This month, I spoke with my friend Victoria about sexiness, confidence and how they're pretty much the same thing.

Read all about it here.

I am so incredibly intrigued by clothing.

Please note that I didn't say that I am intrigued by fashion -- the truth is that I actually couldn't care a whit about fashion. In fact, it has been years since I've even flipped through a fashion magazine. As much as I do love clothing, fashion and shopping in general often holds little interest for me.

The thing I love about clothing, you see, is how a necessity -- items which, let's face it, are really just supposed to keep the weather out -- has involved into a form of self-expression. Of course, magazines try to tell us how to use clothing (and make-up, for that matter) to "hide our flaws," but you know what I think is flawed? Approaching clothing on that premise in the first place.

How about if we simply wore the clothes, colors, make-up and hair that made us feel awesome, damn the trade rags?

How about if we chose clothing not based on "what's in fashion," or "what's best for our body type" (and who gets to decide that, by the way, anyway?), but instead based on what comfortably expresses who we are deep inside?

Now, I'm not going to lie and say that I've never followed fashion -- of course I have. But a few years ago, conversations with two friends completely changed the way I view clothing.

The first conversation I had was with a geologist friend of mine, Helen, with whom I'd worked at a very conservative, male-dominated company. I noticed that while she always looked very professional, her clothes were often full of wild colors and patterns, and her hair was, quite decidedly, purple. We became great friends (and, in fact, she was the first person I interviewed for my book), and one day, I asked her about her purple hair.

"Well, I'm not into make-up at all," she said slowly, "and I love the color purple. It makes me feel powerful and strong. So one day, I colored my hair purple, and I loved it. I've kept it purple ever since. And I'm sure the day will come when I'll want to do something else, and when that happens, I'll change. But for now, I love my purple hair."

The second conversation I had with a different friend actually had nothing to do with clothing or make-up at all -- it was about art. My friend Jo had a beautiful home -- tiny and cozy -- filled to the brim with the most amazing art. The first time I visited her, I was entranced.

"Your art is so awesome, Jo," I said. "Where do you get it?"

"Well, I travel so much for business," she said. "Instead of buying souvenirs from the places I've been, I buy art. Some of it I bought in galleries, but some of it is just local folk art or even street art."

"How do you know what to buy?" I asked. "Do you research the artists? Consult with other collectors? Study different genres of art?"

She laughed heartily. "Oh God, no," she said emphatically. Then she looked at me seriously.

"I just buy what I love. I realized that if I just bought whatever art made me happy, it would be perfect for my house and never look out of place. My house would become an expression of me, and therefore, it would all just naturally work."

Between these two friends, I decided to start looking at the way I dress myself the way Helen views color and Josette views art -- as a form of self-expression, rather than an attempt to follow fashion "rules." And while I would never call myself "fashionable," I've had people comment that I have a very signature style. Whatever -- in the end, it really doesn't matter: I definitely am much more comfortable and confident dressing in clothes that make me happy, and that's what's most important to me, you know?

As it happens, I had the opportunity recently to sit and talk about this very topic with the amazing Erin Loechner of Design for Mankind -- a woman who, for me, epitomizes letting what you love express who you are. Here are some highlights from our conversation.

sn't she lovely? And so for this month, I challenge you to pick a day -- it can even be a day where you're not planning on going out -- and wear whatever makes you feel awesome. It can be based on a color or how it fits, but definitely it should be based on how it makes you feel. Play with accessories, hairstyles, make-up -- or just keep it to clothing and forget about everything else. And of course, I'd love if you'd share how it made you feel afterward in the comments. It's my hope that you'll find that you've discovered the best way for you to express yourself through clothing -- and realize it has nothing to do with what the magazines say about you.

This was cross-posted at BlogHer's Own Your Beauty.

In a few months, I will be 44 years old.

Forty-four years old.  Like, officially in my mid-forties.

It's hard to explain how I feel about this:  it's not that I feel old, per se; it's more that when I was a kid, 44 seemed Very Old, and how can it be possible that I have reached the age of Very Old?  I don't feel Very Old.  Shouldn't 44 feel older?

Thing is, age is a funny thing.  There's so much about growing older that we're taught, all our lives, everywhere we look:  magazines, movies, models -- we let all these images help form the general idea that youth is acceptable, age is not.  But it seems to me that this construct of age -- much like society's construct of beauty -- is a myth. It seems to me that, as is true with any aspect or characteristic of ourselves, we should be the ones to create our own stories.  Why would we give this right up to anyone else, much less to commercial organizations?  Why should we allow our ages -- whether we're young, or old, or anything in between -- be coloured by what commerce says is "right" or "wrong," any more than we permit commerce to tell us about our hair colour, or our height?

What if we took control of our own stories?

And there's more:  I've come to believe that we don't become old solely because time passes, or even solely because we start to believe the world when it tries to tell us we're old.  I think we also become old when we stop looking for the wonderful.  I think we become old when we stop living like each day has the potential for showing us something new or beautiful.  I think we become old when we are so engulfed in routine, we forget to look for the Different.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with my friend Kyran Pittman, author of the brand new book Planting Dandelions.  In her book, a riveting collection of essays on how she went from wild child to wife and mother, she discusses how her life and her outlook has changed since leaving her twenties and entering her forties.  And luckily for us, she shared more of her thoughts in the video below:

And so, for this month, I challenge you to spend some time each day looking for the wonderful.  Start a gratitude journal, listing the good things that happened to you during the day, if you think that would help.  And for more inspiration, I wanted to be sure to share with you this fantastic blog I found recently, called Advanced Style -- whose mission is to show "proof from the wise and silver-haired that personal style advances with age."

And indeed, I guarantee you that the people featured in that blog haven't stopped looking for the wonderful.

This post is part of BlogHer's Own Your Beauty initiative.  For more, click here.

The following is excerpted from The Beauty of Different (Bright Sky Press 2010).

About fifteen years ago, I convinced myself that my life had fallen completely apart, never to be put back together again.  I was in my late twenties and my first marriage had ended.  After taking the bar exam (and barely passing), I moved out into an apartment on my own and was promply laid offfrom my first legal job ever.  I was jobless, alone and running through my savings.  Fast.

In short, I was a mess.

Understandably, my outlook on life seriously deteriorated.  I began believing that ever major move I had ever made was completely without logic or basis, that I was incapable of making a sound decision.  I became depressed, and I stopped eating.  And since I wasn't in a relationship and didn't have any children, I started having thoughts -- fleeting thoughts, mind you, but they were there, just the same -- that perhaps it would be better for the World at Large if I simply ... went away.

Then one day, as I was lying in bed late at night, trying to fall asleep and failing miserably, I remembered the first two lines of a childhood prayer my grandmother taught me many decades earlier:

Jesus, safe in Mary's arms,

thank you for this day.

As I lay there, I felt myself growing angry.  "Thank you for this day"? Really?  My life was seriously sucking wind lately.  How the hell was I supposed to thank anyone for that day.

But then I thought, well ... maybe there's one thing that was good about this day.  If I can think of one thing to be thankful for, then, maybe, the day isn't a total loss.  Maybe it's worth sticking around to see tomorrow.

So I thought.

And I thought.

Then suddenly I remembered that earlier that day, in a fit of defiance and even though I really couldn't afford it, I stopped by a coffeehouse for a cup of coffee.  When I was about to enter the building, an older man who was ahead of me grabbed the door, opened it wide and stepped aside to let me in, smiling warmly as he did so.  I remember thinking to myself, goodness, that was really nice, and weakly smiling back.

Okay, I thought as I lay there in bed.   A stranger showed me a bit of kindness today.  That's one good thing that happened today.  I felt just the tiniest bit better.

And then I fell asleep.

Since that night, every night before falling asleep, I think about at least one good thing that happened to me during the day.  At first, it was very difficult -- the decidedly insignificant fact that I'd perfectly boiled an egg for my morning breakfast featured heavily as a "good thing" in those early days.  But slowly, and ever-so-surely, I found that I was able to come up with one, sometimes two, eventually three and even occasionally more occurrences in my day that were good things.  And after a few weeks of doing this nightly practice, I found myself consciously looking for events during my day that were Good Things, things that made me think, cool, I'll add that to my list tonight.  And amazingly, my outlook began to change.  I became more confident.  Slowly, I was able to turn my life back around.

And I'm proud to say that in fifteen years, there's never been a day when I couldn't come up with something that made my nightly Good Things list -- even during the worst possible days.

Because it turns out that as long as there's One Good Thing, I can keep believing in Hope.  And sometimes, that's all I need to keep going.

This post is part of BlogHer's Own Your Beauty initiative.  For more, click here.

Students from the University of Houston talk about the concept of beauty and what makes them different.  Their stories are breathtaking.  And the coolest part of this? I had no idea this was happening.  So awesome.

Related, however:  if you happen to live in Houston, be sure to tune into Channel 8 on Sunday, April 24 at 3pm (or Friday, April 29 at 10pm) to view my appearance on Living Smart, as host Patti Gras and I talk all about the book!

Thanks, PBS!

When I comb my memory looking for instances of true and complete heartbreak, I can quite honestly say that moments of heartbreak in my life have been few and far between (and it makes me nervous to even type this, lest I tempt the fates).  While the reasons for this could be that I've been inordinately lucky, there's a part of me that has a sneaking suspicion that it's not so much that my life has been so full of joy, as much as it is the way I've always historically dealt with heartbreak:  to bury it, pretend it didn't happen, and erase it from my present as much as humanly possible.  I've never been one to dwell:  Get Through It And Push On has always been my motto.  And for the most part, it has worked for me.

That said, I'm not entirely certain that the way I've handled heartbreak and disappointment in the past is the right way.  For the record, I don't believe wallowing is the right way to handle it either; but perhaps there should be a balance between the two.

When I wrote my book, I dedicated a chapter to heartbreak, and had the privilege of interviewing a truly beautiful man named Allen for the core of the section.  I won't tell you his story here -- you'll have to read the book -- but suffice to say that Allen had his heart broken by several people during his life, in ways I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  And yet, Allen is an angel:  he lives his life in service, he bears absolutely no ill will to anyone in his past.   When I asked him about his incredible capacity for forgiveness, he said, very matter-of-factly, "Well, see, Karen, the thing is after everything I've been through, when it's my time to leave the Earth, I want to know there isn't any unfinished business.  I've come to believe that love is the most important thing in life -- and if that's my guidepost, then I have to forgive, I can't hang on to anger anymore, or hate."

Now, Allen is exceptional when it comes to forgiveness, and while I totally agree with him, I have to admit that forgiveness can sometimes be a very hard thing to do.  In my case, I'd much rather just quickly forget:  my logic goes that forgiveness isn't necessary if you don't even remember what happened, right? 

But then.

But then, I contrast this with something my dear friend Brené says:  she says that you can't selectively numb.  She says that in doing what we can to erase pain and heartbreak by numbing (in whatever way we choose to numb), we also end up numbing the opposite:  we find ourselves unable to truly appreciate the joy, and gratitude, and the happiness when they also come our way.  In her words, we have to be willing to be vulnerable, in order to also be available for fully embracing the good; and when we do this, she says, we are living fully wholehearted lives. 

And, God help me, she may have a point.

So this is what I've been working on lately:  allowing myself to acknowledge when things aren't going my way, when I've been disappointed, and even when my heart has been broken.  I'm learning to sit with my feelings, and acknowledge how I feel, as Brené would have me do, before letting go of any anger, hate or disillusionment, as Allen models.  Because that, I suspect, is the way to handle heartbreak.

As if to confirm this concept, I was honoured to be able to speak with Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother last month.  She shared with me her story of how she coped with the death of her father, and her thoughts of heartbreak in general.  I'm so moved to share them with you, below.

So this month, I challenge you to be gentle with yourself:  when things go wrong, rather than pushing them aside (or in addition to raging about them), try sitting quietly with yourself and acknowledging how you feel.  Journal, meditate, or do what you can to mindfully treat yourself with kindness.

And as always, if you'd like to share with us how you deal with heartbreak and what has worked with you, please do so in the comments below.  Because I truly believe that we're all connected, and any ways in which we can help each other get through the tough times is greatly appreciated.

This post is part of BlogHer's Own Your Beauty initiative.  For more, click here.

Earlier this month, I talked with Alice Bradley, co-author of the fantastic new book, Let's Panic About Babies!, about humour, and she mentioned that she is "constantly looking for the joke," much in the same way that I, as a photographer, am "constantly looking for the light."  Over the past month, I tried to look for the humour in situations as much as possible, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  Just the trying was pretty eye-opening for me, though:  I found that when I tried to look for humour, it required me to detach myself from the circumstances, and try to gain a bit of perspective.  As I said, it didn't always work, but I think the exercise was good for me.

One interesting thing I did come across over the month was Laughter Yoga -- a form of yoga where participants laugh for 40 minutes (sometimes forced, sometimes not).  The theory is that the body can't tell the difference between fake laughter and real laughter -- the physiological and psychological benefits are the same.

I even found a BBC video featuring John Cleese that talked all about it:

Interesting, isn't it?

Now:  I don't know that I'm going to spend 40 minutes a day laughing (though it does honestly sound lovely), but I'm drawn to the idea that more laughter daily is good for your health.  In fact, the Mayo Clinic maintains that the benefits of laughter include: 

• stimulation of your heart, lungs and muscles
• activation and relief of the stress response
• soothing of tensions
• improvement of your immune system
• relief from pain
• increase in personal satisfaction

So here's to laughter and joy, friends.   May you encounter something funny every day.

This post is part of BlogHer's Own Your Beauty initiative.  For more, click here.