Me: Hallloooo? Who doesn’t want to write this post? Is it the topic? Or is it that you don’t want me to write any posts?
Voice: What’s The Point.
Me: Oh, there you are, constantly-discouraged me.
Voice: Don’t call me that.
Me: What do you want to be called?
Voice: The Truth Forever And Ever!
Me: No, really. What do you want to be called that I might actually call you?
Voice: HUNGRY! FEED ME!
Me: Oh. Come on, distractor mouse. I understand if you don’t want to give a name. I still want to know who I’m dealing with.
Voice: What’s The Point.
What is true?
Me: Okay, WTP. What’s true about your position?
WTP: There is no damn point. Blah, blah, write a post. No one flipping cares. Why are you wasting your time? What’s the point.
Me: So if there’s no point and it doesn’t matter either way, it’s kind of interesting that you’re so invested in stopping me. If it doesn’t matter, what’s it to you if I write the post anyway? What’s your interest in this?
WTP: I love you. I want you to thrive. Writing posts is not thriving.
Me: Interesting. What is thriving to you? Tell me about thriving.
WTP: You should be doing what you need to do.
Me: And what’s that?
WTP: Building XXXXXXXXXXX. That’s where your passion is. Anything else takes away from it.
What is true?
Me: And you don’t see any connection between that and writing? Isn’t writing how I process things? And also: yesterday when I *was* working on XXXXXXXXXXX, didn’t you also have a lot of What’s-the-pointing to say about that?
WTP: What’s the point.
Me: What do you need? What would help you feel safe and supported?
WTP: I want you to be happy.
Me: Is that your mission?
WTP: Yes.
Supporting the mission.
Me: Well, I support that mission. And I want to help. I’m still not clear on how regularly saying What’s The Point helps with that mission.
WTP: Just trying to keep on track.
Me: Keep on track?
WTP: There’s a track.
Me: Here’s the interesting part, for me. In my experience, when you say What’s The Point, I get derailed. So then I’m NOT on track.
WTP: Interruption is important.
Interruption is important.
Me: Of course interruption is important. I agree with you. That’s what the post we were writing was about. About pushing the reset button. Taking time out. It’s just that there are different kinds of interruption, like…
WTP (interrupting): NO THERE IS NOT. WHAT’S THE POINT. WHAT’S THE POINT.
Me: You know at a Roller Derby bout how everything changes after a time-out?
WTP: Yeah. Everything is better.
Me: Yup. The girls get back into their force fields. They find their flow.
WTP: That’s also why it’s good to call the jam off even in a power jam situation if you’re getting stuck behind the pack, just to kind of reset things. Start fresh.
Scared.
Me: Exactly! So during that time out, it’s the job of the bench coach to help the skaters push the reset button. To help them get back out on the track and change things up. Do you think the coach calls a time out to say What’s The Point.
WTP: No.
Me: We know what happens when skaters go into What’s The Point mode.
WTP: Like at Regionals. It’s no good. You gotta keep trying! You gotta keep moving!
Me: Right. You take time out to give legitimacy to the frustration and pain, and then you refocus and try something new.
WTP: Totally!
Me: So how come you keep saying What’s The Point?
WTP: I’m so scared.
I can’t stop you.
Me: Oh! Tell me what you are scared about.
WTP: That you will love too much. You love your business too much. You love Shiva Nata too much. You love all of it too much. I want you to not care so much so you won’t get hurt.
Me: Oh. Oh, sweetheart. That is a hard burden to walk around with. All that worry.
WTP: What’s The Point. Worrying is stupid. I should stop worrying.
Me: If only it worked that way. I worry too. It’s okay. Worry is normal.
WTP: So you’re saying that I can’t stop you.
Me: If what you want is to help me remember to pause (paws!), then I would like that kind of stopping. An encouraging kind of stopping, though.
Kidding.
WTP: Like YOU GO GIRL!
Me: Uh, no.
WTP: Kidding. Kidding. I would never say that.
Me: Good.
WTP: What about something like Time Out, Please!
Me: Works for me!
And there were sandwiches for everyone.
And there were sandwiches for everyone.
Sandwiches!
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A former co-worker used to spin long meandering yarns with hidden moral messages instead of just coming out and saying – well, anything. And she only had about 5 stories to cycle through. I had a dream about her once that was just me yelling “WHAT’S THE POINT? WHAT’S THE POINT? WHAT’S THE POINT? WHAT’S THE POINT? WHAT’S THE POINT?”
(Great post, thanks as always.)
Hmmmmm. Love the dialogue
I am having a biiiig strooong WTP voice in my head these days.
Some moments, friends show up to encourage me a tiny bit.
Or I see something, watch something, hear something to alleviate the feeling of WTP !
Other moments, WTP is there the entire time.
And I am tired of fighting.
So WTP gets to be here for a while.
But please invoke your superpowers for the good WTP !!
xx
I love how those sad-sack, slippery, distracting, depressing monsters are really trying to love us just as hard as they can. **groan** THANKS monsters…
Havi, the grown-up-ness of your interviewing, self-enquiring, curious process is something I aspire to and am learning to cultivate in myself. The honesty, generosity and courage you show in modelling the process like this definitely has a point.
Just sayin.
I’m doing avocado with lemon and black pepper on grainy, sourdough rye. Sandwiches!
And if you ever decide to shift your focus from the destuckification and biggification business to XXXXXX then please know that the entire world has become more powerful to carry out the old mission to the power of every reader you’ve ever had, to the power of every person every reader has the potential to come in contact with.
If XXXXXXX becomes the focus, then it will be up to the rest of us to draw on what we’ve internalised from the blog and everything else you currently teach and pay it forward.
So it’s going to be okay when XXXXXXX becomes the focus. Enough has been done.
(If that’s something that worries you. Again, just sayin.)
I wish you well!
Got the stingy little tear-pricks of Truth when you came to the worry part, the fraid of love-too-much part. Then the chuckle of Truth with WTP of worrying.
All these voices seem so tenacious, don’t they? I know mine are. They go through hell and high water, come out dripping and charred and still pipe up and say their things. Again.
And I want to hear, this way that you do, too.
WTP is so brave to love you SO MUCH just as if too much wasn’t possible….
Oh, so grateful for you and this and every post. Precious beyond rubies.
What’s The Point has been living in my head for so long I can’t remember when she wasn’t there.
This post is what I needed to hear.
Thank you.
And I would like a goat cheese and fig sammich on cinnamon raisin bread please 🙂
Awesome post, thank you. For me, there is SO much point in all your posts because they always seem to describe my problems better than I could and then show me a different way of looking at them.
Wow, Havi. Just wow.
You touch so many people with your posts, you help so many of us, and there is STILL a constantly discouraged you who is all “What’s the Point?”
Lately I have been feeling particularly ineffective. It’s not all in my head, but… the discouragement and sense of hopeless is. Reading this inspires me to have a talk with my selves about my situation.
A friend of mine used to say, “There’s room for improvement, but the door is locked.” You give us a key. Thank you.
Me again. Up all night because of My Situation.
Anyway.
I just did a long dialog with Hopeless Self and Selfless Self, with interjections from Historical Self and Hopeful Self and Wiser Self and a couple of Selves that were not identified.
It was hard work. Exhausting.
And now I’m going to make a toasted cheese sandwich for all of us.
YES. Sandwiches for everyone!
Finding the right name for the monsters has been very hard for me….what are those monsters REALLY about? What are they REALLY trying to protect me from? Scary stuff.
I get the WTP blues more regularly than I’d like to admit. Your dialogue was really helpful. Hearing the vulnerability but then the hope…important to me today as my monsters just about took over the house last night (they dominated my nightmare the night before, and they’re still peeking out from behind the recurring memories of my dream. I wonder, can dreams cause PTSD?).
I needed this display of courage today.
Mmmmmm.
Also, Claire P, your sandwich – oh wow! (I like avocados. A lot.)
What’s The Point collaborated with me in making this comment. Give ’em a wave, WTP!
Oh god, Havi, have I ever had this WTP guy hanging around me too lately!!! I really appreciate being able to read your conversation with yours. Mine also has a bag-full of worries. Of course. xo
I was just having the What’s the Point discussion with my financial coach yesterday.
My own WTP has multiple guises. There’s the Sleep Demon, who just wants to be still and hide from everything. Then there’s the one that has a racing heartbeat and says, “nononononono you can’t you can’t you can’t!” I’m interacting with that one right now. We’re going to make a little list, very gentle and tangible, and we’re going through it step by step, with internal hugs and sparklepoints for each step.
And then there will be sandwiches. Grilled Swiss cheese on rye, perhaps.
Oh pirate queen. I love YOU too much.
Thank you always. Delicious sandwiches.
Incredible. I get stuck in WTP quicksand so easily and this was just crazy helpful to me, I can’t even begin to articulate how helpful it was. Between your posts and my Shiva Nata practice, it’s like fireworks going off in my head burning up the patterns.
It’s so hard to remember sometimes that WTP & other monsters are really just afraid of me getting hurt. Helpful to recall.
At first I got a bit jealous of the sandwiches, I’m temporarily on an elimination diet doing gluten free. Hmm, but now I suppose I can find some lovely gluten free bread and have a sandwich. Especially since Claire’s got me curious about an avocado & lemon & black pepper sandwich now.
I’ve been noticing that in my mind What’s the Point hangs out with Because You’ll Never. I tend to think they like to torment me, but maybe…just maybe…they’re scared because they don’t want me to get hurt. Still trying to let that sink in.