Atoosa Unedited

The Weeknd is starting to use his given name, Abel Tesfaye.This feels meaningful to me. You know what they say. Words are spells. And if words are spells, then your name must be the personal spell you cast on the world. Or at least that’s what I always thought. After all, when I got married at age 26, I changed my name in the masthead of Cosmopolitan even before it was official so the issue that hit newsstands after my August wedding would reflect this new and improved version of me. I was no longer Atoosa Behnegar, the kid at home no one noticed or cared about…this background character of my family and school communities so who desperately wanted to be seen and cherished. I was finally seen and cherished by this boy who put me above everything else.But wait, let’s back track. When I first met him at 23, I didn’t think we could possibly have a future simply based on his last name. Rubenstein. Atoosa Rubenstein? I just couldn’t see it. I was born a Shiite Muslim and immigrated to the US from Iran. If I married him, I would be identified as Jewish for the rest of my life. It didn’t bother me, it just felt like false advertising. But honestly? I was 23 and living the dream in NYC. Surely this guy wouldn’t be The One anyway – I mean, I wasn’t searching for a husband, I just wanted a side kick for Tasti-D-Lite runs and watching 90210. But as luck would have it, just a few years later, I would become Atoosa Rubenstein. And it didn’t feel weird at all. I was proud…thrilled…all good things.There was one hiccup.I didn’t get along with his family. The reasons don’t really matter. They didn’t feel they could be themselves around me…and frankly, they were right. It was a mismatch. The real mismatch had nothing to do with religion, but they did want to hide the fact that I wasn’t Jewish from his religious grandmother who cared very much if her only grandson married a goy. They relied on this grandmother for approval (and other things). They didn’t want her to know about me or our upcoming wedding….but OBVIOUSLY, she ultimately she found out. Now that I’m around the age his parents were back then, it’s kind of funny to think of people my age lying but perhaps it’s funny imagining myself lying to anyone…much the less my family. But I certainly was a liar back then. And you know what they say: You attract the energy you vibrate so in retrospect I guess it makes perfect sense.Sidebar:Today, whenever I meet a younger person who eye rolls their beloved’s family of birth, I am quick to mark it as a red flag. Even if your significant other is the literal OPPOSITE of their family, pay attention to how you feel around said family. It’s important. There’s a reason for the old cliché the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I don’t mean that as an insult. People should be like their families. It’s natural and normal. But sometimes when a family has a lot of trauma, a kid may reject the family thinking that by simply rejecting the people, they can bury the dysfunctional patterns. But I’ve experienced that without therapy and processing, those vibrations stay within us and will pop out like proverbial zombies from the psychological ground they’re buried in.  Date someone whose family you really like, please. Your partner does morph back into a card-carrying member of his family of birth eventually and you want that to feel like a good thing!Okay – my public service announcement is over. Back to spilling tea.One week to the day before my own nuptials, we went to another wedding. His whole family was there. In fact, to this day, it was the most beautiful wedding I’d ever attended. For sure, after all these years as a New Yorker, I’ve been to fancier weddings. But it was the first fancy wedding I’d ever been to and nothing else will ever touch it in my mind. So beautiful in spirit and vibe. But at the very end as we’re leaving, in a scene right out of a bad movie, his grandmother called him over to her wheelchair, motioned to me and croaked, “Why, Ari, Why?” I wish I could unhear her voice.One. Week. Before. Our. Wedding.My husband, who always had (emphasis on had 😅) my back, mumbled something dismissive to her and walked away. We went home and had a “Fuck Them” kind of conversation. I was deeply hurt and embarrassed, of course. But my righteous anger formed a full-body emotional armor. I was young, beautiful, successful and honestly? I did feel they were deeply lucky to have me in the family. (Clearly, I wasn’t suffering from low self-esteem. 🤪) And my family was lucky to have him! But if they didn’t see it, that was their problem. I didn’t really marinate in the grief of being the recipient of such unkind humiliation in public…and right before my wedding. Young people are often good at that. Skip the grief, go right to anger.Instead, we hatched what we thought was a great idea.Fuck these people. Let’s create our own lineage by tweaking his last name. He was born Rubenstein pronounced “Ruben-STEEN.” Let’s start pronouncing it “Ruben-STEIN.” We liked the sound of it better, like the cosmetics pioneer Helena Rubenstein. And this wasn’t unusual in his family. Part of his extended family spelled their last name with an “i” (Rubinstein, like Helena) and others in his family changed their names entirely because they were at odds with family members and wanted to shift their identity. We were starting a new life together and it would be on our terms. We didn’t want to be linked to some lady who is mad because he is not marrying someone Jewish.This was a Saturday.Naturally, the next day is Sunday.For many years, the Sunday New York Times had an iconic column of street fashion by the late, great photographer, Bill Cunningham, called, “On The Street.” That week’s column featured three or four pictures of me. (I’d normally be excited if he ran just one picture much the less a whole cluster!) But that was my vibe then. I’d get a lot of this type of attention, and that particular day, it sure took the sting out of the nonsense from the night before. I was flying high again.Guess who else saw that column?His grandmother.And guess who now wanted to come to my wedding?Yep. You guessed it.Maybe in her “Why, Ari, Why?” era (that ended that Sunday) she thought I was just your average goy. But an above average goy she would accept. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Who knows. I never asked. But I didn’t want her at my wedding. I was angry. My ego was bruised. I was excited for my wedding day, and I didn’t want her bad energy. That Monday, I had to field phone calls from his family saying how important it was to them to include grandma and I think ultimately my husband said, “Fine. She can come. But if she comes to the wedding and that’s what is most important to you, then you’re essentially saying she’s more important than me so our relationship is over once we are past the wedding.” (Yes, we were also immature, I agree) And therein began decades of estrangement and reconnection with his family. Again, another ancestral theme on that side. Oh and PS - I should have known this was a bad move when after telling the band leader at our wedding many, many times the “new” pronunciation of our last name, he loudly and proudly introduced us as Ari and Atoosa Ruben-STEEN! 😆😆😆I never really got over their rejection, to be honest. I had a beautiful relationship with my college boyfriend’s family and loved them very much. I had hoped the same would be true with my husband. It was a terrible introduction to their family and ultimately it doesn’t really matter anymore. I have a lovely relationship with my current partner’s family and all’s well that ends well.But the name story isn’t done.Deep into my years of self-exploration after I left my job, I was with a shaman inside his teepee in upstate New York. He was smoking peyote, drumming and doing this thing while I just stood in front of him wordlessly. (I know, I know. Only your weirdo friend, Atoosa. 🤓) He didn’t know anything about me and didn’t ask. After what felt like an eternity he simply said,“Your name. There is a problem with your name.”My name? I was legitimately confused.“It is grounded in a conflict.”Boom. 💥He was so right.From that day forward, I started going by Rubenstein with the original pronunciation. I thought my husband would really get it. But he didn’t agree. Even his mother who ridiculed the pronunciation change for years, didn’t agree. Even though she pronounced her name the original way, she felt he had established himself professionally with the new pronunciation. For goodness sakes. So had I! I was more public and yet, I didn’t care. But of course, everything isn’t about me. There were so many beginnings of the end of my marriage and this was one of them. To me, this felt like a pathway back to wholeness…to some kind of energetic reconciliation with his family. He did not. I would joke about it sometimes and suggest we call ourselves Rubensteen-stein as a compromise. But in all seriousness, I was ready to move past the conflict. Ultimately, I guess, what was necessary was to move past the ENTIRE conflict…including the marriage.Today, I’m a little ambivalent about the pronunciation. Probably because I’m getting divorced. My husband’s partner has legally changed her name to Rubenstein, just as eager to cast her new spell out into the world, as I was 25 years ago this summer. But alas, I’m still Mrs. Rubenstein and until this divorce is final anything else is just playing pretend, just as he and I played pretend by changing our names 25 years ago. We thought we could leave the drama behind and move forward with a clean slate. But we were only pretending. By pretending to be married, I worry, it is allowing us to pretend we are divorced which I feel is prolonging this arduous process.I want to stop pretending.And that’s why I want to write about my marriage. I want to exorcise what needs to be exorcised for real. When I first started writing this Substack, I wanted to turn the lights on behind-the-scenes of my life as an Editor. The whole time I was Atoosa from CosmoGIRL! and Seventeen, I was your smiling, supportive, goofy big sister but couldn’t tell you about the incest I suffered as a kid, even in those moments when some of you bravely revealed you were suffering the same. I was a role model for high-achieving Alpha Girls, never mind my being miserable doing it. I was all of those good things…but I was only sharing half my story back then.I recently realized that I have been doing the same thing today.You know about my cancer, my heart breaks, my joys, my peace, my lessons, my growth.But you don’t know much about the break up of my marriage and how it’s not just my stuff that has contributed to it’s demise. There’s a lot I’ve been keeping in the shadows. I’ve been focusing the storyline solely on my mistakes, once again glossing over the ways in which I’ve been mistreated and perpetrated against. Always trying to protect those around me. Not dissimilar to how I was raised.In my final year at Seventeen, the brilliant artist Bill Hayward included me in this very cool portrait project he was shooting and curating. He would give his subjects black paint and a blank canvas (literally) and we could create anything we wanted as the background to our portrait. There was a part of me that wanted to do something expected and douchey – you know, somehow underscoring my Girl Boss reputation. But I was beginning to shift into a commitment to self-understanding and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to explore what I REALLY wanted to say. Not just what “Atoosa” from Seventeen wanted to have “out there.” I remember sitting on the set, shutting my brain down and letting my subconscious guide me. I was both confused and surprised by what transpired.I wrote “Protect The Baby” over and over on the backdrop and shaped crumpled up paper to look like a swaddled baby. I was holding the baby close to me...close to my face. I didn’t know until I was today years old that my subconscious was calling for me to mother myself. That I hadn’t been protected as a child and that I was continuing to operate recklessly like that neglected feral younger version of myself. That I deserved to be protected, but at my age I was the only one who could do it.Fast forward to today.I have posted smiling blended family pictures on Instagram.But in truth, the road to and through divorce has been ugly. I thought I could spiritually by-pass the awfulness. If I take responsibility for everything I brought to the table…If I can have compassion and do all my own work…If I can smile through the bad behavior. We can get to the other side, right? Eventually we will get to the other side. There will be a paper I can sign that will render me divorced. I just have to keep smiling, keep repenting for my stuff and eventually this will end.But perhaps the universe does not want this for me: This graceful conscious uncoupling. Perhaps that is for very white people who look clean pressed all the time. Perhaps what the universe needs from me is a blood curdling scream to whatever God can hear my voice. LET THIS FUCKING NIGHTMARE END! I will never stop fighting for what is right and fair for my children’s present and future. But let me tell you something, sister. People can SAY they want to get divorced. They can make big grand gestures to let the world think that they even ARE divorced. But when someone is unprocessed in their life, they can drag out a divorce for an eternity. This goes for anything. You’ve seen people who claim they want to be in a new relationship. But they just can’t seem to make it happen. You may be one of these people. I have been in my life, for sure. Unprocessed trauma is real.Maybe this is my last bit that needed to be processed and spit out. To stop being the one who always makes lemonade out of lemons. To admit that sometimes you just get stuck with sour lemons. Here’s my sour lemon: I am not having a nice divorce. Just as Atoosa from Seventeen was smiling through abortions and unprocessed incest. Atoosa from Unedited had edited out the ugly of her divorce. I couldn’t fully hide it, of course. It has manifested as breast cancer. Prior to my divorce, I had a perfectly clean Mammo. Three years into it? Breast Cancer. (Despite being much healthier on all other levels.)Unlike Atoosa from Seventeen, I am generally at peace and experience tremendous joy in my life. I have shifted my relationship patterns in a way that most people don’t in an entire lifetime. That shit is as real as real can get. Despite not writing about it here, I have very much been processing the bad parts of my divorce almost full time for the past few years. (Although the compassion and “loving brother” way I speak about my ex makes my friends insane.) But I was doing myself…and you, my beloved reader, a disservice by pretending everything is always Namaste or that what creates the ups and downs of my life is who I’m dating or even cancer. Cancer is in my body because I’ve been pretending that the real cancer doesn’t exist.May the speaking of this very unfortunate situation bring much needed light and resolution. Let the pretending end so the real next chapters begin. Let it be written, let it be done. Bestie David wants me to become a one-name wonder after my divorce. Tbd, tbd.xo atoosaManifestation Music so my ex- and I can both move on and be happy: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I won’t lie.I did NOT want to be a single mom. Despite knowing deep down that my husband and I had grown apart, I held tight to my marriage. I did over a decade of deep therapeutic soul searching trying to pinpoint the cause of that pebble in-my-shoe feeling. Was it my mother? My career? Was it the death of my father when I was a kid? The incest? Being an immigrant? The too-big career at the too-young age? And sure. Check, check, check.  All those things needed to be processed. But in the back of my head in every therapy, shaman, astrology, energy healing or whatever session…what was very present but unvoiced: Let it be anything but THAT. And of course, by THAT I meant my marriage. Let it be anything other than my marriage. When I first stopped working, I would stare at my dishwasher like, do I really have to unload this? See, when I was an Editor, I was absolved of all household responsibilities. After all, I was so “bizzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyy.” 🙄 But then, I was a stay-at-home mother and as such, every morning, I stared down that dish washer. There was just something so… uncomfortable about it. WHY was this something I dreaded so much? (Btw - welcome to my life. I don’t ever just do the annoying thing and move on. I need to understand why otherwise, I just can’t accept it. 🤷🏻‍♀️) I’m sure there’s a DSM code for it. Joking, not joking.Eventually I understood I was just not comfortable being in the present moment.I was always planning issues, projects and events that would come out a minimum of three months later. Always living in and shaping some ideal version of the future. Planning, planning, planning. Organizing, organizing, organizing. Imagining, Imagining, Imagining. But unloading that dishwasher? That is a study in being present. That dishwasher is not three months away. It is right here, right now. And if you’re used to living in your planning mind like I was, that dishwasher is in your fucking way! Unloading it turned into mindfulness meditation like so many other things that parenting brought me face to face with: Cooking, tantrums, first aid. Mothering a child isn’t about planning their wardrobe for next season. It’s what do you do NOW when they gash their face on a rock and they’re spurting a fountain of blood. (Hint: You take them to get stitches, which I didn’t do because I was still new in the mommy game and why my eldest daughter will forever have a scar on her lip. 🤦🏻‍♀️) My personal favorite was when they would go boneless and refuse to walk to preschool because fill-in-the-blank. Presence looks like sitting down wherever you are, and seeing what this tiny human needs regardless of how inconvenient the tantrum is. And yes, I was the stone-faced mom muttering to myself while pushing the stroller containing the thrashing screaming toddler, too. Parenting, like meditation, is often two steps forward, one step back.But doing it alone?The sick nights? The tooth fairy? Christmas Eve assembly line? Breakfast…lunch…dinner?I’d always had a partner and kinda didn’t want to know what it would be like not to have one.It would not be better. That I knew for sure.And to some extent I was right.When I had the support of a partner, when one of my kids started to get eczema, I was able to execute a gluten and dairy free diet to see if that helped. If one kid needed to go to the ER, there was always someone to stay home with the others. If curriculum night for two kids fell on the same night? Divide and conquer!That’s it.Divide and conquer!Single parenthood is more divide less conquer.Sometimes it can feel relentless. Like this week, two of the kids were sick and out of school all week with the third coming down with their bubonic plague Thursday just as the other two were recovering. Without another grown up in the house, a week like that can be kind of scary. Is that terrible stomach ache part of the virus like the doctor said or appendicitis like my friend’s kid had last week? And then toss in the co-parent who questions your judgment like whether they were really sick enough to skip school. Hypothetically, of course. 🙄 Anyway, you’re not only in charge of parenting your kid solo, but you’re also often dodging your co-parent in your efforts to do it.Sometimes it’s fraught. There’s just no other way to put it.BUTI have a theory. Many single moms I know (not all, I’m not talking about widows, for instance) had challenging childhoods themselves. After all, they married a mismatch which often comes from marrying someone based on our trauma. And if you’re like me, perhaps you didn’t quite get the mothering you needed when you were a kid, because your mother didn’t get the mothering she needed… and so on.For those of us who didn’t have a balanced and safe childhood? Being a single mother is a master class.Everything I used to outsource to my partner? Come to momma! After all, there’s no one else home! 🤪 Like I used to get out-of-body scared when one of the kids would get really hurt. He was very calm and was the one for the job. But he’s not here anymore so I’ve gotten so much better at staying calm, providing comfort and staying present and in my body so I make sure my child gets the correct care (unlike my stitches fail of 2010)! I used to use him as bad cop. “I’m going to tell Daddy when he gets home” Well guess what? Daddy’s not coming home. I’m good cop and bad cop. (I tried to put our beloved babysitter in the bad cop role but it didn’t fly since she’s the same height as my 10-year-old twins and they like to pick her up. 🙃) And most importantly, I relied on my husband to assure me I was doing a good job with the children. After all, I was raised pretty feral. I don’t think anyone in my household was up at night wondering if they were doing a good job parenting me: They had bigger fish to fry. So, in those moments of insecurity, I would ask him, “Was I too harsh? Was I too soft?” Always having that other person to bounce things off of and just get support and reassurance was helpful. I mean…that person is still alive! That person still exists. But often the divorce process sadly renders them your adversary. And so, we are left to our own devices to learn better how to mother or risk making the same mistakes as our own mother…all the while making some some new flubs to add to the ancestral mix.And that’s just it isn’t it?It’s not about perfection. It’s about evolution. As a single mother I’m evolving every day.Do I wish my kids had both their parents in the same home (or in our case, the same state)?Yes. I do.I would choose that over my own happiness and fulfillment any day. I know a lot of people say that if the parents aren’t happy, the children aren’t happy. But absent an adversarial or abusive relationship, I think children are better off with their parents in the same home. I said it. I know what that sounds like. Am I saying I miss my husband? No. I far prefer my personal life today. Not even a comparison. I’m just saying my children would have benefited by having us stay together. But this is what life wanted for me, and for SURE I’ve worked on a lot of my blind spots…and plenty more to go. (Like, I still SUCK at helping with math homework, but I am an EXCELLENT, albeit annoyingly nit-picky, essay editor).Obviously, we wouldn’t be here without our own mommas but whether or not we have children, we also practice mothering every day with how present we can be with one another…including ourselves: Our attunement, our reactiveness. Dr. Dan Siegel, founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA says, “when we attune with others, we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships.” We need closeness to feel connected…so critical for children, of course. But also with friends, colleagues and even our planet.Being a single mom has pushed me to have much better attunement because I can’t turn away from the parts of parenting that I have bad (or no) experience with. I have to show up for whatever shows up. My meditation practice has helped me enormously with this. Be Here Now as Ram Dass says. And yes, even when I’m unloading the dishwasher.Happy Mother’s Day to all whether you have children, plants or fur babies.xo, atoosaThank you for reading Atoosa Unedited. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I have a theory and if it makes you worked up, I encourage you to sit with it a little longer before you disagree.If you’ve had trauma of any sort as a child, I believe your first marriage will be based in that trauma. Some version of repeating it so you can either finally break free or remain engaged forever (pun intended) with the trauma that tangled up your childhood. Oh, and those who jump right into a second or third marriage after the first? Same. Same. I don’t think the trauma-based marriage necessarily ends with Spouse Number 1. We’ve all seen people who keep marrying the same person in different bodies thinking each one is vastly different from the last. You can’t bury the past…but it can bury you.Of course, there are our friends who’ve had the blessing of a balanced and mostly normal childhood. I’m not talking to you….but honestly, I don’t think anyone like that comes around this particular neck of the Substack woods. 👀I almost wish we could enter that first marriage with different expectations. Like, “Buckle your seatbelt, Timmy, we got some work to to doooooooooooooo…._as the roller coast takes off🎢 so we can loosen up and learn instead of be in resistance when our “stuff” rubs up against each other. And I wish our friends who didn’t meet “the one” when all their friends were coupling off, would just realize they are perhaps more inclined to do the important, deep and painful work of healing as a solo mission and then be ready for the great love of their life in their late 30s or 40s. And yes. There is the procreating issue. Science seems to have provided a lot of solutions there. But I don’t have all the answers. I just want to reframe first marriage for people have gone through trauma. I have yet to meet someone who had childhood trauma whose first marriage doesn’t mirror that trauma. Who isn’t thrashing like a fish on a hook to make said marriage work and is missing the opportunity folded into the suffering.I was thrashing like a fish on a hook to make my marriage work for a quarter of a CENTURY. But unlike the thrashing fish who ends up as someone’s dinner, there was some element and magic and mystery at play. I transformed, I grew.I left my career…and found myself.I learned how to cook to repent for my sins…and today nourish my family every night.I completely disregarded my need for sexual connection…and discovered a vibrator and pleasure at 48!I finally learned how to be ‘“generous.” In other words, make the first effort at reconciliation even if I was not in the wrong instead of fighting to the finish.I left my marriage an entirely different person than I entered it. And yet, I didn’t want to leave it. Yes, I grew in so many ways. But our society places so much emphasis on “til death do you part” that you almost had to pry that marriage out of my cold dead hands. Plus, I had only ever known dysfunctional relationships since birth. In fact, I “fell in love” with another dude who I had the same exact issues with. I thought he was “the one,” too! 🤦🏻‍♀️ And yes, they both WERE the one. I would have never grown, learned or become conscious of my patterns unless I had the perfect partners to play this stuff out with. I have no regrets other than my expectations of forever and the great attachment I felt to making it work no matter what. I really put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself.After my divorce, the renowned therapist, Mark Wolynn, advised me to look for a man who respects this father. Light bulb. Every guy I was ever with seriously had major Daddy issues. I’m sure that’s connected to the loss of my own father when I was a teenager.Then, I met my current partner. He did not have a traumatic childhood. And yes, he respected his father. His love felt really different. Steady. Warm. At first, I truly didn’t know what to do with him. After all, I needed to fight! I needed to hurt my partner and then beg for forgiveness. I needed to feel the fragility of our relationship or else it didn’t feel real to me. I was still replaying my childhood. I had changed so much about myself - both superficially and on a deeper level. But I was still play acting these dysfunctional patterns with men who were working off the same script. 🤯It was so clear to me that this guy wasn’t play acting, so I moved at a snail’s pace. When his kindness made me cringe, I knew it was my wiring that was faulty. When his stability felt boring, I remembered I was trying to shift many generations of instability. My natural instincts were leading me astray from the path and journey I am committed to and should not be my compass in relationships. So, I kept asking for space, very slowly dipping my toe in the healthy relationship waters. When all you’ve known is toxicity, healthy can be just as jarring as the opposite to a well-adjusted person. But I was ready. I knew I was ready. I just had to learn the new dance steps and learn to breath the cleaner air without getting dizzy. I’m still learning…and breathing. Tbh, it feels great. 😅xo, atoosa This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I’m racing to write and record this for you in the moments before my second surgery. But before I go in, I want to tell you something odd.Cancer has been good for me.I can’t lie. In the first 24 hours, I journeyed through some very difficult feelings relating to my mortality and how that would impact my three children. I let those feelings truly sink in and tenderize me. That felt important.I recognize not everyone will agree with this take, but when it entered other people’s lives, I’d always thought of Cancer as an important messenger. So when it knocked on my door, I wanted to fully receive my message. What came up for me was grief. So much grief. This made a lot of sense. See, before I was separated from my husband, my mammo was all clear. So The Big C came on after the separation. I will spare you divorce details, dear reader, but ever since my husband moved out of our home, my focus has been on keeping things steady for the children. I wake them up the same way, I put them to sleep the same way, the breakfast and dinner tables are set the exact same way, our vacations haven’t changed. No matter what shit storm is happening behind the scenes, I’ve kept it all Steady Eddie on my end. I rarely let myself grieve the dream I had for our family. I wanted to be the face of resiliance. The all powerful Momma. After all, if I fell apart, it would make everything so much worse for them, right? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t fall apart. That’s the path I chose. And so, perhaps, that’s why Cancer chose me. Again, maybe. Maybe not. This is how I see it. How many women do you know who’ve gotten some form of female cancer during or just after their divorce? The unprocessed grief takes a toll in my opinion.So diving into and sitting with that abject grief felt important to me.In meditation, we stay with the breath. But when a very big wave of feeling comes, we release the breath and stay with that feeling and allow ourselves to feel it fully.Just after the diagnosis, when I felt that grief come on, I allowed it to engulf me (when my kids were at school and asleep, of course) and eventually, it passed. When I allow hard feelings to come in full force, they usually pass through me within 24-48 hours like a rough storm. I suspect I will weather many such storms during this process Today, I have another surgery. They didn’t get it all the first time.I fall into the 10 percent who need a second surgery.Some people would call that unlucky.I see it differently. I am lucky. They caught the problem.Out, out damn spot.Whether the source of the proverbial spot is the divorce or something else, I don’t really know. Whether I will ever fully get it out, I don’t know that, for certain, either. But I am committed to the exploration and understanding of my internal life in tandem with the exploration and understanding of my physical body. I believe the two are linked. Many people use the phrase, Fuck Cancer as a source of strength to fight the disease. I don’t gain strength from that personally. I do see the Cancer as a toxicity that needs to come out, but it feels like emotional waste for people who have gone through something hard.  So Fuck Cancer feels, to me, like being mad at your bowel movements. 💩 But I admit, this is a privileged POV since Fuck Cancer is intended to support those suffering from late stage Cancer, which I am not. As for me, I will continue to rely on two things for good emotional hygiene:1-Daily meditation. But not just a sitting practice. Every moment we are meditating on something. Instead of meditating on fear or worry, I will meditate on love. And speaking of…2-Love. I will continue to ask for and give love freely. It’s sunshine for my insides.I feel so grateful to the team that will operate on me today. I feel grateful to my partner, Anthony and my dears David & Karen who seem to do all the worrying so I can be my big bad Namaste self. I feel grateful to my community who love and support my family every day, including the days, like today, when I’m unable to cook or do pick-ups. I’m grateful to everyone who sent me a message of love on email, text, social media or smoke signals. My media, college and even high school besties who have reached out as naturally and casually as if it was 2000, 1992 or 1987. I love you. I am swimming in a sea of love. I urge you, don’t wait for crisis. Send a mass email to your people and ask them to send you love. Why NOT love each other up. The water’s sooooooooooooo nice in here.And please consider this: Every so-called “crisis” is an opportunity to deepen our practice of love. That’s why I suggest a reframe on all crises. I spent the first part of my adult life going for the peaks and climbing every mountain in front of me like a beast. But today at 51, that feels so simple and well…2003. I would argue that the deepest, darkest depths we swim to determine our true triumphs. And yes, most times we are pushed to those places. Like, I wouldn’t have chosen Cancer. I also wouldn’t have chosen divorce. But good lord, I’ve gotten way more out of these challenges than I ever did when I was a career mountaineer. Back then, the rewards were fairly straight forward: Money, cache, recognition, and of course, lots of “stuff.” The rewards of this inner journey? Are you ready? Not NEEDING all that shit. In other words: Sweet Freedom. And so while I’m no longer a journalist, I am a journey-ist…and the path? Still being written. Thanks for holding my hand on this particular journey. I hope you gather as much strength from my hand, as I do from yours.xo atoosa This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I’m going to do something a little differently this week. Instead of writing an essay and then reading it for the audio portion, I’m just going to talk and then transcribe what I say. It’s what I’m more comfortable with so let’s try it as an experiment. I’ve been thinking about friendships…intimate, close friendships. My first best girl friend was Katie Modica in 4th grade. (And btw - if anybody knows a Katie Modica who is around 51 and originally from Long Island, PLEASE put us in touch because she was really a very special person to me back in grade school.) I had a lot of obstacles to making friends back then because we moved to this country when I was in pre-school, I didn’t speak English and it took awhile to get fluent in the language. Plus, my family is not American so it wasn’t second nature for my family to set up playdates for me or for my mom to socialize with the other moms at school. And so I was on my own and it took until 4th grade for me to really resonate with someone like I did with Katie.On a parallel track, there was another obstacle to my having really close friendships. In my culture, and CERTAINLY within my family - but I do think it’s an Iranian thing, there’s a face you put on for the outer world and a face you have on the inside. So my mom could be screaming bloody murder at me and calling me names but the moment someone from the outside would come by BOOM, she’s the nicest person in the world. “Oh my gosh, your mom is the absolute nicest.” And yes. She was that person. But she was also that other. There was always this mask that you put on for social purposes that showed you’re kind and polite and put together and, you know, all of those wonderful things. (And I’m sure every culture and family have some version of that.) This mask was really internalized for me: I was always going out into the world as this “perfect” version of myself. And you can see how that can get in the way of real vulnerability because there are times when your head is in the proverbial toilet bowl and you’re suffering terribly. But if you’re always feeling the pressure to seem perfect you can’t be real or authentic with your friends. I’ve struggled with that for most of my life.But then when my “perfect” marriage fell apart, I started to explore what’s behind the myth of perfection for me. If I’m not in this perfect marriage, with this perfect family of 5, blahditty blah blah, who am I? So I began dismantling myself to really explore what’s behind the mask. Ironically, it happened during COVID so the mask takes on a different connotation as well. 🤪So during this time, I became very close with two friends. Our friendships predated Covid, but certainly after my separation the relationships deepened. After all, how deep can I be with my friends if I’m giving off the facade and impression that everything is perfect in my life and I have the perfect marriage when I hadn’t slept with him for years. There was a level of inauthenticity that, no matter how close I wanted to be with my friends, I could never achieve because I was living a lie - even to myself.So as the other stuff started to unravel, there were definitely new levels of intimacy that I explored, particularly with these two friends who are so, so dear to me. If you read or listened to last week’s Substack, you know that recently I got some bad health news. I happened to be with my best friend David when I got the phonecall from the radiologist and he was of enormous support to me that day. But as I started to learn the choreography of Cancer, because it has it’s own dance, I had to learn those steps and get light on my feet pretty quickly. He was right there dancing beside me.Then there came the moment when I had to start meeting with surgeons. And in the past, of course, I would have gone with my husband. Now I have an incredible significant other that I love so much…he is so supportive and loving, but for whatever reason I didn’t want to bring him into it. I wanted to go with David. But I felt like it was a big ask, for whatever reason. To me, it felt like a big ask. Probably because I’d never felt comfortable asking or taking. I’d always felt more comfortable giving. But I did. I asked. And David said yes. Oh but that first appointment! 🤦🏻‍♀️ There was a moment…now don’t ask me why, but I thought these meetings would be more professional and less medical with the surgeons looking at the film and talking to us about options. But no! I had to disrobe. Now David is a gay and happily married man so he doesn’t care about my boobs. But still! I’m sitting in front of him, he’s seeing my completely battered breast. And suddenly the surgeon exclaims, “Oh! You have a third nipple!” And yes, by the way reader, I DO have a third nipple. I’ve known this my whole life. I’ve kind of buried it because who wants to think about their third nipple? It’s not really obvious, it’s in the fold underneath my left breast but WHATEVER it was kind of mortifying for David to find out from this guy that I have a third nipple. The surgeon’s going on and on like, “I bet you always thought this was a mole! But it’s actually a third nipple!” I was thinking, “Thank you! Yes, I’ve always known it was a third nipple! Let’s move on! Can we stop talking about it now??” I’m dying laughing at the memory. These kind of messy, embarrassing moments in front of this man, who is my best friend, definitely took our friendship to the next level.When it was time for the next appointment, once again I felt bad asking David. But once again I gave myself the nudge and thank goodness he came so we were able to compare the doctors and we made an informed choice that we both felt really good about. It was life changing on many levels.Now I also have another best friend. I’m always holding a respectful boundary with her that definitely stems from my childhood. But in advance of my operation she said, I want to be there for you after the surgery, at least let me bring food. And I was very uncomfortable at the idea. I was thinking, Uhh….what if I look terrible? What if I smell terrible? What if I feel terrible. What if I don’t want to see anyone and I’m irritable? Will I have to pretend to be nice? I just didn’t know how I was going to feel afterward. My partner, Anthony, was going to be with me as well as one of my children. I was okay being a hot mess in front of them. But could I be a hot mess in front of this lovely, beautiful friend? I never had before. I’d always been a kind of put together mom at school (our children go to school together). But she is very important to me, so I met her invitation for deepening and said YES. I’m sure she felt my discomfort so she very generously left things in my hands and said that she could always have the food dropped off and not come over if I didn’t want to see anyone. But in the end, I did have her come over. I was on the couch and who KNOWS what I looked or smelled like. I know I FELT like I’d been run over by a truck. But she came and sat with us. It felt good to allow someone who I love so much see me in such a vulnerable state. I used to think that to take a friendship or relationship to the next level, you kind of have to do something good and BIG together. Like last year, David and I went to Egypt and it did deepen our relationship. But going through something kind of ugly and messy together has deepened the relationship in a much more profound way and it has allowed me to share a part of myself that people seldom get to see. And so, that’s it. I just wanted to talk about friendship and how we have these people in our lives who we can talk about television shows with or other people with 👀 or just enjoy a nice evening out with. But these are also people we can show our proverbial third nipple to and in doing so there’s an alchemy that happens, a richness that I feel really really makes life better. That creates this palpable sense of belonging. I feel really honored to have had this experience. And it’s part of what makes me feel so positive about this goofy health thing that’s happening in my life. Had this not happened, my relationship with these two people that were already my best friends wouldn’t have deepened the way that it has. So I continue to sit with gratitude and float in love. And that’s all she wrote, folks. Thank you you for listening to me. I love you guys. I’m feeling good. Tomorrow is Easter. I’m going to my boyfriend’s house…welll…his family’s house. It was funny when I was checking in at the hospital, he was my…I think they called it “supportive caregiver”…and the receptionist was like “Well, what’s your relationship?” And saying “boyfriend” at my age just feels so embarassing. So I simultaneously squeaked and cringed, “He’s my boyfriend?” And she was like, “Girl, we’re going to call him your life partner. I’m your officiant and from this moment on, I now pronounce you life partners.” And he is. I love him so much and I’m so excited to be sharing Easter with his family. Wishing you, dear reader, a Happy Easter, a Happy Passover and again, thanks for listening. I love you.xo, atoosa This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I have breast cancer. No burying the lede here, right?Listen, I’m not trying to be coy or clever. I just want you to know why you haven’t heard from me. Well…that’s not entirely true. I hadn’t written for a few weeks already before I got my diagnosis.So…perhaps we go back in time a bit. As I mentioned in a past letter, I’m finished being led by fear. It’s such a powerful and effective source of fuel that most people who’ve successfully figured out how to channel it don’t want to give it up. They may want to be more peaceful. Less stressed. But no one wants to acknowledge that their power source is the problem. And believe me, I understand why.It reminds me of the Billy Bragg lyric,“The TemptationTo take the precious thingswe have apart to see how they work.Must be resisted.For they never fitTogether again.”Who wants to stop being impressive? Who wants to stop being a winner in a society that defines winners as people who are productive and successful professionally?  I wouldn’t have had the courage to even explore these questions over the past 20 years if I hadn’t already let the fear program run wild so I could rest on my laurels.But fear is like fossil fuels. We can ignore what’s happening to the environment because we’re set in our ways and like the cars we like. We can reduce the climate crisis to something we can tune out like Charlie Brown’s teacher in the Peanuts cartoons. Or something that will work itself out without our concern.It’s the same for stress and fear. Most people think one day they will not have stress. Or one day they will stop hustling…striving…once they achieve fill-in-the-blank. And how many of you have a physical condition that lists stress as a possible cause…and you gloss over that one and look to the other “real” causes.We KNOW what is best for us. We KNOW what is destroying our peace of mind. But it’s usually the one thing we’re not willing to acknowledge, much the less change.I kind of had that relationship with fear. My fear made me a beast. My fear made me the most organized mom who had all the answers…the one who was the President of the PA. My fear fueled incredible productivity and success from myself and my teams at the magazines. My fear made me the youngest Editor-in-Chief in the blah blah blah and earned me many other awards I won’t bore you with. Everything “good” in my life came from this fear. But none of said good things actually felt good for more than a few moments. Isn’t that crazy? It was all just good on paper.And that’s it. That’s why I haven’t written. I noticed that I was really stressed before writing every week. I am, honestly, more of a talker less of a writer. But even that is beside the point. I was writing because I felt I “had” to. I was writing because I was afraid of not hitting send on a column at 7pm every Sunday evening. I was writing because I was afraid that if I didn’t I would disappear…cease to be relevant. Cease to be…worthy.So I took a week off. Then another. And another.Then I went for my yearly mammogram. Except I hadn’t had a yearly mammogram since 2018 and then a few days and biopsies later got a call that I had cancer.Honestly? It’s been as great as it can be. I couldn’t have scripted it better. I was with my best friend David when I got the call. My friends and partner are literally the finest, most supportive and loving people I could possibly have in my life. I’m in great medical hands with a surgeon who also operated on several people who are dear to me (and she accepts my insurance!). You see what I’m saying? I got wind beneath my wings. And that’s my point here.When you hear the C word, it’s so easy to be led by fear, right? But…I don’t feel afraid. Sure, I have a great prognosis, great healthcare and support system. But we know people with all the money in the world and a backache who will perseverate and drown in fear, right? But I am, instead, swimming in love.I am writing to you, when I felt ready. Your patience with me allowed me to work through my automatic fear reflex that’s been driving me my whole life…to breathe through it. I’ve always felt your good will and I’ll say it…love. I feel carried by love. By the love of my partner, my friends, my family and you, dear reader.This is likely the last time I’ll write about this diagnosis. Mostly because I don’t want to identify with it. Or rather allow it to identify me. I’m just traveling through this town as I have so many others, but I did want to send you a post card. Let’s see if this world view is entitled or a powerful manifestation. TBD.Heading over to surgery now at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – one of the best hospitals of its kind in the world. So much to be grateful for…including this cancer that’s given me some real stakes to practice with. Humbled. I choose love…a slower but more peaceful fuel source that feels way better for my environment.See you on the other side. 🦅xo, atoosaPS - please forgive any misspellings, I’m literally running out to the door to the hospital. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

The purpose of this letter is to share my experiences in case you relate. I’m not a doctor or a therapist…but I would TOTALLY play one on TV if you ask nicely. 🤩I had a really hard week.And…cut. 🎬How do you feel when I tell you I’ve had a hard week. Notice if you have a resistance to this. If you know me personally, you may gloss over the rest of this letter and just rush to send me an omg-are-you-okay note. Or you may even be thinking with an eye roll, “Here we go again….” Noticing my own feelings when someone shares theirs (particularly when they are experiencing difficult feelings) has been a very interesting practice. Spoiler alert: We get verrrrrrrrry uncomfortable when someone else is uncomfortable and we immediately want to wish it away for our friend or disapparate 🧙🏼‍♀️ourselves. When I say it’s been hard for me, I don’t mean I’m sad and I want to be happy.Newsflash: I am happy.Here’s what I do mean: I’ve been processing difficult feelings.We’re living in a society that encourages us to project that everything is GREAT! (Hey, Instagram! 👋🏼) Or that we have the right answer or opinion at the ready! (I see you, Twitter! 👀) We lurve to project that we are #livingourbestlives and #influencers. Insert cocktail cheersing boomerang. 🥂And I assure you. I am living my best life. But sometimes…I’m not. Sometimes I feel like shit. Don’t you? I don’t want to gloss over these moments for fear of disturbing someone’s perception of me or themselves.I’d like to normalize processing hard feelings. Otherwise, we are inadvertently normalizing burying them. It’s like not allowing the emotional body to take a shit. 💩 The emotional waste has got to come out of our systems. Absent that, we have even more problematic strategies of emotional waste management like drinking, smoking weed (I know, weed lovers, I know 😘), shopping, overeating and perhaps even physical manifestations like auto-immune diseases or even cancer.So let’s start this over again.Last week was hard.There’s no worthwhile storyline to explain exactly why it was so hard. I mean…one of my kids got Covid and her sickness required the cancellation of some plans…the kind of important plans made months in advance that involve many other people. But again, I don’t think it was really about these particular circumstances. Afterall, I’m a mother of three. Children get sick. Plans fall apart. This is all par for the course. She is generally healthy, we have solid health care. All in all, this was just a bump in the road. But perhaps because I’ve been reevaluating my relationship to power and control over the past few weeks, instead of frantically trying to salvage this plan or that one – I just let it all fall apart. I surrendered to the situation instead of trying to control it.When a set plan goes sideways, do you ever feel that sensation come over your body that is directing every single cell to go into Defcon 1 mode? 🆘 Shit happens and my body just snaps into Fight (I’m not a flight-er).I’m very familiar with this strong urge to exert force. This was the energy of Atoosa from CosmoGIRL! The girl who didn’t give a shit how late we had to work and pushed everyone (including myself) all night if necessary to make sure everything in the magazine was exactly as I wanted it. The girl who called everyone September 12, 2001 to say I expected them back in the office next morning because we had an issue that was going to press. Yes, our city (and our country) had just suffered a catastrophe that left us numb, terrified and unable to function. But that wasn’t going to stop our issue from making it to the press in time. That form of power can only be called force and I know exactly what it feels like in my body. But when it started up this time, I didn’t serve my master. Instead, I observed it. And once the opportunity and urge to control passed, there was something surprising hiding behind it. It felt like a lifetime’s worth of disappointment piled on top of one another. Disappointments I had You-got-this-girl-ed myself into burying. Have you ever had this type of emotional 12-car-pile-up?Yeah.It was heavy.In fact, I was on a walk with my bestie David right after I found out my daughter had Covid (She’s a teen and went back to bed after her test was positive). At the end of our walk, he said something like, “I’m noticing that your energy has shifted very dramatically since we started.” And he was totally right. When we first met up, I was in my typical you-got-this-girl default mindset. This is a strategy that really works for me. When shit goes sideways like Covid or fill-in-the-blank-because-having-kids-means-something-is-always-going-sideways, being a positive person is helpful. But as I leaned into the steadfast support of my beloved friend, and my strategies were not as necessary, my true emotional backpack got heavier and heavier. And by the way, that’s why having a solid support system is so important. We all have strategies against feeling totally overwhelmed by what life throws at us because we have to be able to function. But always being in strategy mode doesn’t allow us to fully process our feelings. Anyway, by the end of the walk, I was essentially mute because of the back log of disappointment and pain this incident was kicking up. I pithily acknowledged to David that I was in a bad place and that I was going to lie in this bad place.And I did. I did.It. Felt. Awful.I put aside the narrative and dropped into the bodily sensations. It was no longer about any plans that were cancelled or people who were sick or my efficacy as a parent or a human. It was just head to toe horrible sensation. No words for it, honestly.In some ways not speaking about it and just feeling it, is what seemed to invite the energy of every disappointment I’ve ever experienced to come flooding in because the extent of how I felt was not at all commensurate with, “My kid got Covid and we had to cancel some plans.” It was bigger. It was actually debilitating when I let it flow through me, which I intentionally did during the day when my other kids were at school. I rested through it as my sick child did the same with her virus. I allowed the yuck to extend as long as it needed to, but not past about 3pm when I have to do my first school pick up every day. When that time arrived, I was with the kids, made dinner, and I was actually able to enjoy that time because I gave so much time to intentionally doing the processing work. During the days I rested and treated my convalescence with gravitas and respect. And I felt like complete shit until eventually…I didn’t. It took about three days… Interestingly, my symptoms were in synch with the worst of my daughter’s COVID symptoms. And no, I did not have COVID.And you know what I realized? I was familiar with this feeling. Back when I was working at the magazines, I had two bouts of depression. Once when I was a Fashion Assistant at Cosmo and the second time when I was transitioning from CosmoGIRL! to Seventeen. Both times I felt so horrible, I could barely get out of bed. And it took me weeks before I even realized what was happening and got help. Then I used an SSRI (Paxil) that almost immediately erased the feeling and got me up and functional again.The bodily sensations I experienced last week were very similar if not exactly the same as the depression of my younger years, but it came in and out like a virus as opposed to a chronic illness. I think (I don’t know – I think!) it’s because of these two factors:*This is not intended as advice. Merely an observation of my own experiences over the years.1-    I embraced the debilitation instead of pushing myself to work and function at a normal level. The ability to do this is a privilege, but it’s still interesting to note. Leaning into what was hard worked better than pushing it away or trying to push through it. I don’t think difficult feelings are unique to me or someone who specifically has clinical depression (which I do not have). I believe we all have old, hard feelings that come up for processing. I think we all also have many different (and seamless) strategies to ameliorate or push those feelings away. My experiment involved stripping away my strategies. But I wouldn’t have been able to do that safely if it weren’t for my next point.2-    I am very resourced (meaning solid friends and a solid commitment to self-care). Back then, I didn’t have friends I could be vulnerable with and self-care meant keeping up with my bikini wax and making time on the weekends to bang out more work. Today, I intentionally create safe spaces for my feelings. Whether it’s my therapist, my energy healer (yeah, I know what that sounds like but energy healing and medicine really works!), the weighted blanket in my office, a meditation or chanting practice, the lavender oil in my bedside drawer, my medicine cabinet full of flower essences, the notebooks I keep in every room in case I need to explore how I’m feeling or the Theragun mini I use on my face, head, neck or any part of me that needs vibration, touch and presence. I take care of myself. I’m no longer a latchkey kid eating bowl after bowl of Lucky Charms to soothe the feelings I don’t know how else to cope with.Listen, I realize having a therapist, healer and all the wacky accoutrements in my proverbial self-care backpack make me sound like a tone-deaf entitled douchebag. But listen, instead of having my eyebrows laminated, getting a new cute top every other day or going out for drinks left and right, this is what I spend my money on: Taking care of myself deeply instead of distracting myself from my feelings. I know not everyone can take a few days off from work to let feelings process. Most people can’t. But instead of making back-to-back brunch and dinner plans after a rough week, if you’re well supported, this may be the weekend plan you never knew you needed: Wallowing in the last place you want to wallow and just letting the hard feelings run their course as you would a virus. Perhaps there’s some emotional immunity for you on the back end.Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I am not an influencer. I am not a doctor. I don’t have the answers, but gosh I love exploring the questions…even when it drags me through dog shit like last week. In retrospect, I think that shit was fertilizer because I came out with some real clarity.xo, atoosaPS - Sweet Darkness by David Whyte is an incredible poem for these moments. 🖤A Podcast I Think You Will Enjoy ❤️:These are My Current Flower Remedies 🤍: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I had an experience the other night that felt psychedelic…except it wasn’t. But it was…even though it wasn’t. Let me explain.I was out to dinner with some lovely folks. Smart, gorgeous, successful, the typical kind of 212s you may expect me to be out to dinner with. 212 being the shorthand for people who live in Manhattan, the 212-area code. They’re about my age, C-suite, enviable academic and career pedigrees, blah blah blah. You get the drift.And then there came this one moment when I asked the wife about what she liked to do on the weekends. This is where it got psychedelic for me. I can’t tell you precisely what she was saying because it became a true out-of-body experience. She kind of laughed and said she worked and proceeded to paint the picture of her singular focus. She wasn’t describing it as a drag. It wasn’t served inside an I-need-to-find-more-balance context. It was pure unadulterated Generation X hustle. My energetic experience of this conversation was almost like watching a cannibal who is in rapture ripping their prey apart limb from limb with blood dripping off their lips. Did you see the recent Luca Guadagnino movie, Bones and All? Yeah. That’s what I mean by it feeling psychedelic. I looked around the table wondering if they were experiencing what I was experiencing. But the others were politely smiling and nodding their heads.This was my trip and my trip alone.Perhaps it speaks to how I have intentionally avoided hustle culture. After all, I gave a TEDx talk about how I had to leave it all to find my own brand of peace. But coming face to face with it after so many years of rehabilitating out of it…I have to say…felt like a true horror movie to me.And yet, I am saying this without judgment…but rather curiosity.In fact, as a result of my intense feelings at the dinner, I’ve really sat with my choice to step away from the hustle even more closely.Did I make the right choice?Who is to say my relaxed low-key life is better?There were so many aspects of my power life that I enjoyed.The other day I was reading about that tech guy who spends 2 million dollars a year and 24 hours a day biohacking so that his organs revert to where they were when he was a teenager. I was literally eating a Korean corn dog treat (Mozzarella) while I read about his 1900-ish calorie a day plant-based diet and the sleep machine he’s hooked up to each night thinking, “Man…it must suck to be him.” But does it? Or does it suck to be me? Watching the world and its daily progress and innovations from my namaste lily pad? Does happiness come from peace or from impacting the world? As a person with pretty high-level skills and talents, am I doing myself a service just by learning how to live a peaceful life? While Tech Bro works 24/7 to biohack his organs, I work 24/7 to hack my mind. To be able to sit with what’s hard and find bliss in it all. My ex-husband feels this is a complete waste of my time, talent and earning potential. I can understand that point of view.  The truth is, I got a lot of satisfaction out of doing my part to help young women. But the way I operated was problematic for me. My power source was fear and aggression.How can I step into my power without being power hungry. Without taking power away from another? Without exercising said power blindly. The general outside perspective of my career is of the smiling, waving big sister to teenagers all over America. And yes, I was that girl. But behind the scenes I was very tough. As I made my way up the ranks at Cosmopolitan where I started as an assistant, the more cutthroat the environment became, the more cutthroat I became.Like, at one point there was a new Editor-in-Chief and Fashion Director, both whom I admired and respected. I got promoted to Fashion Editor and they brought a more experienced Senior Fashion Editor to the team from another magazine. I didn’t like this girl. She was kind of notoriously mean and didn’t spare me that treatment. It was all very Devil Wears Prada and tbh, I’d never been treated like that at work. I very naturally and unconsciously strategized to get rid of her with behind the scenes scheming and maneuvering. In fact, I hand-picked (from another magazine) the person I wanted to take her place and within less than a year despite being junior to this position in the department, I had executed this shift. Meanie was out. Nice-y was in. Except…ultimately, I didn’t love working with Nice-y either. She had a lot of opinions that were different than mine. She was super professional and kind but well…I wanted to do things differently. Time for more maneuvering. Within the year, Nice-y was out and I was the new Senior Fashion Editor. In both cases, I remember the girls each looking at me like tou-fucking-ché when all was said and done. My point is, I was a blood thirsty hustle culture vampire myself. Not proud. Just honest. It was very easy for me to do and yet…it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel good being Machiavellian. It didn’t feel good to win that way. There was a constant energy of unease. It’s surreal to have everything you’ve ever wanted and feel paranoid and scared all the time.I’ve loved the process of changing my wiring.I’ve attacked it like I attacked my ascent in the media industry. I went from waking up at 4am to catch up on emails and hit the gym before showing up at the office at 7 to becoming someone who sees a nap as a necessary part of self-care…without shame. That’s the key part. Self-care without shame.I’ve loved learning how to see people. I mean really see them as opposed to play them like human chess for the win. I used to have sooooo many “friends.” But really they were all key high-level people at companies I did business with. Today, my friends serve only my inner life…and I, theirs. Ānanda, the Buddha’s cousin and closest disciple once asked the Buddha, “Is it true, Lord, that noble friends are half of the holy life?” The Buddha responded, “No, Ānanda, noble friends are the whole of the holy life.” And my friends are not just my nearest and dearest, with whom I spend hours a week in discourse. My friends are all those with whom I journey…each of you in some way impacting my path because of our sharing, and I hope, in some way, I, yours. Thank you, dear reader, for being such an important part of my holy life.I have loved, through meditation, developing the ability to let my body and mind get as relaxed as my friend’s fluffy, fat cat, Auggie, basking in the sun.My nervous system has been entirely hacked.And yet…Just sitting around being peaceful and happy is getting…I don’t know…boring. I see yet another reason I was always choosing “complicated” guys. I was fucking bored. Now that I’m here, just being peaceful is not enough at this stage in my life. There is something within me that yearns to be more active in the world. I don’t need to be a Girlboss meme or any other caricature of hustle culture…but I am seeking something.Like for the past few years I’ve felt like there are two tall cliffs about a foot apart from one another. I have one foot on each. One side representing the hustle culture I was so good at. The other, the Buddhist-influenced meditation lifestyle that has completely rewired my nervous system and how I show up in the world. I haven’t been totally able to let go of hustle culture, although I’ve gone cold turkey in terms of my participation. My hustle culture self is dead as a doornail, and yet, like a zombie, my cold dead hands are holding on tight to this old identity of “Atoosa, famous teen magazine editor.” Because who will I be without that identity? Is that why I want to be of service to the world? To have an enviable identity? To bring value to the world to have value?By holding so tightly onto the past, am I stopping the blood flow that will fuel my future? I’m not Atoosa from Seventeen anymore. I have so much respect for that girl. She was abused for much of her childhood and yet she stayed on the straight and narrow. She took care of herself, and her family financially. She was a philanthropist from the minute she had an extra dollar. Although she was a bully, she bullied people on behalf of saving girls like her who didn’t have another advocate.But…I am not Atoosa from Seventeen anymore.I have no fucking idea what my next thing will be.I know I am helpful.I am kind.I’m intense.In fact, when I’m passionate, I’m a beast.I love to be on the front lines.But I am introvert.I hate group texts.And small talk.My river runs deep.I have two best friends.They know everything.Except…what’s next for me.Even I don’t know that.And so, as I watch friends from today and yesterday write books, launch businesses, make declarative statements about who they are and where they are going. I bow with humility and remember I am rewiring my power source. My power source no longer comes from force or fear. I guess I’m going the way the world is going. Instead of tapping into trauma, I’m tapping into…a renewal source. I guess we can call it my own solar power. Tapping into my light. My knowing. My heart. I’m in the development phase though. I don’t quite know how to do this. But I also don’t know how to do THAT anymore either as evidenced by my nearly having a seizure as I felt my friend’s super intense hustle energy. A voice in my head says, Ugh you’re such a pussy. But then immediately another voice chimes in. Yes! I am! Pussy Power!So tonight, I leave you with that. No answers. Only questions. And curiosity about…Pussy Power. Hey, it’s good for the climate…the emotional climate.xo, atoosaAtoosa Unedited is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.What I was listening to today: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I once had a boss when I was in my early 20s who said whenever she was really happy, she’d gain weight.I have the opposite experience.But there is one complication.You will never actually hear me say that I am NOT happy.In the depths of the hardest times of the hardest times, I will be crawling on the metaphorical floor, gutted and left for dead and if you bring your ear close to my mouth you will hear me whisper either a gratitude for the lesson or the silver lining in the whole situation.For better or worse, this is my personality.This is how I’ve survived some of the things I have survived. I have full faith in God and God’s plan (After all, you may remember I brought a “Faith” section to Seventeen which was kind of unheard of at the time. And yes, that is a link from the Alabama Baptist. Not sure they’d ever written a positive piece of news about a teen magazine before that. 😅)Bestie David always reminds me that the difficulties of my childhood have lead to this militant focus on the silver lining and the hard earned higher threshold for pain and discomfort. In other words, I will remain in a bad situation long after others would have abandoned ship.My body, however, never lies.I gained 60 pounds in the final years of my marriage.I didn’t seem miserable. I was smiling and actively involved in our schools and community. I showed up strong for my children and made all sorts of fun plans and trips for myself and my husband. (The other parents at school thought of me as the fun concierge!) But my weight just kept creeping higher and higher. Having been a thin person for all my life, I kind of looked at this weight gain with interest and curiosity….and optimism.Always optimism.My sizes seem to change all the time? Well, at least I can afford to buy bigger clothes!“My mommy is the squishiest!” I mean…come on…what’s better than a squishy mommy?!You get the mindset.On the plus side (there I go again, and a pun, too! 🤭), I wasn’t hard on myself, so my self-esteem didn’t take a hit. On the downside, my blood work wasn’t going in the right direction and there’s no silver lining to that.There was also another element to this.Intuitively, I knew it had something to do with my husband. I’d tried to bring it up with him, but you know how that conversation went…and for good reason. “Don’t blame me for your stuff,” he’d say. And I understand that response. But I couldn’t help what I felt even though I didn’t understand it. Oh, and worth noting: I would literally never bust up my family. I. Would. Never. Bust. Up. My. Family. We were “The A-Team” forever and I was their chubby matriarch. Period, end of story.Except that isn’t the end of the story.When I say my self-esteem didn’t take a hit, don’t get me wrong. I certainly noticed when people noticed my weight gain. No one ever outwardly said anything, but come on… I can read a room. I’d see people from my past and it was right there on their faces. I had a quick line in my pocket that was meant to make them feel okay about this change in me…to be able to make peace with this now Mumu-wearing version of the tall, skinny person they once knew.“Hey,” I would joke. “At least, I didn’t waste one moment of being hot. I showed that body every chance I got when I had it.” And I would belly laugh like a wizened elder who didn’t need that external affirmation anymore. And what I was saying was true. I dressed provocatively from my teen years all throughout my career. I was never ashamed of or hid my body. (Even in moments, I probably should have like my father’s funeral.) But I couldn’t ignore the voice in the back of my head that was saying, “You feel like you’re wearing a costume. Something about this just isn’t right.” But again, another voice would come in and say that I needed to love myself and my body whatever it looked like: Not every body is intended to be thin. Not everyone is going to look 25 forever.I poured myself ample cups of self-love and acceptance Kool-Aid.Part of that process was an inner exploration to better understand these two seemingly contradictory voices inside of my head: 1-Something about your weight feels off. 2-Accept yourself no matter what you look like.Perhaps the most powerful thing I did was writing to my inner child. On the advice of a medical intuitive, every day I would spend a certain amount of time doing this writing exercise: With my dominant hand (I’m a righty), I would ask my inner child questions and with my left hand, I would write her responses. The idea seemed ridiculous when I first heard it. Like what benefit could come from the same person asking and answering the question? But as soon as I started, I witnessed how my non-dominant hand was able to access a whole other part of my psyche. And it wasn’t just a tool for better self-awareness. I used the writing to give my inner child love and support: That feeling of I’m here with you…You’re not alone…I’ve got you. So many of those messages (and I have notebooks and notebooks full of this type of writing) were just words of affirmation to my inner child. Words of affirmation my parents didn’t have the bandwidth to give me when I was younger and really needed emotional support. Perhaps if I’d had acknowledgement of what was hard, I wouldn’t have needed this strategy of creating a narrative that always shifts my attention to the bright side. Perhaps a feeling of unconditional and unwavering support during a hard time would have lead to the ability to shift out of a situation that doesn’t serve me instead of just feeling trapped in it and anesthetizing myself with food and positive vibes.Gear shift.I hadn’t had sex with my husband for years.I am a very sexual being. I mean…we all are, I’m sure. But I’m just going to speak for myself. I am a very sexual being. For reasons unimportant here, I never had that connection with my husband. We were amazing partners in other ways, but the chemical vibe wasn’t there, and I assumed I’d go my whole life not having sex. Afterall, in most ways we had the perfect family. I didn’t want to bust up the fairy tale. Yet my commitment to authenticity prevented me from what a lot of wives do: Sex night…that age old eye roll in the hay that they see as part of their marital obligation. Part of my commitment to myself simply prevented me from doing that. I would do absolutely everything else. I cooked, I made plans, many thoughtful gestures. But not that.Ultimately, that is what we both needed.But of course, my pathway to self-discovery is never intellectual. I had to go on a whole journey. 🙄My inner child practices lead me to start a memoir. I wrote 100 pages. I especially wanted to write about everything I had tried to bury. The affairs, the men I’d loved so deeply when I was younger. I basically wrote 100 pages of the innermost secrets of my younger years. Most of which my husband already knew. But some of which…he did not. I then gave him those 100 pages to read and comment on. He read it all in one day, at the end of which he said, “You were never my girl, were you?” I won’t speculate about how he felt or what he meant. I know how deeply I loved him for the quarter of a century we were together. And I know how much I love him even today. I have two beloved brothers in this life. One that was born of my parents and this man who I walked most of my life next to.I firmly believe that we do the best we can at every moment. But I cringe when I think of giving him that stack of papers to read and give me comments on as he did for all those years I was an Editor-in-Chief. He was always my most important read on the magazine. As someone who didn’t know much about teen girl issues, his comments were unique and important to me. But I recognize, in retrospect, I indirectly gave him a 100-page break up letter because I was too much of a coward to blow up our “perfect” family. Instead, I lobbed this grenade at him and made him throw it to save his own life.I lost 60 pounds with ease within less than a year after he read that manuscript.Oh, and we also got separated.Since then, I’ve noticed when something is off about my relationship (I’ve enjoyed a few beautiful and meaningful relationships since my separation), my weight starts to change. I don’t let it go years anymore because I now know this is my barometer and rather than focusing on a number on the scale, I need to drop in to see how I’m feeling. I still have that scared girl inside me and she doesn’t like to make waves, so I check on her when I start to see her SOS signals.But sometimes, like my old boss, I DO gain weight when I’m happy. Like I just turned 51 this past weekend. I had my no-sweet-better-on-earth Varsano’s chocolate covered caramel pretzel rods for breakfast one morning and my favorite ice cream cake and napoleon another (You know a bakery is good when they don’t need a website 😳). Last night after seeing Jerry Seinfeld perform, I had my favorite late night college meal of grilled cheese on rye with mozzarella fries at a diner and on Friday, my actual birthday (January 20), I was day-drinking Raspberry-Lychee Bellinis with my besties and free-basing truffle pizza and fries at The Mark, where we spend our birthday lunches every year. I suspect the scale will have shifted after this weekend. But guess what? I won’t be checking. I had a blast this weekend. No regrets. After all, life is a long journey. A little off-roading never hurt anyone.Have a good week, my beloved friend. Thank you for off-roading with me.xo atoosaAtoosa Unedited is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Soundtrack of my 🤍🖤❤️: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com

I understand about New Year’s resolutions. Meaning, I get the appeal. I used to write really neatly every September and promise myself that this year…THIS year I would finally be the buttoned-up student I knew was hidden somewhere deep inside of me. But by October, without fail, I could only open my locker an inch to grab one book at a time or else I’d have an avalanche. Nah. New Year’s resolutions have never been anything more than a message from my internal patriarchy that I would, inevitably, rebel against. Useless.I do something else.I have an intention.But it’s not an intention to be someone different or to even a better version of myself.It’s an intention to explore a path. To see what’s on the other side of something I’m struggling with.Like last year, I really wanted to explore the love thing. As you know (in excruciating detail…sorry!) I had a habit of falling in love with men that were broken. I didn’t see them as broken. I saw them as totally sexy and interesting. But then I’d get cut with their jagged pieces and be looking at my friends like, “How did this happen??” 2022 was about figuring out WTF was happening once and for all. I went on many intentional journeys inside and outside myself with various therapists, healers and men (and for a spell, no men at all) to better understand my wiring. And for the first time in my life, I’m in a relationship with a healthy person. I’ll write more about that shift in the weeks to come, but today I want to write about what I’m exploring this year.This may come as a surprise to you.(Or if you really know me, maybe not.)I was a bully.And sometimes, I still am a bully.I’d written ad nauseum at CosmoGIRL! and Seventeen about how inadequate I felt as a teenager. It was something we had in common, right? Something all people feel at one time or another. But I don’t think I ever told you that I was also a bully. Sensing another girl’s vulnerability really jammed me up. Today, as an adult, I realize that it was because I needed to keep my own vulnerabilities buried. Or at least that’s how I felt. I didn’t really have grownups in my life with bandwidth for what I was going through, so my young mind decided my shit had to be buried and I needed to be tough. It felt like a matter of survival.In grade school, I targeted more vulnerable girls doing goofy, but still hurtful acts like putting a spider down their shirt. In high school and college, I would gossip or turn my friends against whoever I was choosing to target. I also seemed to always have one girl in my friend group on my radar and ever so gently kept my metaphorical foot on their throat by gossiping about or excluding them. It sickens me to think about it and embarrasses me to admit it. I have compassion for and forgive the traumatized girl I was. And I have so much compassion, love and respect for the girls I hurt with my unconsciousness.Fast forward to my career. Being a bully in the media industry was a positive attribute, so there was certainly no pressure to be introspective about this part of my character. I was a thug amongst thugs. I broke phones when I was angry, blacklisted people I felt slighted by, used the media to my advantage. As I worked my way up the ladder, I frequently maneuvered to get people I didn’t like fired and yet always managed to have a very “nice guy” reputation. I know. It’s upsetting to me, too. That was the way the game was played, and I was a natural at playing it. And if you were looking for proof that bullies are cowards underneath it all: As an Editor-in-Chief, I didn’t like firing people so I would turn the heat way up under someone’s ass when I was done with them so they would quit on their own. Anyway, you know the cliches, you’ve seen the movies. I was a bad bitch, and I was rewarded for it.And yes, I bullied my husband.We’ve all had friends married to a woman like me.I was that woman.I remember at one point in our relationship, I went on an SSRI. I was feeling super anxious: I was transitioning from CosmoGIRL! to Seventeen, had just gotten back together with him after a separation, we were moving, and in general I treated him like an emotional punching bag. I knew it wasn’t right and I wanted to fix it. The Paxil worked like magic…but just as things started settling down, he begged me to get off of it. He didn’t like the milder, gentler me. He said I wasn’t myself anymore. He’d rather have the “real” me instead of this new agreeable, sweetie-pie.That was always interesting to me. You know what they say: It takes two to tango. He was actively choosing the bully and hell; it was a role I was born to play. When he and I finally decided to separate, it felt like a director had yelled, “Cut!” and we both dropped the scripts we’d been play acting for the past quarter of a century. Leaving my marriage felt like an important step in my ability to explore who I was beneath that role.But here’s when I realized I still have a whiff of the bully blueprint.Like you, I see a lot of girls I went to high school and college with on social media. But there is one particular girl who follows me on IG and frequently makes lovely comments. But I simply wouldn’t follow her back. My friend Stephen uses the word, “thirsty.” I’m sure you know what he means. Too eager, too desperate. This girl was always a nice girl yet she has and had an intense need to be liked that clearly triggered my own similar feelings. Here I was at 50 years old, not following her back. That felt just bitchy. Clearly there’s something in me that’s also “thirsty” and I’ll be sitting with that in the coming weeks and months. And yes, of course, once I realized I was intentionally not following her, I immediately followed her back.Admitting this stuff is so “cringe” as my 14-year-old would say.But there you have it. My intention for the year…my 2023 exploration. I suspect there will be many amends to be made. And many questions to consider: Why was I a bully? In what ways am I still one? What are the super tender feelings that the bullying part of me is protecting? Being that big-time Editor-in-Chief clearly kept those vulnerable feelings at bay. But today? I’ve got no big time anything to hang my hat on or to give me an externalized feeling of worthiness. Let’s see what’s under my well-honed strategy to manipulate and control people. I don’t need to be a bad bitch anymore. Or at least, I’d like to use my power intentionally and wisely and not out of fear and insecurity.Oh, and when a friend or partner tells you something hard to hear about yourself when you’re fighting and/or break up? Honestly? They’re probably right to some extent. You may not be ready to hear it in the moment and for sure, it’s likely not as black and white as they may be making it. But hold it in your pocket and take it out for examination every so often. That’s how I got to this bully piece. I’ve been called a bully before, but I wasn’t ready to hear it. My sense of safety was too tenuous. I would hide behind all the good things I’ve done to protect myself and I had no shortage of friends who would join me in scoffing at the notion that I was anything other than a good guy in any given narrative. But I feel safe enough now and I can hold it all with compassion and love all around. Looking forward to seeing where this path leads me but for now? I’m just sitting with some healthy shame. And that’s okay. It’s all part of the process. To be continued, to be continued.Let me know if there’s something someone’s said about you that just may be true…xo atoosaSoundtrack of my 🤍🖤❤️: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit atoosa.substack.com