Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
Hmmm, I thought I knew what I wanted this week, and it is turning into something else, and I need to process that.
I thought I wanted to meet one thing, and it turns out I am meeting something else so that I can meet the first thing. It all needs to be met.
I am also noticing how upset and frustrated I am feeling vis a vis this situation, so let’s start with that.
What do I want?
I want to remember that Nothing Is Wrong.
All my feelings are legitimate, just by virtue of the fact that I am experiencing them.
This situation, like all situations, will turn out to have been remarkably useful, and slightly future me will glow a thank you from our thank-you-heart that it was like this.
I want to make space for ALL THIS FEELING. And to release whatever parts of the intensity are not about now. If past-me is still raging about other things, let’s make a safe room for her.
What do I want?
I want to find out who is feeling all this hurt, pain and frustration? This helplessness?
Ah, it is bartender me. No, it’s more specific than that: those two years — five nights a week — in a dive in south Tel Aviv. Omri and Oded and all the old men ordering me around so that I could be the ball in their twisted neverending psychological ping pong with each other. Endless manipulations.
Safe room, safe room.
My love. This was a long, long time ago. Omri has no power over us, and he never did, we just thought he did. Omri is dead. Actually, everyone from then is probably dead. They all smoked four packs of cigarettes a day and were deeply invested in drinking themselves to death.
We have skills now that we didn’t have then, that we didn’t even know about then. We have boundaries now that we didn’t have then. We have the beautiful healthy boundaries salve from Friday. We are held. Now is not then.
And do you know, hurting-me-from-then who is the treasure of my heart? We were held then too, we just didn’t know it. We didn’t know how to feel into it.
Like in dance when your partner has a hand lightly on your shoulder. You only really feel it once you connect, when you sink into it and relax into being held, while still maintaining control of your own balance. Then: magic.
What do I want?
I want to pause.
I want to end this cycle of burnout and creating more work for myself.
Ah, that’s it. I dislike that this need for safety is making me do more work. And yet sometimes that’s how it is. Or appears to be, at least.
Is this true? Let’s ask what is true and what is also true.
Déjà vu. I am pretty sure I have written this entire post before, word for word. And maybe I have, maybe I have been writing it for years.
What do I want?
I want my dance studio (this is a proxy) to feel deliciously safe. The dance studio is actually my fishing village which is not a fishing village.
I do not want to have to do any more work to ensure that this is the case.
What do I want?
In a dance studio, there are certain things that provide safety for everyone dancing there.
One part is basic etiquette: maintaining line of dance (everyone moves counterclockwise around the floor) so you go in the same direction as your fellow dancers instead of crashing into them.
The other part is understanding how to do a basic pattern in such a way that you aren’t yanking on people or moving them in a way that could compromise their back and shoulders. So that you are holding yourself up and allowing yourself to be held at the same time. Even while people are still working on the subtleties of this, as long as they are traveling in line of dance, everything is fine.
In my five years running this dance studio, I’ve learned everything there is to know about offering clear explanations for how to do this.
We explain it before people even sign up. And then we help them remember.
We have signs posted. We’ve taught dozens of classes on this and made the recordings available. I even designed a special orientation program for new dancers that walks them through dance safety.
And this issue is even more important than before because we are all dancing at a much higher level now. When you’re just doing basics it isn’t the end of the world if you crash into someone because you weren’t following line of dance. It isn’t ideal, but no one gets hurt. You just apologize.
At a higher level, not respecting line of dance endangers everyone. We are doing complicated maneuvers and I can’t have anyone getting injured.
What do I want?
I want the counterclockwise line of dance to be respected, without doing more explaining about it.
When I opened registration for the studio this year, I gave the world’s clearest explanation. I said: my sweet loves, do not come dance with us this year unless you are onboard with this principle.
The entire studio is set up around this principle of safety. We live by it.
What do I want?
So last week someone showed up at the studio who had made the choice to not dance or practice, which is a legitimate choice.
I don’t require anyone to dance, or even to watch. I trust in All Timing Is Right Timing, and I know that there are many different ways to receive the gifts of dance and of my magical studio without even moving. Everyone’s relationship to dance and personal process with being a dancer is different.
Anyway, he came by and sprinted across the room, ignoring line of dance and our shared principle of safe dance space. I know, it was bizarre.
There are seriously signs everywhere that say, “hey, guys, this is the direction that we dance in so people don’t get hurt”. Also you can see everyone doing it.
I’m not talking about someone spacing out and going the wrong way in a moment of “oh whoops, sorry, I forgot”, which could absolutely happen. I mean complete disregard for the dancers and the studio.
The dancers at my studio are incredibly capable dancers, and they all just gracefully moved out of the way, or were able to not react at all. Some of them even tried to make room for him. That’s lovely. I’m proud of our dance culture. And it still isn’t okay.
While all dancers share in the responsibility for safe dancing and we are all equals, I built the studio, and I need to make choices that support the safety of everyone. So I decided that for year 6, I need to invite dancers I know and trust, so we can practice dancing at a higher level without the danger of running into people.
What do I want?
I am not in the mood to make invitations.
This process of invitations creates a lot more work for me, and I have no energy for more work. I shouldn’t have to be doing this work. This work should not be necessary. I am not in the mood to do it.
I just want to throw a temper tantrum and yell NO FAIR NO FAIR NO FAIR.
Which I might. Except that doesn’t resolve the wockawock of “I can’t have a situation where there is anyone in the studio who doesn’t respect the line of dance”, so I also want a solution to that.
I guess I want a way to make doing invitations fun. Or I want to not have to do it.
What do I want?
Peacefulness.
May peacefulness prevail.
What do I want?
I want to be like Susan, one of my actual real-life dance instructors, who holds beautiful boundaries for her classes.
What do I want?
Here is an interesting or unusual thing about my studio:
I view the dancers there as my equals. I don’t believe that I am a “more gifted” dancer, I’ve just danced longer than many dancers, and devoted a lot of years to thinking about dance and studying it.
The wisdom and beauty and grace of dance are available for ALL OF US.
We are all practicing. We are all inventing new movements. There is nothing special about my movements and patterns. The specialness is in the fact that we can all invent movements and patterns. We are all creative geniuses, and we can all tune into the universal sea of dance wisdom.
I want my world to be filled with people who delight in this.
Where/how do I want to start playing with this?
Well, I guess I will dance.
Anything else coming up?
I am asking for a Perfect Simple Solution, to all of this. And the superpower of Everything Is Useful, Including Things That Appear To Be Obstacles.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Calm. Steadiness. Peacefulness. Trust. Composure. Delight. Play. Readiness.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play?
Interviewing slightly-future-me who has already resolved this. Drawing a crown and a heart on my palm. Thinking: Crown. Heart.
What is my clue?
Harmony. It is in my tea.
Anything else?
When do I like invitations? When I am invited to the commissioner’s ball, where I get to be the belle (and the bell!) of the ball….
What else do I want?
Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…
- Everything is getting easier, and oh look, miracles everywhere.
- Regular gigs at the (non-metaphorical) ballroom.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this.
- Past me is a GENIUS.
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii.
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
Solving this wockawock about invitations. I’m playing with: “What is the wockawock? Whose wockawock is it? What opportunities/treasure does this wockawock provide?”
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka I was having this discussion in a taxi heading downtown…
My wish had to do with Graceland and my fishing village, finding grace and glowing love, and boundaries. Exploring this wish has been amazing, and I know it helped me uncover some of my current frustration, which will lead me to…even more grace. And it also helped me do something really important.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked. Thank you, everyone who said amazing things.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
It is my joy (very much joy) to whisper to you about Operation Sustenance (password: fredastaire). This contains everything I will be offering in 2014. Please spread the word so we can meet our Blodgett and distribute treasure!
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large. In any form you like, there’s no one right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw some things in the pot! And, as always, Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
xox
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Love for all of this!
Late last week I commented that the Forschungs Institute for Sustainable Healing speaks to me; this week I want Forschungs (research) into sustainable healing, sustainable health, sustainable happiness.
I just identified one matter that I can research that will bring me closer to sustainable healing, health, and happiness. In fact, it has been in play the last several days, along with fear of missing out.
What do I want?
Safety. Insight. Understanding. Acceptance (by me!) Love. Sovereignty.
Oh, yes … Composure and Delight. Hummmmmmmm!
I have been helping my cousin who has clutter problems similar to mine, only she is trying to be more organized in one-and-a-half rooms in her sister’s house. Whereas I have an entire townhouse of my own to deal with. Naturally it’s lots easier to help her, since it’s her stuff and not mine.
What do I want? To continue to assist her (dee-lightful!) but to also regain some Delight about decluttering my own space.
What else do I want? To remember that it is Winter and in this Season (especially now in the cooooold) the hidden learnings from last year are _supposed_ to be hidden, under the soil and snow, transforming into what will grow in the Spring. So I am needing to think about that (not in a focused way, but in a watchful-waiting sort of way). Composure will be a good thing for that kind of thinking, because I’m having a hard time with the idea of waiting for Spring. Or waiting for anything I want. And this is true even as I postpone working on my own stuff, time after time.
How could these things happen?
I can use Composure and Delight to remind me that now is not too soon to prepare for Rally K, which will be at the breaking (open) of Spring in mid-March.
I will try:
–Using short time with puzzles (1000-piece really hard super-delightful puzzles right now) as reward for doing some serious Rally prep.
–Hanging out in the heart of the F.I.S.H. to maintain Composure (vs. anxiety) for prep work such as deciding: what do I want to do at Rally? what will I plan with my relatives in Seattle the week after? in what condition will I leave the house, clutter-wise and taxes-wise, by the time I leave?
I sometimes think I should not write anywhere else on the internet but here. Because here I cannot annoy myself with advice-giving or thinking that something needs a response (because nearly 100% of the time it does not.)
It is quiet and peaceful here. And I like being able to look up and see the reminders of the culture on the wall.
For a long time I wanted nothing, and therefore there was nothing for me to lose. The danger of having a brain that got fixed and now loves things and wants them (and even gets them) is that it now thinks “now here is something I can lose.” This takes some getting used to. And is practice for even better things that would be terrible to lose, but amazing to have.
What do I want? Everything. And more. And lots of it.
Ooh I am loving this whole collection of words: “What do I want? Everything. And more. And lots of it.”
I support your wanting this! (And I know this sounds ridiculous and I also think I should not write anywhere else on the internet but here!)
Oh my, the story of the clueless sprinter really pushed buttons for me. Once upon a time, I had to deal with people like that. A recipe for burnout, for sure!
Oh, Havi! I have been that clueless sprinter, I am sure, many times in this life…
Love and blessings for all.
Haha Max! I am sure you have not, this was a totally beyond-everything level of being a clueless sprinter. Speaking as someone who regularly cluelessly sprints through most social situations. This was an extreme case that crossed cluelessness into negligence. And indeed, love and blessings for all. That is the important thing.
(2nd reply, because I thought about this more)
Re an entirely different level of Clueless Sprinting …
You know how at Rally when we do the Chicken in the evening there is no right way to chicken, and we can either keep the basic form, change the form or invent a new form?
So say we are at the chicken and you say “I’m Lucinda Camphor Tralaloo, and I’m here to decide what the most beautiful photo of the Taj Mahal is so it can hang in the White House, today I noticed that frogs are important and also that it is okay that I don’t like them, and my project is going to spend the night painting.
And you toss me the schmurphle, and I say, “I’m Felicity Happenstance, and I came here to find tiny secret messages in the floorboards except there aren’t any floorboards so now I need to find them in new places, today I noticed that my monsters were wrong about the effectiveness of naps, and my mission is going to Hilo for the night.
I toss it to Marisa and she says, “I’m the captain and I will silent retreat this chicken!”
She throws to Andy and he says, “I’m Andy, I’m here to learn about rain, today I noticed that I am wrong about everything and that is HILARIOUS, my project is going to sleep in the hammock, or at least my laptop is.”
He throws the schmurphle to CS, who says, “I’m CS and today was annoying and stupid because Havi had lunch with herself and didn’t ask me if I wanted to have lunch with her, and I didn’t come all the way to Rally to not get lunch with Havi, so I think Rally is a giant waste of my time.”
THAT is clueless sprinting.
There are no rules at Rally about how to Chicken. There is a basic possible form, and there is freedom to adjust and play with it in any way you want, to do it or not do it. There is also a clear culture of “we all take responsibility for what we are feeling and experiencing, and everything that happens at rally is part of rally so it is our job to figure out what is useful about it and what our stuff is”.
And in the situation I’m talking about the safety-rules/culture are even more clearly spelled out and more talked about than at rally.
So, you know, extreme stuff. 🙂
Aha! Better than Clues – it’s a Case Study! Full of Facts I can Analyze. And reassurance.
Thank you.
The rest of my ad is in invisible ink.
I hope/wish that my “clueless sprinter episodes” are anomalies in the-other-guy’s life, though I fear they don’t feel so unusual in my own.
I also deeply wish that they aren’t so painful to t-o-g that they feel the need to completely
blow-upchange their way of business, in an attempt to 100% avoid another episode, ever.Today is the perfect day for Wishes. *plants invisible seeds*
“If past-me is still raging about other things, let’s make a safe room for her.” Oh. Right. The Very Simple Solution to the question I forgot I was asking: What do I do with all of this pain!?!?!
Legitimacy.
Safety.
Spaciousness.
Whatever it needs.
I mean, I knew it. But now I KNOW it.
I am rubbing this knowledge into my skin like a salve. I am going to lay down and let it absorb.
<3
Havi! This was beautiful to read — and I realize I never understood VPAs before, and now I do!
Which is totally hysterical, because now, I’m like — what was there to “understand” about them. (??)
Yay 🙂
Haha! Laurie, I love you so much. Also I wrote about you in tomorrow’s post, is that like internet jinx?
I think this phenomenon of “I don’t understand VPAs, wait now I do!” is super common because so many people say this. And I also have this thing where I dread writing them sometimes and then the act of writing about what I want (or don’t want) makes it completely clear what I need. 🙂
Facing a week where boundaries will be necessary and the struggle so W doesn’t take over everything, along with AT. I know, I feel, I see that I need so much practice and study of boundary construction and maintenance. But the monsters are loud and vicious. They inspire as much fear as the collapsed rubble of boundaries past allow. In gratitude for all that you teach, I want to learn to talk with the me that struggles so.
Wonderful wishes for wonderful weeks for all!
So much love for this post. So much love for the metaphor (which fingers wanted to turn into “Petaphor.” I think I like that — a soft friendly thing which lives its own existence apart from you and yet alongside, which comes and keeps you company.) of life as dance, of social situations as dance.
He’s not an @ss — he’s a Clueless Sprinter. Step aside, maybe mention the signs on the wall that reference safety for all, take a deep breath and remember that you are held.
Am exploring social dance (not a metaphor) with my partner (in dance and life) and o! The shifting of patterns. On the dance floor, on the floor of the house, in the floors of my heart. A breath for the dizzy lostness and flailing, a breath for trust that my feet will find themselves once again if I just. Keep. Dancing.
Sending flowers that smell of gratitude and blessings.
Wow. Heart-sigh for you about Clueless Sprinter—and thank you for sharing the story. Reading this post turned me into a lute, and the CS story struck ALL THE CHORDS.
It made me realize, for the first time, just how much I and Whatever-It-Is-I-Do in my business depend upon the Line of Dance. How integral the Line of Dance is to one’s relationship to one’s Right People. So that the folks who have internalized the Line of Dance, who have the index of dance diagrams in their heads, who know the basic steps well enough to keep up in shorthand, can dance at a higher level. And for those who are newer to the studio, the Line of Dance is so clear that they can pick up the basics that much more quickly.
And so when someone cluelessly sprints around, counter to absolutely everything, it is disruptive on so many levels. For me, most of my people really get what I do, so that when I steer the dance slightly, or add new steps to the mix, everyone is pretty much right there with me. But whenever I get someone who just ignores all the signs, bangs through the front door of the studio, plows straight through to where I’m standing, gets all in my face and demands to know why they (translation: I) can’t just do X, Y, or Z instead—well, I end up kind of shattered. (Extra Shatter Points if they also add in some unsolicited advice.) And even though there are SIGNS EVERYWHERE indicating what the Line of Dance is, where the diagram of dance steps is posted, I still feel this anxious need to explain everything AGAIN, myself, from scratch, for the sole benefit of Clueless Sprinter. When they could have just read the freaking signs or taken a glance at the other dancers.
Which is so taxing. And a complete waste of time and breath, because once CS finds out that my Line of Dance is what’s available, and I’m not interested in letting anyone else draw the dance diagrams, CS is just going storm out in a huff anyway. Not sustainable to the dance studio, that’s for sure.
Over time I’ve learned to spot these sprinters the second they bumble through the door. And yet I STILL feel this need to explain, rather than simply point mutely to the signs and smile.
Hmm. So what’s my wish this week? Stronger forcefields? More eye-catching signs? A reminder that Not Everything Requires a Response? All of the above? Things to ponder today.
So thank you for this. Sending you a nosegay, perfectly sized for holding during a graceful waltz.
Mmmmm. Hand on heart sigh for all the facets of this.
I seem to have monsters peeking over my shoulder and hiding in my hair as I write my VPA, which is making things interesting. Here’s the first version:
What do I want? $$$
What could help? ???
What are the qualities? !!!
I’m playing with… ***
Not bad, monsters, but I think I’d like to say a bit more than that.
What do I want?
–Enough money.
[What is enough? Enough is enough. ]
What could help?
–Befriending a badger of my own.
–Finding new ways to get paid for being awesome.
Qualities:
–Safety. Abundance. Peace.
I’m playing with…
–Considering the lilies. No, seriously.
–Remembering that there is no ROI in W.
–Getting *excited* about finding new ways to get paid for being awesome. I mean, like, zing! Pop! Sparkle! BAM!
Update on sparkly stone/sweetness wish of last week: well, sparkly stone is still very sparkly, and enthusiastic, and life is very full of sweetness right now, and the stars are aligning quite providentially at the moment, and this all makes me very happy! (I mean, duuuh! Of course it does!)
Soooo…. yay for the gwishing gwell, and for me, and for sparkly stone, and for sweetness and angels who line things up in hilariously new-age ‘raise your vibration and attract what you want’ ways given it was three days after barring access to anyone less than perfect for me that sparkly stone appeared. Like, my inner cynic is dying of indignation that my inner new-age, energy believing, cheesecloth wearing hippie is grinning like mad because she finds this all perfectly natural and inevitable. Speaking for myself, in between these two characters, I’m just shrugging and rolling with it as long as it stays this fun 🙂
This weeks gwish: sweetness, delight, miracles, yes please, more please, okay thanks bye.