was my attempt at casual chic, standing on the balcony of my new home in Marina del Rey (the beach town south of Venice & west of LA). I don’t know if I succeeded, but at least I tried?  I love Rachel Zoe’s new line, and picked up this maxi skirt of hers at Bloomingdale’s, which I paired, under the wise guidance of my ELLE editor Keith, with a simple white tee and a silver heart [read more...]]]> GUINEA PIG OF LOVE: A LOOK AT JULIA ALLISON’S PERSONAL MEMENTOS
ELLE
JULY 31, 2012
BY JULIA ALLISON 

White tee paired with a Rachel Zoe maxi-skirt & vintage silver heart locket necklace

This was my attempt at casual chic, standing on the balcony of my new home in Marina del Rey (the beach town south of Venice & west of LA). I don’t know if I succeeded, but at least I tried?  I love Rachel Zoe’s new line, and picked up this maxi skirt of hers at Bloomingdale’s, which I paired, under the wise guidance of my ELLE editor Keith, with a simple white tee and a silver heart locket given to me by one of my best friends on my 13th birthday (I was the maid of honor in her wedding).  See, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue!  I’m ready for my wedding. 

Tiara with vintage pink dress, on my Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic for Target bedspread, surrounded by pink dresses

No one has ever accused me of being a tomboy.  I’ve been disproportionately obsessed with the color pink since I was 15-years-old, and I always figured I would outgrow that love.  A decade and a half later, I can say with assurance: that probably won’t ever happen.  My Grandmother loved pink until the day she died, and I must have inherited that love. Why?  I don’t know why! It just makes me happy.  My bedroom is a bit ridiculous, but why should it matter?  That’s just who I am.  If people don’t like it, or they don’t want their bedrooms to look like mine, that’s cool.  I’m not Nate Berkus!  I’m not some paragon of interior design.  I just like what I like, and I like pink, I like tiaras, I like Shabby Chic and I like vintage prom dresses hanging on the wall.  I don’t think there’s any harm in it, and the men who really like me – they just laugh and/or tune it out.  It’s a great filter, really! If you don’t like me enough to enjoy my love of pink, I don’t want you in my bedroom anyway! (Okay, okay. One of them asked me to remove the bubblegum pink “Princess Parking Only – All Others Will Be Toad” sign.  It made me laugh every time I looked at it!)

I can’t wait until I have a daughter.  Although, knowing the way life works, she’ll probably be goth and love baseball and cover her room in Marilyn Manson posters and I will cry.

Hot pink Kate Spade dress coat over vintage Lilly Pulitzer maxi-dress with a Treasures by Shabby Chic for QVC hand painted upholstered bench

I feel strongly that the most fun items in your closet shouldn’t stay in your closet – they should come out as a rotating art installation.  After all, you paid enough for them!  In this case, I didn’t actually pay anything for the dress, because it was my beloved late Grandmother’s.  Grandmother Marilyn had quite the fashion sense, and she wore DVF & Lilly all through the 70s. She gave away her DVF, much to my chagrin, but kept her Lillys long enough to give them to me when I was a teenager.  I lovingly saved all of them, and some – like this brightly printed maxi-dress – I found so winsome, I hung it on my wall throughout much of my college years.  I loved the colors, but more than that, I loved that it reminded me of my Grandmother and our time together.

The hot pink coat from Kate Spade is more recent – it was given to me this past fall, although I haven’t had much opportunity to wear it in warm LA!  As for the Treasures by Shabby Chic bench, it sits in my entryway, with shoes neatly stacked under it and packages and bags ready to go out on top of it.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Rachel Ashwell, and everything from my dining room table & chairs to my white sofa to my side tables to my bathroom towels to my bedspread was designed by Rachel Ashwell’s Shabby Chic; I pulled from all of her lines, from the Santa Monica store to QVC to the Target line.  I adore her clean, light, beachy, charmingly feminine aesthetic, and it was always a dream of mine to decorate my entire home with her pieces.

My inspiration board

A cheap corkboard I bought at Office Max, this is where I pin anything that, well, inspires me!  A few of the items, from bottom, counterclockwise:

1. A sketch that a talented comic artist did of me as Wonder Woman when I covered Comic Con last July 2011 in San Diego
2. A photo of my puppy Lilly in a Luis Vuitton dog bag when she was just six months old (taken in the store, no, I didn’t buy it!)
3. A pink Valentine’s Day card from my beloved late grandmother
4. A magazine cut out of me from Fashion Week next to my design hero, Betsey Johnson
5. A card from my friend Christine that reads “Is a Brownie Packed with Emotional Stability Too Much to Fucking Ask” – the story of my life.
6. A sparkly pink bear keychain my friend Justine gave me at Burning Man last year
7. An ID from Fashion Week, which I’ve covered for the past 11 seasons
8. A shot of me and my high school friend Josh from my 30th birthday party (I wore pink – and a tiara, haha)
9. The poodle from a skirt my mom hand-made me when I was in 2nd grade. Sentimentally, I kept the skirt for two decades, but decided the memories really lay in that poodle, so I cut it off and pinned it up!
10. A photobooth shot with my roommate, singer/songwriter Julia Price, at a “Barbie & Ken” themed party when we first moved to LA
11. My favorite quote, by Eckhart Tolle: “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” That’s just a fancy way of saying: all of life’s challenges are here to teach you lessons that will make you into a better human being … so embrace them.

Pink Bebe quilted heart purse, green faux grass

My friend Amanda gave me this pink heart purse, with which I absolutely fell in love, for my 29th birthday.  I’ve had it hanging on the coat rack in my hallway as a decoration ever since. I love accessories that I could see Katy Perry owning. I don’t wear it that often (although I did tote it along to my “Prom Date” with Andrew in the 5th episode of my Bravo show), but I enjoy looking at it every day!

Pink Petco dog toy, Betsey Johnson sunglasses, pink Kate Spade large stud earrings, pink Kate Spade small stud earrings, pink Ranjana Khan necklace

I hesitate to mention this, lest you label me even more eccentric than you already have but … I buy all of Lilly’s toys in either pink or white.  Yep.  I’m serious.  And before you protest, I’ll tell you why.  Dogs naturally leave their toys out, but if they’re in the same color scheme as your house, they don’t become a crazy eye sore if they’re lying all around!  (Also I just really like the colors white & pink.) Listen, people, we all have our neuroses.

Betsey Johnson is one of the few designers who still does incredible gift bags at her shows during NY Fashion Week (which I have covered as a journalist for the past 11 seasons), and these sunglasses came from one of those! Kate Spade I can always rely on for preppy classic jewelry in colors that pop – these came from Nordstrom. This exquisite baroque piece from Ranjana Khan (one of my favorite jewelry designers) was a gift to myself after a particularly difficult fashion week a few years back.  Every time I wear it I feel like a Princess.

Shepler’s pink cowboy boots and Robert Indiana inspired LOVE magazine rack

Why does a girl from the Midwest own pink cowboy boots? When my good friends Dave & Brit Morin got married last summer, the groom (from Montana) and the bride (from Texas) chose to have their wedding in Jackson, Wyoming … and cowboy boots were required! I love nothing more than a themed event, and I figured this was just an exciting opportunity for me to purchase something in my favorite hue: pink.  I became so fond of these boots that I started wearing them under my jeans & with summer dresses like I thought I had morphed into Taylor Swift or something. In fact, I did wear these very boots to a Taylor Swift concert at the end of last summer. I may in fact be a 13-year-old-girl at heart … forever.

The LOVE magazine rack, inspired (of course) by the famous Robert Indiana designed LOVE statue in NYC, was given to me by my close friend and former business partner Megan Alagna, who knew I loved nothing more than 1) love, 2) that statue, and 3) magazines.  I fill it with The Atlantic, Fast Company, INC, WIRED, and of course – ELLE!

Pink Hunter rainboots & “Pink Pedal” Beachbikes.com beach cruiser

By now we’ve more than established the theme of my life: I really, really enjoy the color pink.  These Hunter boots – so cool in black on Kate Moss while trekking through the mud at summer music fests – look more like I’m jumping into puddles while singing “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” from Annie.  But I’m cool with that!

Pink Pedal – yes, I named my bicycle – is my single favorite possession.  My friend Dustin, who owns BeachBikes.com, gave her to me (yes, she’s a female bike), and I rode her all around Chicago before I loaded her into the moving van for the trek out west.  Riding on the bike path north from my home in Marina del Rey to Venice to Santa Monica, iTunes playing, soothes my soul.  There is nothing I enjoy more.  Well, nothing that doesn’t start with the letters “choc” and end with “olate.”

Top: pink rubber duck from Bath & Body Works, necklace by Cara, monogrammed JA soap, sparkle bracelets & ring from Nordstrom. Bottom: pink BITCH doggy placemat from Harrods in London, dog dishes from Crate & Barrel

I just had to have this pink rubber duck when I saw it one day at B&B Works. I mean, are you really surprised by now?  As for the monogrammed soap, my friend Noelle grew up in the South and loves a good monogram, so she gave me these for one birthday (another one she gave me monogrammed candles, which also sit in my bathroom).  I find this too pretty to use, so it really just sits there, screaming: THIS IS MONOGRAMMED! Use the liquid soap, jerk! at all of the poor bathroom visitors.  The sparkle ring I bought for myself as a 30th birthday present, and the Cara necklace I wore in all of the promotional posters for my BRAVO show Miss Advised.

The pink BITCH pet placemat I bought when I was in London for my childhood friend Natasha’s wedding … I walked into Harrods, saw it, and knew I needed to bring it home for Lillydog.  My roommate Julia Price is convinced Lilly is a tomboy and is horrified by the placemat, but I think she likes it. No dog of mine would want anything else!

Betsey Johnson sparkle bow heels & a plethora of pink covered dating/marriage self-help books

One of my best friends, Randi (who is executive producing BRAVO’s Silicon Valley) & I share a birthdate, February 28th, and we’ve thrown joint birthday bashes with purposefully over-the-top matching outfits a few years in a row.  For our 29th birthday, we chose these sparkle Betsey Johnson bow heels.  I think there’s no such thing as too old to appreciate a little bit of kitschy sparkle.

As for the very pink dating books, well – in my defense – having been a dating columnist on and off for over ten years now, I’ve been sent quite a few by publishers in my day.  That’s not to say that I haven’t read them all!  I definitely have.  Have they helped?  Eh. Some more than others.  (My favorites?  “Why Men Love Bitches,” “Why You’re Not Married,” “Why He Didn’t Call You Back,” and – for men – “The Way of the Superior Man.”)

Yellow & Green/Pink Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses in front of my living room bookshelf

Like every other woman in the history of the planet, I love DVF wrap dresses, so when one of my girl friends worked for Diane’s son Alex a few years back, we got in early at a sample sale – and poof! – all of a sudden I was $700 lighter in my wallet and the proud owner of a dozen of her classic wrap dresses.  Since then I’ve picked up a dress or skirt (unfortunately at retail prices) from her collection almost every year, and to this day, I think her wraps are the most flattering, most comfortable, wrinkle free travel companions on the market.  I just wish she made more of them!

Maroon, black & white classic quilted Chanel bags on top of Putnam’s Phrase Book

 Ah, the Chanels.  I know I shouldn’t prize these. I know it’s shallow.  I know they’re just leather and metal. But oh, how I love them. I just do.  I can’t say I purchased any of them for myself – I’m a journalist, and we don’t make Chanel-bag cash.  Even if I did, I’m not sure I could spend what amounts to three months rent on a bag.  They were gifts from men (yes, yes, total cliche) years ago, when I was young and dated men who did that sort of thing.  (Oy.) Now I’m older and those sorts of men are long gone, but the bags remain, as a reminder that diamonds are a girls best friend, but barring that, Chanel is a close second.

The books were gifts from my college roommate, CD, and my grandfather Herb, respectively.  Those mean much more than the Chanel, but they aren’t quite as handy at carrying your wallet & keys.

Green sparkle Les Prairies de Paris pumps, faux Andy Warhol print of me at age 24

Right after college, I dated a handsome, kind, incredible man named Alex for three years.  A few months into our relationship, he swept me off my feet, taking me to Paris for the first time on this out-of-the-movies storybook trip.  And on said trip, while wandering down one French street and into a boutique there, he bought me these green sparkly Les Prairies pumps (which we subsequently noticed were featured in that month’s Paris Vogue). I had never felt more fashionable – or more loved.  They have remained displayed in my closet as a token of his affection for years (we are still good friends), and to this day I can’t look at them without smiling.  This is why I always recommend a man purchase a lady fabulous shoes instead of an expensive meal.  The shoes always last longer.

As for the faux Warhol, the origins of this print were a candid photograph taken of me (by that same then-boyfriend Alex) when I was 24-years-old.  I had it turned into a Warholian print on a lark, and it now hangs unceremoniously in my laundry room, the only place suitable for such a thing, unless you’re DVF & Warhol actually DID do such a painting for you. Then you can hang it above your desk for all the world to see.

My 8-year-old shih-tzu Lilly sitting on my bed in a pile of my pink dresses

Oh, my sweet little puppy Lilly – technically Lilly Priscilla Allison (named after my favorite designer, Lilly Pulitzer, my mother’s middle name, Priscilla, and of course my last name, Allison), which makes up the most ridiculous name, if you don’t count my neighbor’s cats’ name of Fishstick.  We usually just call her Miss Lillydog or Lils for short.  I adopted Lilly, then just a 3 lb ball of white fur in October of 2003, the fall of my senior year in college, and I’ve been in love with her ever since.  The runt of the litter, she topped out about 10 lbs, and while she’s sporting a pink bow in this photo, I actually – shockingly – don’t dress her up on a regular basis, or any basis at all.  I sort of got over that after she turned one-year-old.

The only thing she rocks now is a pink studded collar and matching leash, but she rocks it better than any other pup around.  Mellow from a puppy-hood that involved hanging out with frat guys, she’s so chill that most people think she’s a stuffed animal. She is the love of my life.  My roommate, Julia Price, is convinced she’s secretly a tomboy biker chick dog who hates all of this pink nonsense.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s right.