Personal ads. They’re … personal!
♡
Oh, my friends.
Oh, my friends, I have missed you and this space of ours.
And if you are reading here, then I count you among my friends, because something about this space feels full of trust and comfort, and if you want to be here, then I think we would probably be friends, and so we are.
Maybe that’s weird. And maybe it’s not weird at all.
What beautiful wishes.
I love the peacefulness in coming here, the treasure I find in reading everyone’s wishes in the comments, the way we whisper (and sometimes shout) in joy and recognition, “Oh wow, what beautiful wishes!”
And this week I have felt hesitant.
So many beautiful wishes — beautiful and wonderfully terrifying wishes — have been bubbling up inside of me, and I have been dancing around them, not ready to meet them and give voice to them.
The words inside of my words.
It is so funny what I just said, the words which came to me to describe my current situation…
Dancing around my wishes. In fact, many of my wishes are related to dancing.
Not ready to give voice to them. As someone who doesn’t speak, writing is the way I give voice to wishes. Writing and dancing, actually. Waltzing the words into the light.
Bubbling up inside of me. My wishes are also about buoyancy, effervescence, that tingling rising sensation of joyful possibility, and staying connected to that.
Okay, let’s where this goes.
What if we make a list.
I am just going to list all the things bubbling up that I am currently wishing for, including qualities and aspects of the wishes.
And then I would like to investigate my wishes, to ask questions about them, whether here or on my own. For example, “Is this really what I want?” from the OOD caper. Or the very useful question “What’s true and what’s also true?”
What else is needed here in addition to questions?
Spaciousness and permission for all my wishes to exist.
Acknowledgment and legitimacy for all these sweet, beautiful wishes in all of their vulnerability and raw wanting.
Protection and shelter for each tiny, sweet thing.
Yes, those are wishes too. Wishes for the wishes! Wishing for my wishes to be received and welcomed with love and graciousness.
My wishes, right now.
- I want to be okay with my pace of learning. No, more than okay. I want to celebrate my uniquely Havi way of learning, even — especially! — when sometimes in some situations how I learn seems to be much slower than [other people’s expectations or my perception of their expectations]. I want to delight in being a person who learns in the particular way that I learn.
- I want to LOVE spinning. The kind you do in dance, though I am also receptive to loving spinning in the sense of stories, or in the sense of (metaphorically) weaving.
- New dance shoes that feel like home to my feet. Maybe dance boots. And a salve of calm for my monsters who think investing in anything related to dance is very dangerous and will lead to Regret and Doom.
- I want to study with Kemba Shannon!
- I want to release the need to compare myself to other people. To remember that People Vary. To scoop up Tiny Me and whisper to her that she is good.
- I want to let release pain, shame, distress and judgment from all the memories and stories related to Everyone Else Can Figure This Out and for whatever reasons it takes me so much longer to get it. Learning how to swim, to ride a bicycle, to drive, even to blow bubbles with bubblegum. I was sixteen when a bubble-blowing lesson finally got through, and for the next several years I would still sometimes forget how to do it, and have to re-remember. Or the things I never figured out and still can’t do and may never do, like how to do a cartwheel, or how to whistle, or read music, or [things I think I should be able to do].
- There is a project, a secret mission, a thing I dearly want to do, and it costs [not insignificant sum of money that I do not currently have], and I want to discover that I do have the means to do this and didn’t know it, or maybe to discover a creative way to generate this sum, which seems challenging since I am intentionally not working the fields at the moment, but I would like to be surprised with good surprises on this one.
- Easing my way into things instead of either pushing or running away.
- To be the eye of the storm and calmly survey all that I have set into motion.
- The superpower of FIERCE GRATITUDE (I currently feel Fierce Gratitude for this concept, which I got from a Rally friend who got it from Carrie Ann Moss), and a companion superpower to this which I just invented, and I am naming it SWEET COURAGE.
- I want the just-right place to stay in Seattle next weekend while I am on a secret op, and a lovely calm and quiet person who can drive me to my dance workshops and not need anything from me other than gas money and a smile.
- I want to enjoy the hell out of the absolutely terrifying class I just signed up for, and to award myself ten billion sparklepoints for being brave and trying it.
- I want to remember that as someone who is both High Sensation Seeking and Highly Sensitive, it makes sense that I am constantly in a pattern of doing something scary (because it gives me a high, and connects me to FREEDOM!), and then needing to hide for a week (hello, quiet and sweetness and SAFETY). The hiding isn’t a sign that something is wrong with me, and it doesn’t mean I screwed up. It’s just a natural part of the creative process for a Havi. I am feeding both aspects of my being, living the HA and the THA of my life. May I remember this please, and meet myself with love.
- It is okay to want novelty and sparkliness on the one hand, and ease and security on the other. May all the superpowers of Languid Adventuring find their way to me, so that I can be the queen of the slow, beautiful, deliberate crossing of the seas, a wild adventuress who loves a good healing nap, amen.
Anything I’m noticing about my wishes?
They are about permission and love, and permission to deeply love, to be deeply loved.
Once upon a time, back when I was in a relationship with The Spy, I was having a really rough day, a really tough time being me, and I texted him that I had spent the entire day on the couch eating potato chips, failing at life.
And he texted back, “Well, I love you. I love you when you eat potato chips. I love you BECAUSE you eat potato chips.”
And there was this moment of a deeper understanding about what unconditional actually means.
Up until that point it hadn’t occurred to me that there could be something better than someone loving me in this potato chip moment despite the crumbs all over my face, despite my total current lack of ability to interact with the world in any way other than mediating it with salt and tears. But what if I can be fully loved and accepted in that moment. I know, right?
Since then, I have learned about other astonishing forms of love and self-love, and also I learned that sometimes a person can offer unconditional love in some forms or moments and not in others, this is all part of the learning-and-loving of life.
The reason I am telling you about this though is that I wish to be this kind of love-spilling-over person towards myself — towards myself in all (potato-chip-covered) moments, towards all aspects of myself. This is what these wishes are about.
Invitation.
You are invited to share many !!!!!! about my wishes and realizations here, to share anything sparked for you while reading, to say “oh wow, what beautiful wishes” to me and to each other, to wish your own wishes.
Now.
My housemate and I have been releasing furniture from our beautiful home as we move towards getting it ready to rent out. I thought that selling the lovely table by the window nook would make the nook less inviting, but today it was the only place I could write, even though I never write here.
The light is fading. I am thinking about Australia, about rumba, about Paula Abdul, about languid adventuring, and how Fiercely Grateful I am to have this online home where I can bring all my words and share them with you.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: I feel FIERCELY GRATEFUL about everything, and especially about you getting to this point where you are ready to love how you learn.
Me: Well, I feel FIERCELY GRATEFUL about you, and having you as my ally and companion in all of this.
Ze: I wouldn’t do this adventure with anyone else, babe.
Clues.
I was starting to feel anxious about all these big changes going on with the house, and then my lover started asking very technical questions in his calm, grounded way, and suddenly I could really feel what it would be like for me once these changes happened.
I felt bubbly and hopeful, and then the song Bring Me Sunshine came on.
The superpower of this is a badass way to live.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and now July is LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
This is a badass way to live.
Meeting myself as I am, in this moment, with as much love as I can stand. And if in a certain moment it is too hard for me to love myself or even like myself, then meeting that with love and with presence.
There is nothing more badass than that.
Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week aka Quarters…
I made a wish about new quarters for me and this is happening, and also I made a wish about looking at time in a new way, and now I have the best secret op ever for the next quarter, assuming I figure out how to finance it, but I feel very hopeful about it, even though there is no reason that I am aware of to feel hopeful about it, I just do.
Thank you, process of writing about wishes. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company! Or just say hi!
You can deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads, superpowers, qualities, seeds, secret agent code, whatever you’d like, there’s no right way! Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is sharing anything sparked for you.
Comment culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play and throw things in the pot! With amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
Here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: Oh, wow. What beautiful wishes.
xox
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love this space, too.
What I would like to do right now is to go to bed asking myself what my wishes are, and then I would like to wake up and write, and see what answers float to the surface, and then I would like to come back here and Report. So, that is what I am going to do. <3
Mmmm sleep is so wonderful for wishes. I love going to bed with the wish to know about my wishes. May everything be revealed overnight! <3
<3
What landed in my mind as I began to wake up this morning was Sovereignty, Safety, Stretching. As I woke a little more and asked myself to say a little more about that, I found myself creating a sort of variant on the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the safety not to have to do the things I don't want to do, the stretching to enjoy the things I do want to do, and the sovereignty to know the difference.
Hmm. Something like that, anyway.
Also, I was thinking this morning, as I was writing, about how much my morning pages mean to me, and how deeply I want to nurture and protect them. My life is about to get busier than it has been — really, the transition has already begun — and I very much wish to preserve a sense of spaciousness, and for me, the morning pages are a part of that. May it be so.
How beautiful!
Ohmygod that is like, a THOUSAND times better than the serenity prayer. I love this!
~ o)~ {happy pebble of YES!!!}
Thank you for being so brave with all these fierce new wishes!!
I’d never heard of Kemba Shannon, but because of you, I’ve watched her Dance Reel video. What energy, what charisma, what joy in dance! I hope you get to study with her.
Going through my own rounds of (Trying to) Learn to Love How I Learn, now that I’ve recently realized I’m autistic. Suddenly it makes sense that I have a lot of trouble… learning dance moves, or physically following someone’s lead. (Remembering how to get on an escalator without losing some toes. The list goes on.)
Here’s to taking up audacious new challenges!
Escalators: me too. It’s like each time I am completely baffled by how they work, as if everything I have previously figured out about escalators is gone. Phew.
my fear of escalators has remained in place despite many well-meaning attempts to help me “practice” and “understand” better. solidarity!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some things I want:
* Safe journey past landmines
* The right new space for my sweetie’s shop
* Solutions to tech issues
* To regain bike-riding confidence
Warm wishes to all y’all.
Such beautiful wishes. Many !!!!! for bravely wishing.
I have a wish about pens (the kind you write with).
This wish I have is, to be done with pens that have run out of ink. I would like to thank them for their lifetime of writing & doodling services, and then not put them back in my purse/drawer/desk. I would like to dispose of them (I originally wrote “throw them out” but that feels glitchy and icky), either way I would like to no longer hold onto them.
This wish is a wish about pens, and also about many things that are not pens. Like a proxy, that is also not a proxy at all.
And thank you for this wishing space (and 7! years of chickening space). It is beautiful.
Can I just say THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!
And also, let’s take a moment to say THE EFFING CARTWHEELS!!! All the other kids could do the EFFING CARTWHEELS except for me and I felt like an idiot, and there is still pain there.
Though not as much pain as “not being able to read music”. I love music, and I have an excellent musical ear, and I wanted to play the piano when I was little, but I couldn’t learn because I couldn’t get the “reading music” part. Tons of pain from then!
Oh, and I still can’t whistle. So, thank you for saying these things out loud.
And I shall make the wish of “being ok with how I learn”. Because yeah!
A third for whistling and for cartwheels. I also cannot wink, though I’ve cultivated a sexy blink.
I WANT A SEXY BLINK! We need to arrange a blinking practice.
I also cannot whistle, even though I play the flute. It’s a well known fact that every flutist ever is great at whistling, except apparently I am the only one ever who can’t figure it out.
I have never been able to do cartwheels or blow bubbles with bubblegum either. hahaha It turns out these are not actually critical life skills after the age of twelve though. Whew!
Oh wow another flute player who can’t whistle! Solidarity!
(And also with the cartwheels and bubbles, ugh.)
Such beautiful wishes, so much love for this.
That ha-tha idea, about being sensation seeking and then safety-seeking revealed huge volumes of how I work, and why I assume I’m doing it wrong! So much loving permission, seriously I am floored about how much I just released reading that.
So many things come bubbling up:
– Operation Feather Fan – a tiny sweet vulnerable lil thing, as I reclaim my love of dancing and push towards a lifelong but deeply conflicted, conflicting and SCARY thing that involves (among other things) outsider syndrome and omg I’m not as pretty/sexy/talented as the other Girls. High stakes, lots of monsters. But I go to class and try to make ti to the end without the torture narratives going off. Just making thru class, and keeping finding the next clas, was a stretch goal
In dancing I have been gaining access to lots of intel, lots of epiphanies, plus I feel better and I’m having fun. But while I’m dancing I’m also accessing [wooo] and safety is very important. This week I morphed into Paloma Lopez, star Flamenco dancer from Spain, whose injuries and spy-capers have derailed her performance career and now she is reclaiming that part–slowly, listening to her body so as not to re-injure herself, with ‘safety first’ as our mantra. This is an Investigation, but going in Disguise was helpful
ICT: Journaling about and getting to know Paloma, going to dance at least once a week, keeping up my other movement (fractals). Buy a pair of keds
Other things in the pot:
-I’m a dancer because I dance, I’m a writer because I write
-I know what to do next. NExt Steps are evident
-I wished for more women friends and they are showing up
-I scaled down expenses in prep for new classes and back to school for the kids, and that’s working fine
-I wanted to clean up the diet and that’s working
– I wanted an end to going to the Pound and playing with friendly Dawgs, and it wasn’t easy but it happened. As much as I may enjoy friendly dawgs they aren’t mine, and it felt like more inauthenticity when whast I really want is REAL INTIMACY. Learning this is solid intel, and has made it easier for me to move past things I did because I felt I had no other options.
– between my Bosun, my Rutter, and Wizard School, I’m learning good things and doing things I really wanted to do
I am so tired.
I am so tired of living in other peoples’ spaces, in places that aren’t safe, in places that don’t fit me well and that I can’t make beautiful in the way that I need to.
I wish for a place for me, a place that is safe
that is comfortable
that is beautiful
that is mine.
Beautiful wishes for you, Kate!
(and similar wishes for me…) Hugs!
May we all find that safe place that’s ours!
!!!!!!
What beautiful wishes!
I wish for a peaceful end to my constant striving to live up to others’ expectations.
I wish for a complete dissolution of the thought that others’ expectations are important to my life. May it dissolve into sparkles and shimmers.
I wish for ease and joy in planning a roadtrip with my sister.
I wish for epiphanies around what it means to truly treasure myself.
I wish for a beautiful space to call my own. And I wish for it to be near the ocean. (I’m whispering that so my monsters don’t throw a hissy fit.)
!!!!
beautiful
“to be the eye of the storm and calmly survey all that I have set in motion” – omg yes me too. I am in the middle of lifechanging decision-making/action-taking (but isn’t everybody in every moment, really?) and I very much wish not to be in freak-out mode about it all the damn time.
I love this place, too.
I wish for yeses.
I read a poem this week that I felt needed to be left at the Fluent Self
“The Dream Keeper”
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
–Langston Hughes
Leaving virtual blue cloud-cloth here, for any tiny sweet wishes that need protection…
~ 0 ~
Wow. It’s a beautiful wish city. What fascinates me about wishes is that they’re coming from where we can’t see. They’re from the opposite end of the process to stories, which is what our story-teller brain-bit makes out of what’s happened in an attempt to hold our sense of ourselves together. This is useful but the stories have to be let go of when I’m sensing my wishes or the stories distort my insights.
This week I wish for joy and delight in the drive for self-expansion that I have. A few years ago, when I heard about the high sensitivity and high stimulation seeking theory it made so much sense of my life and let me let go of a heap of stories about What’s Wrong With Me. (I bought the book from a rejected library book sale. Then I fainted, being too shy to just sit down on the floor when I’d got dizzy waiting in line. I got taken away in an ambulance and was let out again just in time to perform at a poetry reading. It was a theory I was well ready for.) Time after time I drag myself towards things because they’re that special kind of scary, while gripping hold of heavy furniture in stubborn resistance.
What if I choose to find joy in this? How boring would my life be without it? How amazing is it to still find things that attract and terrify me, after all these years of living? How lucky am I to be able to recognise what will grow me? How grateful am I that I head often towards these things now, rather than drink, make up stories about why not, and check the oven is off ten times before I can leave the house?
I wish to choose to delight in my drive to go beyond my known edges. Choosing makes the delighting something I consciously switch into. I hope this makes recognising what I want simpler, too.
Was recommended to this site by a friend this morning and whoosh! almost the whole day has gone by exploring. Inspired by the playful energy and now full of ideas and energy for making my own wishes come true. Love to all…