It is Friday Saturday and we are here.
{a breath for today, for this space, for being here when we get here.}
We have reached SEVEN YEARS of this Chickening ritual! Sure, occasionally we chicken on a Saturday instead of Friday, but the chicken always happens. Past-me would not have been able to imagine this.
Thank you, everyone who reads: you are the reason I am still doing this.
What worked this week?
Reconnaissance!
There’s this burlesque dance class I’ve been eyeing for a few years but too scared to try.
This week I decided to go on RECONNAISSANCE. Reconnaissance is awesome because all you have to do is check out the situation.
So if all I do is find the studio and go straight home, I still win. Or if I just observe the class, I still win. And if I walk through the moves and make ten thousand mistakes and fall on my face, which is what I ended up doing, I win. It’s reconnaissance!
Imagining that I was gathering intel on potentially scary things instead of making myself do them made it easier to gently sneak my way into doing.
Renaming.
I scheduled a photo shoot, and I was very nervous about it.
Then I remembered that the reason I was doing it was to document Shmita.
And the process of documenting my Shmita experiment seems vitally important, and also very natural, like, of course, why would I not want to have photographic documentation of this undertaking.
Names. Names are everything. Once I stopped thinking “photo shoot”, it was easy and light-hearted.
We drank tea. We teetered on teeter-totters and laughed, and it was the most relaxed I have ever been in front of a camera, so there.
Next time I might…
Talk things over with the internal scientists.
I had this idea this week that if I just brought enough bubbling positive energy to places I don’t like, this would transform the experience.
However my internal scientists have shown me all the data which indicates that these places drain energy, no matter how much joy and confidence I bring.
Not everything can be or needs to be transformed. Some places just need to be off the list, and I am slowly learning to be okay with that.
And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…
What Just Happened.. The Havi Brooks Story.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- I thought being offline would be hard, but it was so completely pleasurable that now I don’t really want to go back. Like, oh hey remember when I used to walk through that giant field of dog poop every day just because there were some pretty flowers there and I like flowers? Why would I want to do that. It’s not like there’s a shortage of flowers in the world. So now my monsters are terrified that I will not have a community for my business if I’m not out and about wandering in the shit fields every day. A breath for remembering that however this turns out, it’s going to be fine, and there are lots of ways this can go that won’t involve an either/or choice between destroying my business or being knee-deep in metaphorical excrement. Yes, a breath for remembering that, and for enjoying the quiet right now.
- I saw someone on the street, someone who used to be a close friend, and she gave the “I don’t want to do this” look and put on sunglasses and walked past me briskly. Which is a completely okay choice for her to make, obviously. Nothing is more important (in my mind) than self-care, and if her self-care in that moment was avoiding an awkward interaction with me, then I fully support that. It was also a moment of sadness, for me, and it also reminded me of leaving Tel Aviv. When you get to a point that a place has more people you’d rather not run into than people you’d love to surprise you, time to leave. A breath for love, trust, and safety, for everyone involved and everyone who needs it.
- I am under this weird curse or something right now, and every time my fingers touch a glass of water, it spills, and it doesn’t just spill, it goes everywhere, immediately, and soaks everything in sight. I guess that could be a metaphor for something, but it’s just my current reality. A breath for pausing, for getting centered, for taking this reminder to get steady, as well as the reminder that things spill and it’s okay.
- My passion for dance is back (“Ugh, finally“, say the monsters, forgetting that they actually used to be AGAINST both dance and passion), and there is a big gap between the activities/classes/training my heart is excited about versus what my body can actually do. Sometimes because of pain, injury, fatigue, HSP stuff, trauma and just not having the energy/spoons to do as much as I would like. Sometimes because of my OLD LADY KNEES that can’t do floor work, even with knee pads. Sometimes because I have to just be in bed. A breath for staying in a state of love, taking care of my body, cultivating the flame of desire while not pushing myself to do more than is good for me.
- Is there a name for this phenomenon? You know you will need something later — really, really, really need it — so you lovingly put it aside for future you so they’ll have it in that moment of need. And you are very intentional about this, you think: I AM GOING TO REMEMBER THIS. And then the moment of need comes and the only thing you can remember is that past-you very intentionally hid something for you, but you have no idea where, and you can’t find it or re-create the thought process of past-you, and you only remember the determination to remember the place, and not the place itself. A breath for needing something and not having it, and for This Is Why You Always Leave A Note.
- I have been on a mission to retire from being a Stew Maker, and it is unbelievable how often I find myself stirring a pot of stew. Very often it was a Comparison Stew, which is the least tasty stew there is. I’m back to dancing and suddenly I’m in the kitchen stirring the stew of Everyone Is Better Than You. Or the related stew of Seriously They’re Twenty Years Younger And Have At Least A Decade More Training So Why Don’t You Just Give Up. A breath for remembering that I quit this job, and I am no longer a stewmaker, and any time I want, in any moment, I can put down that wooden spoon and turn off the flame and exit the kitchen.
- Went to the local westie dance for the first time in ages, and had an absolutely miserable time, and had to work very hard to not stir the stew of Why Is It Like This. I think if I want to maintain my passion for my favorite dance, maybe it’s better to focus on other dances for a while until I find the kind of dance community that I want to be a part of. A breath for may this hard moment turn out to be beautiful.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- The end of the heat wave. Temperature makes such a difference in mood, energy, ability to function, and somehow I always forget this. Cool air. Light drizzle. Walking in the park in the middle of the day. Doing some Star Training (the thing that used to be spirals) outdoors at 10am? UNHEARD OF. So much opens up when it isn’t too hot to do anything more than limply exist. Lazily teetering on a teeter-totter on a peaceful afternoon: heaven. A breath for this, and for a return to all-night snuggling.
- Dance and being motivated to dance and having energy to dance, oh this is so good, you guys. Such delight after these long months of knee injury and mysterious chronic pain. I signed up for a four hour blues-connection technique workshop, assuming I’d only be able to handle an hour, and then — astonishingly — lasted three hours and twenty minutes. Plus I enjoyed some absolutely transcendent dances just during the warm-up songs in between workshop sessions. My lover dragged me to the Portland Dance Festival and I danced my feet off until 4am, before we fell asleep in a sweaty, sticky, happy heap in the parking lot. Mainly though I just feel JOYFUL about feeling joyful about dance again, if that makes sense. I watched this video of a contra dance flash mob, and it had me in tears just thinking about the magical moments of people coming together, and seeing dancer friends I know. Even though what they’re doing is not even really related to any of the kinds of dance I do, I don’t know, just feeling this intense tenderness about how dance does something, how movement changes energy. A breath for this welling up.
- I did brave and scary things this week Marlena (Incoming Me) took me to burlesque class and hip hop, and we didn’t die. A breath for play and discovery and trying new things.
- Feeling fortunate to such many sweet and supportive people in my life right now. Whether it’s big life stuff like letting go of my home, or taking steps towards something challenging that I want. My sweet lover, my wonderful housemate, my wise uncle and my far-away friend Annabelle all cheered me on this week with encouraging words and endless warmth and love for me. I’m not really used to this, but I want to be. A breath for appreciating how special this is.
- I slept a lot. I mean, a lot. One of my big wishes for my Shmita experiment is to be someone who can do lots of nothing without worrying about something being wrong. Like, maybe I’m doing nothing because I literally can’t do anything else, and maybe I’m choosing to do nothing, but either way, I am able to experience it as a desirable place to be. That’s happening. Lots of staring into space. Lots of delicious percolating and puttering, and not calling it names. Our culture is big on name-calling, we like to call this procrastination or avoidance, when actually the labels just add guilt and make an otherwise useful process sticky. It is good to give things time and space to ripen. I’ve always felt strongly about this, but this is the first time I’ve been able to just be intentionally slow and meandering with life. It’s switching little connectors on for me, and big fractal flower magic. A breath for deep healing, for patience, and for naps.
- I am slowly getting better at remembering that I am not a stew-maker. A thousand sparklepoints for me for each and every time I choose not to make stew, start a stew, stir stew, or do anything related to stewing, and for each time I notice that I’m doing it and call a timeout. And another breath for love, because it really is all love.
- Last-year-me decided that this year would be the Year of Easing & Releasing, and ohmylord, this is changing everything in my life, and I am finally able to see how this is so very good. A breath for having found the joy and the freedom and sweetness in letting go. It took a long time to get here, but all timing is right timing.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Epsom salt baths. Shoulders to cry on. Marlena is witchy in the kitchen and blended frozen bananas with pumpkin seed butter, cocoa powder, vanilla, cinnamon and himalayan salt. My lover whispers sweet words to me that happen to be just what I need to hear. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong, even when I think it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thankful for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!
Operations completed. Wham boom!
I sorted through even more boxes, made gigantic progress on the BOLTHOLE op, coordinated with other Agents, and only cried ten times. We shall call that a successful mission, and I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.
Superpowers I had this week…
I had the superpowers of Noticing Useful Things, Annexing New Space Into My Comfort Zone, and being okay with being a High Sensation Seeking adventuress who enjoys very specific types of risk-taking while simultaneously being someone who likes to hide a lot.
And last week I wanted to be able to See Beauty Everywhere, and that happened too!
Powers I want.
I want the superpowers of Wildly Appreciating Myself and I Bring The Fun.
The Salve of Wildly Appreciating Yourself.
One of the things I’ve noticed in thirty eight years of being alive is that the best and most wonderful things about ourselves tend to be invisible to us, along with any magic beans of good fortune.
This salve undoes that effect, smoothly and efficiently, so that suddenly, in quick flashes at first, and then for longer periods, you can see what is magical, beautiful and effortless.
You notice the sweetness of your own smile, the things you are good at, the ways you are unique, and these suddenly seem important.
There is both a boldness and a tenderness to this salve, like a flower, and once you wear it, you see these things (and flowers) each time you turn around.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is called Breathing Is The Best Plan. Their latest album is Truth Be Told. They play acoustic emo covers of disco songs, and it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, aka the thing that keeps me from falling apart. This is how I get through weeks like this one.
How was your week?
Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!
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Seven years 🙂 🙂 🙂
Some hard things……
* Raising little kids. At least, for me, like this, right now, not all the time but often enough.
* Internal tangles.
* I do not have much skill at setting sovereign boundaries with my monsters.
Some good things……
* I sorted out my income and did my budget and discovered that I am living within my means!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* I have brought in some resources to help me stretch into long-resisted areas of desire, and put my hand up for another.
* I keep trying even when there seems little evidence for hope of change, you can say that about me.
* Magic beans.
* Decided to take us away for a weekend to some beautiful places in a couple of weeks. And I have the means to make this happen. Ace.
<3 <3 <3
hi.
okay so Reconnaissance is totally awesome!!
and thank you thank you for the salve. Very much just what I need.
my biopic based on this week: “Hä? A story of a Zuz.” There’s a tagline, too: In a strange land. Literally. AND figuratively.
i don’t see clear goods and hards this week. it’s all verwirrt, fuzzy and smashed together and kind of feels the same: too much.
‘too much’ is both “good” and “hard”. (as in, i-can’t-i-can’t-make-it-stop. but also, the way my friend who believes in Jesus sometimes exclaims theatrically, “oh thank you thank you thank you oh this is ttttoooo mmmuch” and she seems brimming with emotion and like she is going to, well, of course, like she is going to expand not explode)]
so, some things that happened:
#I transported my person and all the things I own over 700km because of a new job. And then I quit after the first day because of a gut feeling.
#well, because of a gut feeling and sexual harassment
#well, assault. or possibly misunderstanding. or My Fault. wow, I can’t believe I edited that memory in so many different ways already
#depression still not lifting
#culture shock
#so many clues. so much magic and Beauty Everywhere
#i don’t know what to do. Except maybe I do a bit, but admitting is hard and it is a tiny sweet thing. Well maybe I’ll just have Breathing as a plan. Always a good plan, that
#the moment when a language finally clicks in and I don’t have to think about grammar rules anymore and even my dreams are in German
#and it makes me feel less lost in the new country, but also less Old Mou and that is a bit sad (sometimes, for me)
#so much sweetness. so many kind people. asking for directions = my new favorite hobby!
#walking
#i read poetry and smiled and breathed and meditated
#except when I didn’t because I was scared to so I just hid in Facebook or TV or worry and that was ok, too
right now?
it is 4 in the morning and I am at a McDonalds next to the train station and I have 5 more hours to wait. so many drunk people. so much plastic and paper waste. I am cranky and weepy. sleepy. it smells like McDonalds here. Omg and it is raining out and the pavement shines liiike si-ilver. Lets turn off the computer and go smell the rain.
‘expand not explode’! Christian philosophical rap, just one guy. (also, good advice in just about any situation.) (also, what happens to countries that open themselves to immigrants and refugees)
worked: surrender. Also, change of lens. Like when we watched *situation* as a Monty Python sketch. And *situation* was still absolutely horribly horribly heavy and sad, but it was also totally absurd and hilarious, and it helped.
next time: surrender more. facebook less. also, for the sake of sanity, eat.
wise me: we are still in crisis. this is not the part where we make everything make sense again. this is still the free fall part. that’s also why every time you try to be in charge and go “ok well that was awful wasn’t it, now where were we”, everything gets worse, exponentially. So, don’t fake it till you make it. You are allowed not to be making it. maybe it is not going to get better soon. but you can always find something to enjoy. like, you are alive. And butterflies exist. And when things get exponentially worse, you expand not explode. enjoy that, for example.
thank you havi. love to everyone.
-o- -o- -o-
Happy seven years of Chickening!
Hard stuff: Head-swimmingly busy.Got really mad at [redacted] for crossing a boundary, and didn’t feel comfortable enough to say so.
Good stuff: Driving a charming and comfortable rental car. New contracts. Good times with my sister and my nephews.
What worked? Taking good care of myself.
Next time, I might try setting aside some dedicated time for Doing the Thing. Whether I do it or not, the time is an important gift.
I now invoke the superpower of — well, actually, I’d just like some of that lovely salve. It’s exactly what I want right now. Thank you!
Happy Saturday and cluck!
Oh Havi, I just got back from the Colorado Burlesque Festival, and i have so many feels on this topic. I have wanted to be a burlesque performer since i was little, and this is such a tiny sweet little baby wish, becasue so vulnerable and scary, and omg just going to class is brave! Hearts and hugs!
what worked this week: Guidance and divination. Signposts, like the word and SuperPower of the month, and working thru the list. Bosun-ing with Angeli.
the sucks:
-the heat was not fun
-i killed 2 seedlings. also, my lack of a green thumb in general
-the stte of hosue and garden
-lack of rogress on Ops
-feeling like my bad timing means i hve lost out on so many things, including [feathers fan]
-today my husband behaved horribly towards me, but wht really got me was the way all the time i wasted feeling stung, arguing with him, paying attention to his stream of toxic bullshit, trying to make plans, trying to cheer him.
-also mad because i declined many invites in order to spend the day at home with the husbnd, and in the hours he was not fst asleep or refusing to speak to me, he was either being critical and mean to me, or crying that i hate him. HOURS were sacrificed to working around this. a breath for self-inflcited wounds
– knowing the truth of things that i am trying to avoid
-angry now about how my day was hi jacked.
-tpping out of Latin cardio, 17 minutes in
the sparkle:
-weight falling. the invstigations i’m doing with food are paying off
-beign gluten free is hard, and the parade of gluten food that comes in my ofice is staggering. but i avoided most of it all week, and that deverves a million sparkle points
-PastMe makes sure i have fruit and cashews at work. better meals is the next step but right now, better snacks, esp at the office, is paying off
-Noticing so many things
-tiny lil sweet baby wishes
-babysteps suddenly paying off. it is frustrating that i have made so little progress, but then i rwalize, but there is progress
-lots of things i wished for, coming true
-goign to the river tomorrow with a new friend
-did a nice new moon ritual this week
-posted a blog entry and concieved of more. did other writing today
-my cards were clsoe to maxxed, waledthat back
-went to the Burlesque festival hd an amazing time. next steps showing up
-i started Cosmic Wizard lessons, with a new teacher
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That was meant to be hearts and cute things and flowers. Xo
Yay mystery hearts and flowers and cuteness under a cloak of invisibility! xoxox
seven years – it’s magical.
i’ve been reading your posts for a long time, so many beautiful thoughts and words and perspectives. for me, they’re like beautiful marbles: i always carry some in my pocket and when i’m stuck and anxious or just longing for beauty, i’ll just randomly take one out, hold it in my hand and enjoy its colours and the cool touch.
today i write my first comment because of the stew!! to me that would be “suppe kochen”, but it works just the same. i love to cook a soup/stew because it’s fresh and nourishing, it’s warm and it’s love. but the mental soup? it’s just old and disgusting, it’s made of shame and nobody should ever have to eat this. i didn’t even sign up to cook it, yet i’m here frantically stirring???
the content of my current mental soup is about being at school for undergraduate studies, which is lovely in itself. makes me happy and is a solid plan for the future. but the soup that apparently comes with it is that i am BACK at school after a graduate degree in a totally different field and a real failure and 10 years older than the average student. i want to breathe a lot of breaths for myself and gently try to losen my grip of the spoon and then walk away from this.
also, i love everything you write about dancing.
Congratulations on the 7 years of Chicken!
And yay for not going into dog poop fields!
I call it a “mind detox retreat” and it’s always magical and makes me feel like I never want to go back online…
The hard:
– Terrible piece of news that ended up making me feel like every thing I start getting ahead I’m hit by a storm that makes me sink again…
– PMS-ing so badly yesterday and spending the majority of my day either yelling or crying silently because what I expected to be a fun day on the beach ended up being a boring day in the house that I so desperately wanted to get out of. I couldn’t see how I could have made the situation better, and I chose to assign blame on others who “ruined my day”.
– The Bad News made me feel so fearful of receiving mail (physical and electronic) and I’ve felt so anxious before checking e-mail one day.
The good:
+ I remembered to use my super healing techniques for getting over the e-mail fear and it worked great. So glad to be remembering to process things as they appear instead of stuffing them to deal with later.
+ Getting up at 6.30 all week and feeling like a champion because by 9 I’ve already accomplished so much, and by lunch I’m done with work and can go to the beach! As a night owl it’s super difficult to go to sleep early enough, but that one day where I fell in my bed exhausted at 10 started the chain of early-sleep-early-rise.
+ Grateful that the Bad News happened at the moment when I was ready to receive it with grace. Just 2 months ago I would’ve been devastated. Also the magic of feeling accomplished before I checked the mail (side-effect of getting up early) helped to bounce back from the impact that much faster.
+ Accomplished more in the first 2 days than I thought I would in a week.
+ Gathered the courage to tell how I really feel about [program I was in] and tell my mentor that I want to get out. She understood completely and encouraged me to tell the truth to the organizers and I’ve officially put in my letter of resignation on Friday. One huge obligation that was weighing over me – removed!
+ Used the opportunity on Friday night to dress up the way Incoming Me wanted, like a really elegant lady. I really hope I will find the shoes that match this style and are comfortable as well.
I offer you some beautiful colorful, smooth pebbles. Yellow calcite are my favorite – they sparkle in the sunlight and look transparent when wet.
Have a beautiful rest of the weekend!
The Hard:
– Two days of 8:30-6 in one tiny room with a bunch of people. They can be the loveliest people in the world – I’ll feel overwhelmed. Also, that was my weekend, so I didn’t get rest.
– Final in one class and a midterm in another.
– Ate gluten, felt sick. Funny how this is always the case and yet I keep doing it.
– Trigger warning for bad things happening to children:
My cousin’s two-year-old daughter has cancer. She had an eight hour surgery to remove a football sized tumor along with her kidney. Now, because the cancer has spread all over her body, she needs to start chemotherapy. She’s two. Two. I’ve spent a lot of this week waiting for updates and reading about cancer (86% chance of living four years… If the histology is good. But she’s two. We don’t want her to live to six; we want her to live to 90!) and dreaming about cancer and generally feeling terrible. Fuck cancer.
– My mom’s been here a week and a bit and now she’s leaving and I’m really sad. It was lovely having her here.
– I have a sunburn, and i keep forgetting about it and then I do things that hurt it.
– Trying to step into a new/old identity. And it turns out I have lost my superpower of being insanely good at it without trying, and so it is uncomfortable.
– I have this ridiculous crush on a straight girl. And so am pining without a lot of purpose. Argh!
The Good:
– My all weekend class was very inspiring, and interesting, and is also the most times I’ve heard the word “vagina” in recent memory.
– With my mother here, there’s been so much time and space for… Everything, really. But most especially romantic time with my husband and also sleep. It’s been very nice.
– I’m done with my crazy four week statistics class! And I think I may have had the superpower of not working any harder than I needed to. But I’d like to see if my grade is at least a B+ before I call that one.
– I’m halfway through the summer of way too much work to get twelve credits so I don’t lose my scholarships and grants. And my next four week class is online, so I only have to go to school twice a week and I no longer have insane 12 hour days.
– I had a very powerful ritual with my singing meditation group. We got to be in the woods! I got to bring my daughter! And my mom took her for most of it, so she got to attend for only as long as it’s not annoying to have a two-year-old there. Super wonderful.
– We went to the beach! Joking about tsunamis the whole time, of course. I was so tired I fell asleep and got sunburned and when I woke up it was time to go. But still. I got to see the ocean and that’s something. I listened to it while I slept. David and Scarlet built and destroyed and rebuilt several massive sand castles. I don’t know when they last had so much fun.
– SEVEN YEARS OF CHICKEN! -confetti- -quiet clapping- -big smiles-
Seven years! Hurrah!
The good –
– finally seem to have stopped having identity crises
– lunch with Nicky, who is brilliant
– last night’s walk, feeling like I belong in my own skin
– being excited about my birthday and the grand adventure that goes with it
– finished a quilt
The hard –
– the way my workplace does lunch, ugh
The stew. Oh god the stew. I spent two hours last night reactivating my two dead Facebook accounts and stirring the stew of ‘I thought you guys were my friends’……
Which juxtaposed with the self-care of ‘people don’t have to want to talk to me/self care’ thing is even sadder.
I need to look after myself. I need to stop being cruel to myself.
Thank you for this site. It means the world xxx
It’s okay to be not okay. That’s a line from a song from a recent open mic night, and it comes back to me. I am interested in how my passion for self-transformation can be magic or another form of control.
This week, I want to nurture my good habits. I had strong self-care habits before my concussion; this was new to me. Every day I delighted in the simple way to overcome resistance that a good habit is. Then the system crashed.
Now I have the energy to bring intentional habit back. At the same time, I’ve been thinking about what I mentioned above – the way habits can feed perfectionism, “safety” rituals, and rigidity in me. How do I have the momentum and magnetism of habit, while holding it loosely enough to grow through?
It’s okay to be not okay. Fear is what drives the controlling urges. I need to stay focused on building up from love. Habits are an expression of and method for either motivation.
This week, gently, with attention and energy, and from a place of trusting love, I want to choose strong good habits.
I am caught up in an exhausting, overwhelming, terrifying, seemingly never-ending chain of events. I keep thinking that once the dust settles, I will take stock, and reflect on the new landscape, and have time to process. And I keep thinking that the dust will definitely officially settle for real this time… tomorrow. And then some other unexpected crazy thing happens that throws the whole thing into chaos again.
Ultimately, everything will probably be okay. But I am exhausted. So one day, hopefully soon, I will sit down with myself and hold a Great Chickening of Wow So That Was a Thing That Just Happened. I imagine this will involve lots of cathartic journaling and crying and breathing and music and possibly artmaking. It’ll be super helpful.
In the meantime, I’ve made some interesting observations about Chickening, and also about lots of other things. For example, I’ve realized that I’m afraid to Chicken a week while there’s still tons of stuff up in the air, for fear of jinxing it. Which is weird, because that seems superstitious, and I don’t think of myself as very superstitious. So that needs to go on the list of things to investigate later.
I’ve also discovered that one of my patterns about how I think about personal responsibility has shifted while I wasn’t paying attention, and that this change in thinking is starting to change my actions and feelings, in a good way.
Other things I want to remember to investigate after this is over: Insomnia, Grounding, Perspective, Negotiation, Decisiveness, Hats I Wear, Good Candidates for Front of the V Selves.
And qualities I want: Stability, Grounding, Endurance, Stamina, Clarity, Safety, Serenity, Patience, Assertiveness.
Ha I do that too about chickening while stuff is up in the air, like how can I mention Thing X when I don’t know what is happening with it! So interesting, because it’s not like I’ve ever in my life had a week where things neatly wrap themselves up by Friday or at all, ever. And I love the qualities you named, may they be beautifully present and palpable! <3