What Is My Woo?

Crystals are just cool rocks, but I DO love cool rocks!

Alex, Marah, me, and our moons, in Knoxville.

Last year, my mom and I inexplicably got into Brené Brown. I think she started it – when browsing on Netflix, one of Brené’s specials came up, and when she mentioned it to me, I watched it in bed one night. My years in stand-up have left me skeptical of anyone who gets onstage with a microphone and nothing else. But Brené, for whatever reason, didn’t activate my fight-or-fight-even-harder response. I liked her! She seemed happy. Even when she was talking about her own failings or experiences of tragedy, Brené seemed optimistic and grateful in a way that resonated with me.

So, I picked up her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, and harangued two of my fellow perfectionist friends into reading it with me¹, book club style. Only a few chapters in, I found myself balking at Brené’s advice. It wasn’t the 10 tenets of “Wholehearted Living” I took umbrage with, or the complicated indexing system Brené recommended for notes (in fact, I quite liked that part). Early on, Brené explains that to stop the “cycle of shame,” you have to be vulnerable, and in order to be vulnerable, you have to tell people what you want.

And to me, that is just begging for a jinx.

I didn’t learn the rules of jinxes from anywhere. They just sort of came to exist in my mind. If you want something real bad, don’t mention it to anyone ahead of time. You’ll jinx it. If you start a new project, don’t talk about it until it’s done, or you’ll never finish, because you jinxed it. Never breathe a sigh of relief during a baseball game, a football game, or any event involving Kansas City sports franchises. Also, don’t leave during the last few minutes of a game if you’re losing; the team will win (good!) but you will miss it (jinxed).