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Posts by Kaylia Dunstan

Kaylia Dunstan is the creator of The Word Room, a place of freedom and fancy, healing and wholeness, and desire and dance. She loves expression liberated and beautiful being. Kaylia has been a commercial writer for many years. Meet up with Kaylia in The Word Room and on Facebook. There’s a cup of lemongrass tea waiting.

Kaylia Dunstan's Website

Shedding Layers of Pain and Learning to Love Our Bodies

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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection.” ~Buddha

I cried when I watched the YouTube clip of Amy Pence-Brown standing in a bikini in a crowded marketplace in Idaho.

In the clip Amy asks people to write on her body. Her arms are wide open, she has a blindfold on, she has curves and cellulite, and she is completely vulnerable.

Why did she do it? Because she wanted to say: Here’s my body, complete and real. You can choose to accept me or reject me, but here’s my body. I want to …

6 Reasons Why We Can’t Give Up

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“The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on so long.” ~Unknown

I was a serial “giver upper” for so much of my youth.

I tried gymnastics when I was about six until I discovered the teacher smoked. I’m not sure why I had an aversion to smoking at the time, but I can remember frowning and stamping my foot a lot about it.

I tried tap and ballet until I realized that the teacher was some kind of Roald Dahl headmistress. She would thump around the classroom scaring the crap out of us, …

Most of the Things We Fear Are Highly Unlikely to Happen

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“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” ~Dorothy Thompson

Australia is full of biting, pecking, threatening animals.

Swarms of mosquitos puncture our skin every summer, flies are everywhere, we’ve got spiders bigger than my hand, our magpie birds swoop and peck at our heads during spring, and don’t get me started on the sharks and crocodiles and those mighty big bites.

I am most scared of the snakes. Australia has twenty of the top twenty-five most venomous species of snakes in the world. We have a hundred and forty species of land snakes and thirty-two …

Why We Might Feel Lonely and What to Do About It

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“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” ~Dorothy Day

Throughout my life it’s been really hard to admit when I’ve felt lonely.

I’ve been through intense periods where I have been without others.

I’ve been surrounded by people yet have felt no real connections.

The people I have loved have been physically or emotionally absent.

I’ve simply been alone over weekends, over weeks, over months, over years, and it has been grueling and horrible.

I found I had to monitor how much I shared …

When the People We Love No Longer Exist

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“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” ~Steve Jobs

A week ago a woman I loved died. She was a member of my family and had been dying for a while from bone cancer, so her death did not come as a surprise.

I was traveling when I got the email, and I sat in Abu Dhabi airport surrounded by the banging and steps of people and grieved.

Yes, I knew her death was imminent, but at a deeper level I found the news …