Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these VPAs to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, even when asking feels conflicted.
I always get useful information about my relationship with various aspect of what I want. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: a mirror.
Here’s what I want:
All my journaling at Rally (Rally!) this past week ended up circling back to this symbol or image of a mirror.
A large mirror with a gorgeous frame. You know, an overly-complicated-and-curlicued gilt frame.
This is something that is so not my style and yet here it is, and I want one. I’m going to put it in my much-neglected Pirate Queen Quarters at the Playground.
Ways this could work:
A trip to one of Portland’s many fabulous vintage stores.
A surprising and unlikely sale (a garage sale? somewhere in the neighborhood?).
One of my local readers knows of one or has one?
I don’t know.
My commitment.
To stay receptive to a wide variety of ways for this to work out.
To do the work in the soft — on my own stuck/fears/monsters related to this want.
To sing it a little song.
Thing 2: Input and decisions about Rally schwag and specialty items.
Here’s what I want:
We’ve been looking into new things to use as Rally schwag and to have for sale in the Playground’s Toy Shop.
So far we have the extra-cheery orange Playground mugs and the stickers.
We are currently working on super secret destuckifying card sets, and I can’t decide what’s next.
We want everything we make to be: cheerful, playful, silly, fun and infused with the delight that is Rallying.
Possible things?
Calendars for next year with pictures of different Playground nooks and crannies, and some illustrations too.
Silly beermats. Hoodies. Bags. Playground notepads with the Jolly Selma or the crazy Playground flag. Scribble-books for the stone-skipping exercises.
Ways this could work:
I can flail on it, of course.
And solicit input from the Kitchen Table mice.
I can ask you guys for ideas and preferences and support. And put up a question at the Frolicsome Bar as well.
My commitment.
To stay curious. To imagine what would be the most fun.
To run around the Playground with my magic wand and my popsicle stick permission slips and see what happens.
Thing 3: Clarity.
Here’s what I want:
Oh so many decisions to be made this coming week. Some overwhelming and some tiny.
I would like to just know.
Or if not that, I would like little inklings of the right way. Or if not that, I would like to be able to trust that whatever I try is useful.
Ways this could work:
Practice practice practice.
Write about it, dance on it, break out the magic markers and the construction paper.
My commitment.
I know that whatever I’m wrong about is useful.
And I am receptive to perfect, simple, solutions.
Thing 4: A happy meeting.
Here’s what I want:
I’m meeting with one of my Playground neighbors this week.
Here’s my gwish:
That we laugh together and enjoy our talk, in a peaceful, curious, warm environment.
I would like us to be able to find creative solutions to what might be a potential challenge, and I’d like this to happen in a quiet, easy, simple way.
Ways this could work:
Obviously I can NVC it.
But you know what? I’d really just like to be able to show up and play, knowing that we can put our heads together and come up with something more beautiful than either one of us could alone.
My commitment.
To talk to any sad, scared selves beforehand. To make sure my fuzzball monsters have enough mashed potatoes in their safe room. To bring the most sovereign me to the front of the V.
To really be present for this. And to assume good things. Not that there wouldn’t be. But to assume.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Let’s see. I wanted to make big progress on the PLUM (the Playground User Manual), and that totally happened.
The next ask was about other binder-ey things, which is cracking me up right now, because I’d meant something specific but actually this past week of Rally ended up giving birth to all sorts of new binders that I hadn’t known about yet.
Like the Chickenalmanacomatic. Yes.
Then I’d wanted closings, and progress on that. Not sure. Something is moving there, but this needs more love and attention.
And finally, I wanted to plan my next vacation. And I haven’t. But I did stick a sheet on the wall for my imaginary Chief Holiday Officer to put up a proposal. And that’s a start.
Comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for. Or updates on last time!
Stuff I’d rather not have:
The word “manifest”. To be told how I should be asking for things. To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given unsolicited advice.
Much love for your gwishes! So happy to have you doing this with me.
p.s. A chag purim sameach to everyone who celebrates.
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Happy happy gwishing my darling’s!
Gwish gwish gweeeeeeesh!
Things I want:
Ease, delight, joy, calm at work
Ways this could work
Magic – it just does!
Chakra meditation yumminess continues to do its wonderful thing
Noticing that I tend to look for the bad, seeing if I can release that expectation a little more or TOTALLY!
More gwishes
Finding new ways to trust and be patient around working in ze cubicle and recognising I need to do more joyful things which are not DIRECTLY related to my creativity and yearning to create a biz – like body work, like cooking, chores etc.
Trusting that the universe has plans for me. The main thing is enjoying now, now, now cos I can carry that with me anywhere!
Ways this could work:
Magiccccccc!
Maintaining an open, curious, self reflexive position.
Using Guy Henricks technique which goes: Hmmmmm I wonder if I could trust that everything will happen in the perfect time and way? Hmmmm I wonder if I could consider that everything happens just as it is meant to?
Gwisywishy
Open to finding connections with creativity and ease
Ways this could…
Allowing meditation to do its stuff
Inviting trust to be present
Comfort for the bits of non trust that linger
Trying out the Guy Hendricks Hmmmm technique! (He almost certainly doesnt call it that!)
Final gwish
More congruence between heart and head re the man situation.
Ways this could work….
Noticing….how big my heart is in the eye of the storm and luxuriating in this energy.
Remembering just how far I have come.
Meditation, eft, energy doo dars
Very uncomplicated technique which goes. PLace hand on heart: I am lucky, I am blessed, everything happens for a reason.
Leila – I loved reading your gwishes – so open and inspiring. 🙂
Yet again, I seem to have completely forgotten what I asked for last week. Moving on to this week.
VPa the first. Sovereignity dealing with a particularly stressful and difficult issue at work that involves standing up for myself in new and rather frightening ways. I want to stay in myself, state what I need to.
How this could work:
– grounding
– remembering that this isn’t an exam
– follow my gut
My commitment:
– allowing myself to find this scary and hard
– realising that this brings up many a hard pattern, so notice when it’s stuff from now and when it’s stuff from then
– it’s ok to need comfort and reassurance
VPA the second: Clarity! What do I want? Or, rather, what do I want but am too scared to admit to myself and other people?
How this could work:
– journalling
– dancing
– giving it a safe space to appear
– reminding myself that it’s ok to want what I want, and ok to feel scared and freaked out about it being ok.
My commitment:
– noticing the patterns, the details
– taking care of myself
– talking to the resistence
– being open to possibilites I haven’t thought of yet
VPA the third – I want to find an attractive, affordable collapsible table.
How this could work:
– recommendation
– I could stumble across it
– internet search
My commitment:
– Even if I find this, I will probably have a lot of resistence to buying it. Look at the pattern.
And the last one: Last week was super stressful, and I have a feeling that this week is going to be to. I want a sense of ease, of seeing ways around the walls and the stuck that I hadn’t noticed, of finding the pockets of calm.
How this could happen:
– awareness, being on the look-out
– not prejudging how this might happen
– it just could
– considering trusting that these qualities are here somewhere
My commitment:
– be open to the possiblities (is this a theme for the week…interesting…everything seems to be linked in to this)
– be open to the possibility that I can create this, I don’t have to wait to find or be given it
Interesting to see how these work themselves out…
Thing 1: My brother’s gwish: “being paid to be a hermit”.
He wants to live deep in the woods and work on his own with plants and trees. I told him I’d put it out there.
Thing 2: an easy way to get rid of crap.
There’s stuff that is no good to anyone, that has been stuck in the attic or garage or basement, has been excavated, and now needs to be gotten rid of.
A lot of good things can’t happen until that stuff stops taking up space: e.g. building the stained glass work area in the garage for my husband.
Ways this could happen:
One of those guys with a pickup who advertise in the paper
The city or the ward I live in could have a ward cleanup day. Or the neighborhood association could have a smaller one and get a great big dumpster that we could haul stuff to.
Waste disposal company could start letting people rent small dumpsters for a week instead of requiring a year’s contract. (I’m more likely to find a way to compost plastic. But, still.)
The neighborhood association could work something out with the waste disposal people so that members of the association could use one for a week or two; some issues about transporting the dumpster would have to be worked out.
The magic cleanup elves could whisk through and take care of it.
Thing 1: vacation
I’m going to New York next weekend! I have a whole bunch of gwishes about the trip being: relaxing, restorative, fun, productive, recharging, creativity-inducing. I want to believe in these gwishes enough to research lovely things for future-me to do that are conductive to those results, but without building them up into guilt and expectation and omg-you-fail-if-you-don’t-come-back-with-hundreds-of-new-ideas.
Ways: Ask my NYC friends for tips. Think lovingly about Slightly Future Me and ask her for advice. Pull up a chair and have a chat with a monster or two. Bring silly things like colored pencils and snacks. Remember fractal flowers and resting.
Thing 2: website
I decided to switch up my website, and I need some friends who’ve been helping me with hosting to set up some redirects and such. So I want that to happen smoothly and without technical crisis, or at least to have patience while the changes happen.
Ways: I’ve already contacted the people in question, so I think it’s mainly out of my hands unless they need something from me. To have patience, well! I can busy myself with completely unrelated things, or consider the waiting period a “grace period” to sneakily refine the new site without anyone looking over my shoulder.
VPA #29
Update on last week!:
Figured out gwishes. I now have a Gwish Station that’s set up inside a mini-Christmas on a shelf, and it has a bunch of small, decorated present boxes (’cause what else is getting a gwish like but a Christmas present?) that I can slip notes and baubles into.
Still working on the other one – third week – but getting LOTS of breakthroughs. Threes are lucky, so carrying that one over to this week…
Thing 1: A speedy recovery
What I would like: I spent all of Friday night throwing up. All of it. And I can feel it.
Ways this could happen:
It just could.
I have no idea.
My commitment:
To do my best to eat and drink enough.
To get light exercise.
To not abuse myself.
Thing 2: Understanding a pattern
What I would like: To know why I push myself to pain when I know it stunts my recovery.
Ways this could happen:
Bing! Epiphany! (Brought on by labyrinths or SN of course. )
I could bring attention to it (like this!)
It just could.
My commitment:
To do.
To look.
To not judge.
wishing that everyone’s gwishes happen in the easiest, simplest, most surprisingly delicious ways that delight and entice you to gwish some more.
xox
*shy wave* Hi, everyone. Delurking at last! 🙂
Starting small with just one VPA…
What I’d like: A strategy or new pattern, to help me get the things done I want to get done, without feeling like a to-do list full of “should”. A compromise between supporting structure and direction, and freedom/creativity/openness. I had a to-do list, then I started calling it an agenda, a schedule, a daily list, then a wishlist, then a gwishlist. I even made it sparkly! But it still feels so heavy! Not the lightness and joy I need.
Ways this could happen:
A Shivanautical moment of bing
Finding the gentle courage to experiment without berating myself for failures
Suggestions from other smart people
My commitment:
To be genuine about my desire to do the things on my lists – I know they make me happy when they’re done!
To observe my patterns without judgment
To be willing to try strange or unconventional ideas that come my way
Chag Purim sameach to you too!
Again I say BUBBLES! Because bubbles remain the best swag ever.
There are a few things going on that I would like, but this one thing I really need:
To carry the ease and letting go I feel right now into the new week and to not feel guilty if the ease is gone.
This could work, by doing yoga when I feel like losing it, or just magically my head not turning on.
I commit to fullfilling the needs as they turn up and to being present and observant without analyzing it further.
My gwish:
For patience and strength as it appears that our second search in 15 months has again failed to yield a viable candidate for the director position. This academic hiring stuff is unlike anything I ever encountered in the business world. While I shouldn’t be surprised that the search failed since we knew both candidates had some serious flaws in their applications, it still depresses me greatly to know that I have to shoulder the burden of keeping things running for at least another 16-17 months. I’ve already been carrying this burden for 15 months.
Ways this could work:
Setting boundaries on my personal time. Using my paid time off without feeling guilty about it. Giving a little less than my normal 150% effort (can you say “overachiever”?).
My commitment:
To retain hope that the right match for the job will appear in the future.
I’ve been having a heck of a time allowing myself to ask for things lately, but I do have an update on a previous VPA: I finally got myself a new soap dish. It’s shaped like a leaf, and it makes me smile.
Happy spring!
popping in to put a vote in for destuckifying card sets!
Gwishes! Or VPAs…but I like the pink rain boots better.
Gwish!
For the perfect office solution. I will return in four short weeks to some already-lined-up clients (yay!) and no office. the emergency option is to go to them in their homes. But it is a Bad option. So I gwish for the perfect office solution: it costs very little until I’m out of the fieldwork portion of the class and into paid practice. It is light and spacious and mine full time, and it is moderately soundproof, and it is reasonably priced in a way that won’t make me hyperventilate.
Ways this could work: That One Guy in town could have a room and we could work something out; the perfect space could come available and I could hear about it by grapevine, we could find the perfect thing to build on the second lot.
Gwish!
For clients. More of them! I have this super awesome skillset of coaching and massage therapy and the fusion is SO powerful. But I will also just massage, if that is what people would like.
Ways this could work: I will tell everyone I’m giving them away for the first sixty slots, although some are already taken. I can call or email specific people that I think will have friends who want them. I can tell osteopaths and acupuncturists and stuff. I can give them away to osteopaths and acupuncturists. I can pick the brain of other MTs that I know.
Gwish!
For ease, spaciousness, smoothness, and low stress around the April conference.
Momentum Con is coming! I’m speaking. I’m excited. And I’m flying from Europe for just the weekend. The universe has conspired to make this possible. I gwish for seamless travel magic and inspiration and ease around the actual presentation and at least one unexpectedly wonderful thing about the conference itself.
may everyone else have gwishy ease in the coming week.
I apparently placed no VPA last week. Or I placed it only in my head. There was much sighing, and probably a collapse on a fainting couch.
The week before that I wanted movement and resolution. So I moved, and lobbed a few balls across the net whose return I am now waiting, prepared.
I also wanted yoga and fun, both of which I got, often at the same time.
I committed to clean the kitchen, get the mail and do the yoga. This evening I cleaned the kitchen (and the whole apartment), opened all the mail that had been gotten over the week (and wrote down all the lovely people to whom I need to send money for providing me with amazing services), and did the yoga today. Heart shining, muscle building yoga (as compared to yesterday’s nursing home yoga.)
This week I want my open shining heart to start to find a home. To start to have the possibility of a home where it rests and can love and be loved. I commit to keeping my heart open. And keeping my apartment in a condition such that I would be ok with someone coming over.
I also want higher urdva danurasanas, actual headstands and consistent pincha mayurasanas. My commitment – work on my quad stretches, keeping my shoulders blades on my back, my core strength and going to class.
I also want to continue losing weight. Which means preparing lunches and dinners that are within my plan, and not eating an entire loaf of bread in 2 days. With butter.
And Leela’s post reminded me that I want a massage.
Hello all, this is my first VPA and I am late to the party, as always! Rather than get very anxious about “doing it right” I am just going to post the first 3 things I can think of and get better next week.
1. I want to feel less sad and anxious after a very difficult week, family-wise.
My commitment- to stop worrying myself into the ground, to be in bed by 9pm three nights this week. To be kind to myself in every way I can. To do as little as possible as I can and appreciate that my body and mind are in recovery mode now. To eat slowly and kindly and simply.
2. Money, money, money. I just haven’t got enough to meet my needs.
This could be resolved by getting a new, better job, or some part time work coming through. I gwish that one of my scripts is picked up for squillions and squillions and then I can just write all day. I gwish, I gwish!
My commitment- to keep my eyes open for new opportunities.
3. An end to the Play With No Resolution!
An ending could pop into my head without any effort
I could read through my writing guides for inspiration
I could talk it through with my beloved to get more ideas on board.
My commitment- to be up early 4 days this week and write before leaving the house.
And done! Feels very good 🙂
First off, Ren’s Gwish station made me smile inside – both for the concept of putting gwishes in the presents and for the use of the word BAUBLES! Awesome.
Oh, and in terms of Playground Shwag – bubbles sound awesome (and much like baubles), and if there was an assortment of Destuckifying Teas I would completely lose it. In a good way, of course. 🙂 Like, a few of your favorite tea flavors in bags with cool names like “Emergency Calming Chai” or “Procrastination Dissolve-O-Sencha”.The tag could even feature a brain candy technique that you could explore while you’re enjoying a moment with a cup of tea.
My VPA:
More balance in terms of work, studies, me-time, sleep and family – mostly so that the effort put in the first one doesn’t equal or exceed the rest of them, as has been happening.
Ways it could happen: I could work on the whole being-irreplaceable-at-work -mindset. I could give myself permission to focus on me instead of being useful all the time.
My commitment: to remind myself that keeping myself sane, happy and rested is not just a means to the end of a more productive me, but an end in itself.
What I would like this week…
1. For my sister in law to start opening to receiving help, even from unexpected places. That my brother and the girls can find what they need during a Very Hard Time. To be clear about my capacity when thinking/talking about how I can help. To be open to the possibility that maybe somehow someday maybe today I will be able to honour my capacity without carrying around truckloads of guilt and judgement about how much more and bigger and more focussed and organised and BETTER my capacity should be. To be open to my capaciy being more than I think it is….
2. To keep up the mindful, conscious self observation and detectivating even through the bits that are uncomfortable. That is, to pause (paws!) when an observation makes me uncomfortable and redirect the enquiry to Why. To write stuff down on paper where I remember it better in the day to day. To keep a meta-map going so I can get back to the point I was pursuing in the first place when the rabbit-holes showed up. Maybe a system of coloured pens because I do so love anything colour coded… #joyofstationery
3. To honour and defend my boundaries around the visual reminders I want to leave myself but I’m afraid will be belittled and derided. To wear my sovereignty crown, ride my lovely sovereignty horse and OWN my kingdom. To be SO freaking sovereign that I can perceive any actions that might otherwise be understood as belittling or deriding as coping techniques of someone who is feeling confused/frightened/?threatened?. To apply compassion in such situations. To have the Pirate Queen’s magic power of that stuff just not even showing up around her after all. That would be nice. To KNOW that my life is my life, to live it up, love it up, and make the most of it… #shivanautical visions of chrysalis? egg? cracking open to rapidly growing and unfurling ??dragon? wings…. Laaahhhrrrrllll.. X
Regarding the mirror: I live in PA now, but used to live in Portland. One of my bestest friends out there is the ultimate ninja deal-finder of cool things. I’m going to ask her if I can send you her way. Best part: she works in your neighborhood!
And, my very first VPA.
What I want: I would very much like some internal peace. When I try to ask myself what I want most or need most or should do first, I get the mental equivalent of 15 to 20 voices all talking on top of each other, earnestly clamoring and getting right up in my personal space. It makes me want to flap my hands at them and scrunch up my face and go escape onto the Internet for a few hours.
There’s fear there, that I could make the wrong choice, or (how timely is your spy post?) that I won’t like the answers that come, or that if I sort out all the voices all I will hear is criticism and disappointment.
Ways this could work: Meditating, doing without thinking (going by my gut), writing it all down to get it out of my head.
My commitment: To rest more. To count even the small things as progress. To do an inventory of my own V and figure out who needs to move up front.
Phew! Way to start small, Sus.
This is a very short comment to say ooh, ooh, pick hoodies, please! Inside a hood is my own little world, and so they help me do my thing.
An OM Shanty Shanty hoodie gwish-ed!
Ooo, I have a suggestion for Playground swag or at least decorations (telling you about this was a previous unpublished VPA):
Elli Groninger (Crash and Burn Metal Art) makes the *cutest* painted monsters out of recycled metal. You can get them on a hanger, or with a magnet to put on your refrigerator or on something magnetic on your wall.
Here’s her Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/elligroninger
…one of the selections shows her display at the recent Baltimore Craft Fair —
http://www.etsy.com/listing/66045958/display-for-alternate-craft-section-of
They’re all sizes, even though these links show mostly the larger ones. I was squealing and bouncing up and down at the Fair trying to decide which one to get. Elli gave me an extra little monster for the Playground(!), will bring it when I come out there (at the Week of Destuckification or the September Rally).
Regarding my #1…. DER… Maybe if I can drop the guilt I will find that I have TRUCKLOADS more capacity for other, more useful, stuff. #bing
Oh, doing VPA’s is hard. I did an unposted one a few weeks back and it worked so I thought I’d try a posted one.
What I want is for the humorous mystery novel about a talking Chihuahua that I wrote with my friend Curt to find the best possible home so it can be enjoyed by thousands of readers.
Ways this could happen: One or more of the publishers who are supposed to be reading it right now could realize how wonderful it is and offer to publish it.
Our wonderful agent could send it out to more publishers until the book meets someone who will love it.
We would publish it ourselves as an e-book or a POD book.
My commitment: patience, recognizing that this will happen, just maybe not as fast as I want, confidence.
Just writing that I feel better. Seems totally doable.
I’ll try a harder VPA next week.
In terms of Rally schwag, I need those destuckifying cards. I could probably come up with a cool calendar with only fun holidays on it (and lots of them) using photos Playground participants contribute (or perhaps featured monsters). I LOVE making calendars.
Update:
1) Thanks to Kat for the suggestion about renaming fellowships–something now brewing on that.
2) After spending a week writing with Hortense & Bertha (my avoidance and anxiety monsters, respectively), I’m starting to like them. Weird. But very cool.
Me again, re: the mirror. My ninja deal-finder friend in Portland said she would be happy to try and help you. Her name is JJ, and she owns Digs Inside & Out, at 1829 NE Alberta. Here’s the web site: http://digs-pdx.com/
Good luck!