Weird Until It Works: Why I Started Questioning ‘Normal’

06/08/2025 04:00 AM AJ Flanagan Healthy Habits, Holistic Living, Intentional Wellness, Mindset Shifts, natural wellness, personal growth, Progress Over Perfection, Real-Life Wellness Shifts, Simplified Living, Small Wins for Wellness

This blog is a bit of a followup on a recent one I wrote about 10 things that I used to think were woo-woo - until they actually worked. All of the comments and emails I got afterwards got me to thinking. Why do we think that stuff is woo-woo in the first place? Remember the movie "White Nights" with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Isabella Rossellini, and Helen Mirren? I used to play that soundtrack over and over and can still remember the lyrics to Lou Reed's song "My Love is Chemical" from it. Their meaning is actually more metaphorical than I understood back then when I took them quite literally...

✨ My blog exists because I know what it feels like to keep everything jumbled in your head — like a messy pile of clothes you can’t sort through.

Writing it all down brings clarity, calm, and sometimes even healing answers I didn’t know I was looking for.

Honestly, that’s why I keep showing up to write — it helps me make sense of things.

Even if you have no intentions of ever publishing your work, I highly recommend writing stuff down. It doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece or even full, grammatically correct sentences... just dump those random thoughts onto paper... you'll see what I mean.

Hi! I'm AJ Flanagan.

I'm endlessly curious about what helps people live healthier, happier, and more intentional lives.

Over the years I've explored everything from cleaner living and better nutrition to habits, grief, stress, relationships, history, and the everyday choices that shape how we live. I'm not interested in chasing perfection or the latest trends. I'm interested in finding what actually works in real life.

Walking alongside my husband, Eric, through two cancer diagnoses changed the way I thought about health, home, and what truly matters. After his passing, that curiosity didn't end—it grew.

Today I write about healthier living, personal growth, and the lessons I'm learning along the way, always hoping something I share helps someone else.

My hope is that this space feels less like a classroom and more like a conversation over coffee—where curiosity replaces pressure, progress matters more than perfection, and together we discover what actually works.

I'm glad you're here and if that sounds like the kind of conversation you'd enjoy, I hope you'll stick around.

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Real-Life Wellness Shifts

Weird Until It Works: Why I Started Questioning ‘Normal’

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✨ My blog exists because I know what it feels like to keep everything jumbled in your head — like a messy pile of clothes you can’t sort through.

Writing it all down brings clarity, calm, and sometimes even healing answers I didn’t know I was looking for.

Ask AJ: Find Your Simple Starting Point

Hi! I'm AJ Flanagan.