Me: I wanna sandwich! Sandwich!
Inquisitive and loving me, who might also be a fairy godmother: That seems like a reasonable thing to want. If I could wave my magic wand and get you one this very instant, would you take it?
Me: Yes! But I want it with pickles. And cheese! But … actually I really want the essence of sandwich, of having someone make it for me. Being cared for. Being given something warm and happy-making. So I guess if you’re waving the wand, I want half a sandwich, a pickle and to feel cared for and loved.
The yes-but is where all the useful information is. Always. Yay, caveats.
Once you bring out the wand, you find out what you really want.
Me: I want twenty five lovely people at the Shiva Nata teacher training.
Inquisitive and loving me: And if I could wave my magic wand and make that happen right away, would you take it?
Me: Of course, but then we’d also have to get more yoga blocks and more cushions, and more zombie apocalypse juice glasses, and if the training keeps growing beyond that we’ll need a bigger space. So I want 25 people and the resources to handle it. Hmm. I guess I need to map out what this entails and how it might work.
Like that.
I’m always looking for the yes-and.
The yes-and. The yes-but. I look for the caveats. Because that’s where desire gets both simple and complicated.
The I want it but I want it like this.
That’s where the real information is hiding. Everything that’s helpful about what you really want and need.
One of my clients: Can we work on getting me ten new coaching clients?
Me: Absolutely. So, if I waved my wand and ten new coaching clients showed up right now, would you take them?
Client: Mmm. Maybe. I mean, yes. Of course I would. But. You know, assuming that they’re the kind of people I like to work with, and they pay on time, and I still have time for my kid, and this is kind of freaking me out.
So then we know.
We know that it’s not the time to work on how we’re going to get ten more clients. At least not directly.
It’s time to set up systems in the business to ensure that this woman gets paid in advance. It’s time to make sure the copy she writes speaks to people that she adores working with. And to set up boundaries, buffers and rituals of spaciousness in her day so that her business supports her life instead of taking giant bites out of it.
Mmm. Sandwich! I may be slightly obsessed.
That’s what we work on in the hard.
But it’s not enough.
We have to work in the soft too. Because (saying this for the thirty seven millionth time), there is no biggification without destuckification.
In the soft, it might be time to talk to some monsters, do some negotiating and invent some metaphors. To head to the safe rooms.
To create safety. To invoke curiosity and play. To do what needs to be done so that we can get to the point of the unequivocal YES.
The YES of wanting.
The caveats are useful. They tell us that we aren’t at the yes.
And everything in the way of the yes is both extremely important and extremely individual (because People Vary).
There might be old painful stuff my client is dealing with about not good enough yet or what if I’ll never be ready or I don’t belong here. Probably some anxiety about growth and sustainability, and the usual fear-of-success brigade.
We don’t have to deal with it directly. We can play at the edges. We can work on all of this in sneaky and unlikely ways.
But whatever we do, we’re going to make sure that she gets clients in a way that means she’ll actually want them and be delighted about having them. Because that’s where the real work is. In whatever is hiding underneath the desire.
The main point here. Or one of them.
The thing about magic wand is that all of its power is in acknowledgment.
It doesn’t say, “You shouldn’t want that.” It doesn’t say, “That’s not what you really need.”
The wand says: “The thing you want is legitimate. So. Is that what you want? Tell me more about how you want what you want. Tell me more about the essence and qualities of what you want.”
Wanting is one of the scary, scary things. It brings up all of our pain and past experiences of hurt, grief and loss.
And, as we know from the Very Personal Ads, it is invariably conflicted.
The wand is a way in.
This unpacking-the-wanting is part of what happens at Rally (Rally!).
Not that we have wands. We totally have wands. But we play with possibility. We recognize that committing to a project is saying YES to desire, and that this means it’s going to be a little crazy for a while.
Last night we began Rally. Rally #9! And today, everyone is going to accidentally discover what their walls are. The yes-buts. The yes-ands. The what-ifs.
There will be hiding in the Refueling Station and eating of pretzel sticks and flailing the flail to find out what the patterns are.
There will be secret post-it notes and stone skipping and calling silent retreat!
Today is the day that I will find out what I want about what I want. And what needs to happen for me to feel comfortable wanting it. And that’s scary and hard.
So sparklepoints for me. And for everyone asking these hard questions.
And comment zen for today.
I sometimes think there is no topic as hard or challenging as desire.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process, and sometimes that process is kind of a pain in the ass.
So we make room for other people to have their own experience, and we don’t give each other advice.
And we ask lots of questions. If you want to play (with big or small wants), I have a magic wand. So if you could have the thing, would you take it?
If there’s anything other than an enthusiastic YES, what changes/qualities/understandings would help you get to there?
Collect the caveats. Love the caveats.
p.s. Thanks to Carolyn for the magic wand question, which I use about six hundred times a day.
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I want to know what I really really want. The Thing that’s hiding under all the doing, the taking care of others, the little goals and projects.
BUT.
I think I’m afraid to find put because four times I found a Thing and it completely re-made my life. Like (the easy one to explain) when I went back to college to finish my B.A. and ended up in grad school in another town, with completely different goals and plans.
If I find a new exciting challenging life-changing thing, it might take me — lure me — away from the things I have/want/need now.
I need something life-changing that will only change part of my life. While leaving open the possibility of more change later.
I really appreciate this post. Maybe examining the caveats will help me find my way to the Thing and define it in a way that isn’t overwhelming and scary.
Hmmm.
I’ll be at the June rally (knock on wood). If I’m still stuck on this question, it will be my Rally Prrroject.
um.
would it possible to see what these “zombie apocalypse juice glasses” look like?
like, are they in case the apocalypse actually happens, or are they to ward it off?
as someone who suffers from a mild case of “zombiephobia”, these sorts of things matter to me.
after all, it *is* zombie awareness month you know.
the “zombie research society” told me so. (just google that.)
i wish i had brought my magic wand with me.
it’s packed in a box, in my parents basement, across the ocean.
that was clearly an oversight!
and @vickyb, i’m totally with you. i THINK i know what i really, really want, but i’m not actually working towards getting it. knowing what you want and then moving towards it can be very scary indeed, cause it can lead to the land of i-dont-know.
I come out of lurkerdom to direct everyone’s attention to this, which struck me as (a) very The-Fluent-Self and (b) particularly apropos today.
http://blog.workisnotajob.com/post/182232044/i-love-you-future
This. THIS!
Nice one! This is actually how I approached the why-am-I-not-in-a-relationship-if-I-want-it-so-much question lately. I looked at the yes-but and saw that I had so many fears related to this. Of course, talking to the fears (a.k.a monsters) made them much nicer and less scary 🙂
Anyway, the Magic Wand approach is great! Thanks 🙂
Okay. A beginning. A tip of an iceberg. Followed by sandwiches and sparklepoints. And possibly spaghetti.
If I were to wave my magic wand and give you your PhD, would you take it?
What, you mean right now? Without the worries and the what-ifs and the money? I could be done at last? Yes!
But.
I don’t think I want to work at a university. I definitely don’t want a full-time, tenure-track, traditional professorship. I don’t want to deal with the politics. I want to be working for myself.
In fact, I don’t want to have to do anything with this degree except say “Yay! I did it!” and hang the diploma on my wall and smile when people call me Dr. Kat. I want to keep right on being a singer, a player, a writer, an actor. A therapist, yes. A teacher? A guide? Perhaps, in some ways, in some contexts. But I need to be an artist.
I don’t want to have to wear a suit.
Now, about that spaghetti…
Hmm, so if the magic fairy waved the magic wand and someone who wants to kiss me was standing in front of me wanting to kiss me would I kiss him? Yes. But, I’d want more. I’d want love or the possibility of love. And I’d want openness and safety and fun and connection. And the kiss. And lots more kisses after that.
Ooh, I can tell this will be a fun game to play with lots of things!
lovely. thank you so much.
I want to be as delighted and excited to be talking about my Mojo class the day the early bird price ends as I am today revamping my web page and getting excited about how much better I can say what I do and why it’s so cool than I could last fall.
If a fairy waved her wand, and I had that, would I have it? Would I still want it?
Yes — and I would also want it to be ok for me to feel differently. To be tired because I’d done so much sharing and reaching out. To be sad because that’s a familiar visitor who comes around sometimes when I am enrolling. To be thinking about the next thing I market.
What I really want is my full range of feelings, and to be fully alive in this process called marketing, and to not get stuck in sad, or hard, or not enough, or any of the other hard feelings that come up when I enroll something. Not to not feel them, but to experience many other colors and feelings as well.
Cool, I could get used to this.
Ooh — what a useful magic wand! So much to learn from “I want.”
@ Lisa – COOL WEBPAGE
@ Kathleen – YES. Yes it’s like that with a Ph.D. – wanting it and not wanting it. Because WHAT IF one has a PhD? People will think things ! And expect things ! Like smartness. Uh-oh.
THE WAND
What if… a magic wand gave me my PhD exchange to a lovely place tomorrow? Would I want it ?
Yes. But. 🙂
I would want the professor there to be helpful and wonderful and healing. I would want help with the moving. I would never want to come back here but I would want a way to stay in touch with people.
hm. there is more work to do there
xxx
Scene 1 – behind the black curtain of Oz.
My new co-worker of 2 1/2 months is either finding excuses of not coming to work – or at work – working on everything BUT what she is getting paid to accomplish. In meetings WHO DARE QUESTION SHE !!!! Me – big mop in hand cleaning the messes up.
What do I want ? To throw the bucket of water on her and watch her melt. Or maybe pay the fly’n monkeys to take her far far far away.
Yes BUT ? It isn’t in my nature to see people fail. I am the tin man with the heart. Maybe the house could just land on her toe –
Yes ? ok none of that works either. I am still stuck with double the work load and her getting the credit for all my extra effort. Where is the exit in this Witch’s Castle ?
So what do you really want ? I want all the credit for my hard work “my pretty” !
Yes BUT ? Ok even getting all the credit won’t make me happy- I am still tired and exhausted – look at my straw – it is such a mess. Oh such lovely lovely poppies !
And ? I really want to click my heels and go home. Sweet sweet home.
So what do you really want ? My free time back – to skip leisurely along the yellow brick road. Awwww look a rainbow.
Thank you Havi for the use of your wand 🙂
This is completely brilliant and I love it.
Wow, sometimes I get so immersed in Kitchentableland that I completely forget that The Fluent Self has been the cause of some of the best (bing) moments of my life. Which could makes my life sound kind of dull except, NOT! Because everyone knows bing is anything but dull.
Now suddenly I can get on with my day and listing what I really want, because I have the yes, but.
Yay!
Kisses!