1. Curvy Yoga: Love Yourself & Your Body a Little More Each Day. Both yoga and body acceptance have made such a big difference in my own life. So I couldn’t be more excited that my friend Anna Guest-Jelley has a book coming out on just this topic! Join me in pre-ordering Curvy Yoga: Love Yourself & Your Body a Little More Each Day (and get some great pre-order bonuses while you’re at it)!

2. 43 Things I’ve Learned in 43 Years, a list from Meg Worden. I don’t agree with every item on this list, (for example: “16. Indian food is better than all other food.” I like Indian food too, but “better than all other food”?) but there are some really good things here — like, “Sociopathy and narcissism are the real zombie apocalypse. Skills to deal with/avoid these personality disorders are paramount to survival in the modern world.” Word.

3. The Key Is Always Hope from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

The thing we think is the End of the World isn’t that, after all. It’s the end of something — or at least, a troublesome pause. But the Apocalypses we expect and predict are rarely those. They are transformative. They are terrible. But they rarely end everything. They often form new beginnings, terrible and transformative as they are…Things won’t be fine. Things might get really, really bad. But we can survive them. And we have a chance to come out better than we were before. That is the key.

4. Finding Purpose in Uncertain Times from Laura Simms.

5. 16 Overall Favorite Books of 2016 on Brain Pickings, “From loneliness to love to black holes, by way of Neil Gaiman, Annie Dillard, and Mary Oliver.”

6. Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda. “Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.”

7. White Women and U.S. Slavery: Then and Now.

8. How To Create Art And Make Cool Stuff In A Time Of Trouble a great list from from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

9. 4 questions to ease you out of 2016 (and get you feeling hopeful for the year to come) from Jamie Greenwood.

10. No. My Magical Word for 2017 from the brilliant and brave Laurie Wagner.

11. “You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm,” (unknown). Whoa. I needed to see this right now.

12. We’re heading into dark times. This is how to be your own light in the Age of Trump.

My heart breaks for the United States of America. It breaks for those who think they are my enemies as much as it does for my friends. You still have your freedom, so use it. There are many groups organizing for both resistance and subsistence, but we are heading into dark times, and you need to be your own light. Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned. Protect the vulnerable and encourage the afraid. If you are brave, stand up for others. If you cannot be brave – and it is often hard to be brave – be kind.

13. 10+ Hilariously Creative Snowmen That Would Make Calvin And Hobbes Proud.

14. Zoologist uses cheetah as a pillow. Sleeping with Sam, #same

15. Support the White Helmets. “Every day in Syria, volunteer rescue workers from the White Helmets rush to the scenes of bombings to pull people out from under the rubble and carry them to safety. Their courageous and selfless work has given hope to millions of civilians.” In related news, Syria: The story of the conflict, “eight steps to understanding the Syrian conflict.” And this, How Can I Help People In Aleppo? 10 Charities Working To Provide Food, Shelter, Medicine And Education To Syrians and this 7 real things you can do right now about the catastrophe in Aleppo.

16. Pipeline spills 176,000 gallons of crude into creek about 150 miles from Dakota Access protest camp. No more pipelines. Water, not oil.

17. 20 Facts About Living in Poverty That Rich People Never Have to Think About from Everyday Feminism.

18. This Is Your Stressed-Out Brain On Scarcity.

19. Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it. “You cannot confront a power until you know what it is. Our first task in this struggle is to understand what we face. Only then can we work out what to do.”

20. Los Angeles Times publishes letters in defense of internment. Blergh.

1. Hey, listen to your emotions, a great chart posted by Andrea Gibson.

2. Putting the Ass in Aspirational from Dances with Fat.

This idea of “aspirational” images is far too often used as a way to justify reinforcing the current stereotype of beauty which is typically thin, white, cisgender, able-bodied (and which, thanks to Photoshop, at this point is only actually achievable via digital enhancement.) Representation matters. Seeing people who look like you – whether it’s in athletics, or television and movies, or on stage, or doing whatever it is that you want to do – is important. Denying people role models who look like them isn’t aspirational, it’s cruel, and it’s oppressive, and it’s bullshit.

We each get to choose what we aspire to, and none of us is obligated to aspire to a stereotype that is used to exclude and oppress us and others. We have the opportunity to speak out against the idea that the choice to exclude so many people is doing anything other than putting the ass in aspirational.

3. Harvard Has a Free Online Course on Buddhism That You Can Take Right Now.

4. She became the nation’s first Somali American lawmaker. A month later, she was harassed in a D.C. cab for being Muslim.

5. The 50 Funniest Tweets From Women In 2016.

6. Over 2,000 U.S. veterans are standing with the protesters at Standing Rock. “I didn’t take an oath to defend corporations. I took an oath to defend the people.” I really loved what Christian Fabien had to say about it. And, where the veterans plan to go next is good too. But still, there’s this bullshit, Dakota Access Pipeline to continue despite Army Corps failure to grant easement.

7. Best Christmas ad of the year. “This ad out of Poland — shot in English — tells a moving story…that touches on human truths and deep values, using subtle humor and pathos.”

8. Van Jones: Only a ‘Love Army’ Will Conquer Trump. In related news, Love Deez Nutz, or Why Van Jones Is Wrong and Maybe Even a Bit of a Bullshitting Magical Negro, or Happy Friday from My Corner of Trump’s America–Whatever You Like–I’m Tired.

9. This Is Why We Freeze. “It’s a Sisyphean task. All women are set up to fail, convinced it’s their own fault, and persuaded that all they need to do is keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, because the rewards of looking like you’re the perfect woman are relief from the efforts required to get there. Only, it’s a false fable. No woman has ever gotten ‘there.’” The cake is a lie.

10. Getting Back to Work. But What, Now, is the Work? from Ill Doctrine.

11. Love Notes for America. “In the wake of the 2016 election, mosques and other religious organizations across America have begun receiving anonymous hate mail and have been subjected to vandalism. This website was created to make it easy for all of us to combat this hate mail with love notes. On this site, you will find a list of mosques that have received hate mail (as well as other religious institutions that have been subjected to xenophobia), along with their mailing addresses. The goal is simple: Send a note or a postcard to these organizations to show their members that they are loved and appreciated.”

12. This comic from The Oatmeal illustrates how we’re missing the mark on happiness.

13. Let’s make magic in 2017! Susannah Conway’s (FREE) unravel your year workbook.

14. Food Psych #81: How to Honor Your Body and Feast on Your Life with Rachel Cole.

15. The other person is always right and Two kinds of winning from Seth Godin.

16. Now Is the Time to Stand Up: Practicing the Dharma in Uncertain Times, Part 2 by Jack Kornfield on Lion’s Roar. “Now a time of change has come. We must listen deeply, bear witness, honor everyone, and choose our actions wisely and courageously. Do not worry if the Right Action is not yet clear to you. Wait in the unknowing with mindfulness and a clear heart. Soon the right time will come and you will know to stand up.”

17. S*** Happens: Breaking the Perceptions of Perfection and Control. “In dog training (and in life), shit happens.” Word.

18. Put Your Hands Together, my new favorite podcast. “‘Put Your Hands Together’ is a first-of-its-kind weekly standup podcast. PYHT delivers 75 minutes of jokes and backstage chats with LA’s best and brightest comics directly to your earbuds.”

19. Insecure. I got a 30 day free trial of HBO through my Amazon Prime account just so I could watch this. The show is so good, really great writing, acting, and music.

20. Solange‘s A Seat at the Table. I can’t stop listening to this album. It’s so good.