Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these Visions of Possibility and Anticipation 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 aspects of the ask. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: Fractal Flowers
Here’s what I want:
The technique/concept of fractal flowers is when you work on one thing and you let it secretly work on all the other things. Or you trust that doing X is somehow related to doing Y.
For example, writing the weekly VPAs right now is going to help me with all my projects for this week. I don’t know how yet but it will. Maybe it will show me something. Maybe it will serve as conscious entry. Maybe I’ll find a clew or access a quality. Maybe I won’t ever know how.
The point is, fractal flowers change my approach. Writing these isn’t taking me away from the other projects, it is working on them. Just under the surface.
Anyway, this week is an astoundingly busy week: Stompopolis projects, Floop projects, preparing to take two weeks off to go to the Vicarage, and the class on TIME which is this Thursday.
I have 7 missions that are all in flux.
So. Fractal flowers, please. Each thing I do helps all the other things! And I can feel it… slowly at first and then with more and more clarity and delight.
The qualities inside of the want:
Spontaneity, Serendipity, Flow, Magic, Surprises, Receptivity, Plenty, Spaciousness, Containment, Safety, Steadiness, Reassurance, Faith, Hope.
Ways this might work:
I don’t know. But that’s the whole point of fractal flowers: I don’t need to know.
I’m playing with…
Trust, trust and more trust.
And being as playful about this as I can, when I can.
Thing 2: Operation SECRET FLOWERS.
Here’s what I want:
This is kind of related to the fractal flowers but it’s more overtly related to my proxy mission from my Crossing the Line retreat, where I pretended that I was at the Crossing to study why flowers make everything better.
So now I know why flowers make everything better, and my new focus is on secret flowers secretly making things better. Things that function like flowers but they are not actually flowers.
For example, a pedicure is a form of secret flowers: it provides pleasure and color and beauty and comfort. With elements of ritual. Also the part where you look down and remember: specialness!
Similarly, it seems (to my monsters) like an Unnecessary Extravagance but it can also be transformational and part of a bigger process.
Another form of secret flowers (for me) is a bath bomb. Monsters don’t even like me writing about this. Girly! Extravagant! Stupid! We might have to rename it. But it’s a secret flower because scent and newness and sensual pleasure.
And because, much like flowers, it changes the bigger experience.
Anyway, I think this ask right now is mostly about investigating secret flowers, learning more about them and finding out what this mission is all about.
The qualities inside of the want:
Pleasure. Delight. Surprise. Smiling. Radiance. Resonance. Quiet. Peacefulness. Marveling. Softness. Wonder. Steadiness. Change.
Ways this might work:
There is a version of Incoming Me who excels at this. She is crazy good at this secret flowers thing. She finds it fun.
She knows how to plant things. And to set it up.
She is always smiling a secret smile about all the secret flowers.
So I think I’m going to ask her for some tips.
I’m playing with…
Smiling every time I see a flower or an image/representation of a flower, or even a bag of flour…. YES.
Thing 3: Something about sleep.
Here’s what I want:
So I don’t know if you guys remember this but last January I stopped sleeping.
Still not sure why, but that’s what happened.
I’d go to bed, and then suddenly wake up at 2am, fully awake.
It was awful. Every day was zombie day.
Anyway, it’s happening again but it’s different. Mainly because last year I just HATED it, and suffered. But this year I don’t seem to mind.
I want deep, restful sleep. And I want to continue to be okay with waking up early if it keeps happening. To stay committed to rejuvenation, in a variety of forms.
The qualities inside of the want:
Rest. Comfort. Peacefulness. Curiosity. Discovery. Trust. Rhythm. Reassurance. Resetting. Readiness.
Ways this might work:
I want to take a look at some Past Januaries of my life.
I definitely remember that the awful insomnia during my first year of university in Tel Aviv was in the winter.
Is this a thing that happens at this time? Something for the Almanac in the Book of Me?
And what do I want to change about January and my relationship to January, and/or about sleep and my relationship with sleep? Investigating.
I’m playing with…
Conducting (it’s code!) before bed.
Continuing with all the de-cobwebbing I’ve been doing.
Noticings about the things I want this week…
Time and space, of course. And it seems like reassurance is really important to me right now. Mmmm.
Bonus wishes, please!
Some of these are secret agent code and some of them are things I’m silent retreat-ing on. Some are qualities that will help. And some are almost pre-wishes: tiny seeds for future processing.
- Fun words.
- Marisa as my neighbor?!
- Operation G.O.O.D.W.I.L.L.
- Operation Luscious Curtains.
- Finalizing the design for the new business cards.
- A solemn promise.
- Decide about January 2014.
- Watches and watches.
- Stompitty yay!
- Friday.
- On this night we dip twice? Dip dip dip dip dip dip dip dip dip. Just watch me.
- Playing a different kind of game.
- Letting beauty be its own reason.
I’m playing with…
Paying attention. Taking it to the Conducting Vault. Pauses.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted to come up with a way of keeping track of special ops, and I figured out how. It’s a combination of the Floop, the Paperless app and the Red Rose Missives.
Next I wanted to open the doors of the Dolphin Adoption Agency to the public, and I did! There is still some work to be done there so I’m re-planting the ask, but the main thing was DOLPHINS, and dolphins are happening. Yay.
Then I was working on Operation Milliner, which was rewriting and editing the highly-charged and very subversive fifty page bonus ebook for the Time Class (there’s also a lot of swearing in it, I should tell you right now). And that is done! Sending it out today, I hope.
And I can’t remember what any of the bonus wishes were about, but they sound awesome. I hope they are all sparkling away, doing marvelous things. Maybe they are their own fractal and/or secret flowers. 🙂
Playing. Shelter for the comments.
What’s welcome: Your own wishes, gwishes, visions and personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like. Things sparked for your own process.
I’m receptive to warm wishes for the things I’m working on and playing with.
We ask for what we need, and we give each other space and spaciousness for the process.
This is a place of safety for creative play and exploration, with a very non-dogmatic approach. We don’t tell each other how to ask for things and we don’t give unsolicited advice. We play.
That’s it. Let’s throw a bunch of things in the pot!
As always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
Follow
I am playing with finding things to paint everywhere. What do I want to paint. Painting when I’m not painting!!!
Wishes: More art supplies to arrive by surprise!!!
Bath bombs. Yes. You just reminded me I need to head to LUSH to get some more because I’m down to my last one. Pure magic.
woohoo for bath bombs! double woohoo for LUSH’s Rose Jam Bubbleroon. and triple woohoo for my naturopath, who wrote me the prescription: practice self-care with a fancy bath. repeat often.
Here’s what I want:
Boundary
The qualities inside of the want:
separateness. identity. limit. containment. boldness. safety. sovereignty. permission. protection. ownership. responsibility. clarity. detachment. nourishing.
Ways this might work:
Putting it here. Asking the me who already knows about boundaries to come to the front of the V. Tea parties with monsters, my best negotiators and my favorite box of crayons. Wearing the costume.
I’m playing with eight points:
Boldness
Ownership
Unwavering
Nourishing
Division
Autonomy
Responsibility
Yearned-for
warm wishes for everyone’s visions <3
Secret Flowers!! Things that are secretly flowers, flower like, flower qualities. oh, yes, more of those please!
VPAing backwards, because that’s how I’m playing today:
Bonus wishes:
* my bank to reassign the money it spends on junk mail to something more productive
* permission to splurge on cool stamps before the price increase
* acceptances
Progress report:
* new jeans fit
* sneaking in some studying
Noticings:
* How skittish I am when I lack clues. (Example: phone messages that don’t mention why I’m supposed to call someone back)
* How little I trust the future, even though then is not now and now is not back then.
Silent retreat on the things. I’m playing with stickers and grids and rewriting a bedtime story. Warm wishes to all.
The big thing I’m noticing this week is just how tingly-excited I am for the class on TIME! Is this what conscious entry/anticipation/preparedness looks and feels like? Because I like it.
I feel like there are a lot of qualities out there, wanting to form themselves into VPAs. But I think I’ll need to silent retreat on most of them for now, because I think they’re taking a silent retreat from *me* at the moment. Spending some time thinking about why that may be. Maybe they’re planting seeds for Future Me! Maybe they know that if they wait until the right time, I’ll be able to recognize that time as the right time. Percolating on that a bit, and doing my best to trust it.
A few wishes I can name, though:
• Cross that finish line! It’s so, so close.
• Lay the preliminary breadcrumbs for the literal and metaphorical journey that’s coming up. Sketch out a path to follow, or at least to have in mind as I wander.
• Keep building on this nice, tiny snowball of momentum I have going. I like this feeling.
• Body. Body, body, body. Listen, nurture, feed.
• Maintenance ain’t just for cars. Remember chapter one of the Book of Me: feeling like I’m buried is an awful feeling, and turns everything into a zombie version of itself. This time of year finds me as close to open and clear-headed and clean-slatey as it’s possible to get; observe this state, and maybe the noticings will help maintain it.
I’m playing with all of these things, and with saying yes to myself more often. Already finding that I’m more productive with just a little “yes,” instead of all this “no” I’m used to.
Until Thursday! Happy Monday and good gwishes to all!
Havi, the being-okay-with-waking-up-early thing reminds me of a piece of family lore, that my great-grandmother would wake up really early (like 3-4am), and because she hated to let time go to waste, she would get up and work in the garden. In the dark, at 3-4am. The neighbors thought she was crazy, but the garden was gorgeous and the roses were always perfectly trimmed. 🙂
My Gwishes for This Week:
– A peaceful return to Aikido class, without fuss, teasing, or a reaggravation of my neck problem.
– Effectiveness without ucky side effects from the new treatment we’re trying for my probably-endometriosis-but-we-aren’t-sure.
– Ease and enthusiasm around [need a name for sorting things in preparation for moving in a few months].
– Ease and success around one aspect of the move I should find out about this week.
Warm wishes for the Time Class. Excited.
All the flower talk sparked this:
Picture bobbing to music in a Liquid Flow class. The best exercise: we got to dance as if we were a blossoming flower, reaching up, opening up, THEN adding a scent! I highly recommend dancing a scent. Dazzling.
I want to be in the flow (like in the know, but even better)! Sometimes I find ways around it.
Ways this could work:
I could be the flow or the hose giving the flow boundaries. I will be so in the flow, I won’t notice (until next chicken). No one will remember all the weeks of no flow. Low-flow will also be accepted. (Think green!) Things get done because I do them because it just comes out of me.
I’m playing with:
+noticing and giving space to any feeling, even if it doesn’t seem like it will lead to flow
+Shiva Nata. Yeah, I think I’ve been avoiding it because it is what I need.
+more yoga
+tea
+habitual doer in the front of the V (yay positive addictions and thank you, Danielle)
Patience
+not grabbing doors that are opening automatically anyway
Warm wishes for visions!
I had a vision about 7 year cycles – how I was in the wrong apt for 7 years, and then found the right one. How I was with the wrong man for 7 years, and then cut all ties (so many ties, a lot of cutting to cut myself loose). And now it’s time for the career to change, and this body I’ve been hiding in. They’ve hit their 7 years. And I’m ready. I’m so ready.
I can feel it in the 3am awakenings, the hermitting (which autocorrected to Hermit Ring, picture what ring a hermit would wear), the shutting down before the breathing again.
Like in yoga when I couldn’t do forearm balance and then one day I could. And now I can. That is how it changes. The struggle and work is done, I’m ready to fly.
I read somewhere a while back that it is perfectly normal to wake up and do something for a bit in the middle of the night, and in fact, people used to do it before electricity was common. People would just get up and think, do chores, visit, or read if they could find enough light to do it by. It’s called biphasic sleep if anyone is interested.
Updates from last week:
I asked for progress on the Big Hairy Pattern (BHP?) that’s cropped up for me, and have made some. It’s going to take some time for a real solution to make itself known, but I’m happy with a little bit of progress and understanding. Yay trucks!
I asked for costumery, and haven’t moved very far on that. But I’m noticing that I need to have some monster conversations about Unnecessary Extravagance before that’s going to go very far, so I’ll leave that next to the wishing well until I’m ready for it.
And I asked for reminders for keeping myself healthy, and then managed to spend the whole week stressing about it anyways. Not fun. But because it made me so unhappy, I made an appointment for a flu shot. Because last week, I forgot that I could do that.
Bonus Updates – stuff I didn’t even ask for that dropped in anyways.
I have now determined that PLAY stands for Providing Laughter and Amusement for You. Not sure what I’m going to do with it now that it’s here, but I’m sure I’ll find something.
This week:
Thing 1 – Permission to investigate my relationship with Time. Soooo tired of having this scarcity-based relationship with Time, hoping we can meet somewhere else this year.
What I’m willing to do:
Color some monsters
Flail
Write about it
Thing 2 – Ways to integrate P.L.A.Y. into Things that Need Doing, which will support Thing 1. If I can make my current obligations more playful, perhaps Time won’t feel so scarce.
What I’m willing to do:
???????
Okay, I’ve got a VPA that is fractal, secret, and perfect for a Toozday.
Here’s what I want: Operation REBOOT!
The qualities inside this want: Empowerment. Play. Trust. Renewal.
Ways this could work: I declare it! I stand up and claim it. I change my place, and change my luck. I do small things differently and with great love.
I’m playing with: A brand new journal. Expanding my repertoire. Fractal flowers. Superpowers.
Robert Moss, in The Secret History of Dreaming, writes about biphasic sleep.
Ever since I started going through menopause (earlier than I expected to), my sleep patterns have changed. I often stay up until 2-4 a.m., but somehow most mornings, I wake up unprompted precisely at 9:40 a.m.
I’ve been wondering if I might experiment with biphasic sleep, but then add naps back in.
Anyway, I use “entanglement (in a quantum physics sense)” where Havi uses “fractal flowers”, but I really like the mental image. May have to adopt that.
Gwishes:
pain management for my workweek
massage this week!
releasing another layer of old shame
an epiphany or two
good coffee creamer
happier feet
small pockets of restfulness hidden throughout my week when i need them most
daily brain training games
more yummy teas
time for yoga
texts with friends
waving my magic wand for all the gwishes and visions.
Yay swearing! Can’t wait. And yay subversiveness!
I also get insomniac in winter, a few years running now. For me I think it is the dryness of the air with heat–usually coincides with heat coming on. I hate fussing w humidifiers, so I usually just take loads of melatonin or remove another sleep stressor. One December I moved bed away from where I deduced downstairs neighbors’ wifi thingee was and that fixed it.
Or who knows maybe the longer nights create the biphasic effect. I have a greater chance sleeping 8 hours if I go to bed late.
My VPA:
Rest rest rest and ease this week. The scorpionic total focus was successful but exhausting and now it is time for Taurus diffuse awareness comfort and don’t touch my stuff (aka sovereignty? )
Happiness, clarity, fun surprises
Transition time and unclear time are okay, not stressful
More treasures from my am and pm prayer book/journals
More clarity on routine
Happy easy long term shift to healing and Silent Retreat
Movement toward groundedness and building the right long term structure
Wishing everyone a peaceful wonderful week
What I want: to RECEIVE and be VERY VERY HAPPY about the blög header and the dresses.
Qualities: Acknowledgement, gorgeousness, investing-in-self, investing-in-thing, gratitude, support, joy, beauty.
Ways it could work: It probably will! My part is breathing and waiting for it. It might feel more fun if I whisper “wait for it … wait for it …” ?
I will mess around with: not-checking for delivery. Oh, and picking up the book delivery as a training round of acknowledging an investment in support with gratitude and joy!
***
What I want: to shift the phone pattern further. Right now I’m at “ohhh, I don’t actually have LFP about phone calls, I just think I do”. I want to become the version of me who is phone-LFP-free and knows it.
Qualities: Freedom, sovereignty, confidence, openness, approachability, knowing what I want, communication.
Ways it could work: By magic. By Floop magic.
I will mess around with: Looking at my phone and picturing it being a happy, colorful, fun, crazy, devoted assistant helping me reach out with magic all over the world.
***
Bonus visions:
The one where I feel rested.
The one where I remember: there is no blame.
The one where I am impervious to students’ fucking around.
The one where the Impossible Wish comes true and I write and play and take care of the kiddo All The Time!
***
blows kisses into the ground, to travel through the invisible channels linking all fluent selves, and come up to touch you right when you need it.
I am playing with consistency – doing something towards my wishes every day.
This is an area that I have had difficulty with in the past, so I simply want to ensure I do ONE thing. Every day. Towards one goal.
My monsters are yelling all kinds of things about how I’ve failed at this before. So, I think it’s time to go talk to my monsters a bit. . .
I just got an Asa kiss — right when I needed it! It’s also a secret flower, and I’m smiling at it!
Planting my seeds:
Spring
Crowning
Silent Retreat
Uncertainty
Flight
Portal
Abundance
Singing
Queens
Lusciousness
Dance
all the love to all of you!
xo
Yes, flowers all the time, all different kinds! Two huge clews I got about the nature of 2013 were:
-what do we know about white flowers? it’s an Investigation
-beauty brings its own value.
Noticings:
-not Exiting the Day so well lately. would like to Exit the day more consciously
-for all the places in Operation Natasha where i’m not moving forward, I felt pretty hot today, and isnt that hwat ON is about?
gwishes:
-Snowflakes!
-garden plans
-Black Madonna project, progress on this. VEry high priority
-i’ve relaunched my little Sloop. Lots of stuff around this: keeping the ship’s log, keeping watch, mending sail.
-Embarking on my landmark course and on the YEAR
-connecting with other Ship’s Mice on the YEAR
My commitment: keeping breathing and humming, keep journaling and of course doijg my morning practice. I never succeed at making New Years resolutions, so keeping the goals small and reachable at first is imprtnt.