From my journal. About three weeks ago — shortly before the Rally (Rally!).
This was right when I was getting ready to write the HAT (Havi Announces a Thing) page for my Week of Biggification program this November.
And I knew I needed some mental and emotional preparation for this. So I decided to a) claim sanctuary in a blanket fort and b) talk to the person who knows how to write the copy, and also to the person who doesn’t want me to write it.*
* Yes, both of those people are me.
Anyway, it’s somewhat bizarre. No big surpise there. But useful.
And we begin.
It’s me from now. And the me who has issues and is scared, carrying all sorts of stuff from the past. She is … still in the past somehow. Past me.
I look around. We’re in a cave.
It is mostly round, with a remarkably high ceiling and four small shafts or openings in it that allow for light. The air is cool.
The ground is covered in thick layers of woven rugs that seem to have been casually thrown on top of one another but make for a floor that’s comfortable and stable.
There are candles. And a fat fireplace in a rounded corner, like a New Mexico adobe.
The messengers.
We have messengers. Apparently.
They’re kind of like royal assistants.
One brings us each glasses filled with mint leaves and a pitcher of hot water to pour over them. Another brings us plates of dates and figs.
Somehow we’ve moved from New Mexico seamlessly to the middle east, and I am equally happy in both. Edge of desert to edge of desert. I like the edge of the desert.
Me from then needs reassurances.
Me: It looks like you’re hurting. Tell us what you need.
Past Me: Need?
Me: I don’t know. What would give you comfort?
Past Me: I am so worried. So many worries! You can’t possibly want to hear them.
Me: Oh, sweetie. Of course I do. Anything that concerns you concerns me.
Past Me: But I need to know that my worries are legitimate. And they’re so tangled and intertwined I can’t keep track of them, it’s a neverending litany. And I’m so afraid you won’t like me anymore.
Me: Honestly? No one is judging you for having worries. You have lots of experience with things that give reason for worry. It is perfectly acceptable that you would have worrries based on that experience.
I don’t promise to take on your worries, but I respect your your experience, and appreciate you for being you. I mean, for being me.
The litany of worries. Here it is.
Past Me: So far you haven’t really made money at any of your live events and at most of them you’ve lost money, and you’ve spent crazy amounts of time working on them and planning and recovering from them, and that’s not even factored into the losses.
So it’s really like you’re not just losing money but losing everything.
But you can’t charge more because it’s already too much, and [A-lister friend] said she’d never charge more than what she does for X, even though she also makes no money on that event.
And by the time you factor in travel + car rental + hotel + staff time + reading applications + email back and forth + copying flyers + itinerary + creating the schedule and so on and so forth, you aren’t getting paid for the content or the actual time teaching.
But there’s pressure to fill the event, and pay the Inn. So many ways you can lose money on this! I don’t even know why you’d want this headache and heartache again.
Me: You’ve experienced a lot of headache and heartache, and you want to prevent a situation where that happens to me too.
Past Me: Yes!
Past me gets to help and give advice.
Me: I appreciate that. Thank you. You are very sweet. I also want to avoid headache and heartache. If you can help me plan effectively to avoid those, I would appreciate any advice you can give.
Past Me: Okay!
Me: You sound really cheerful.
Past Me: I didn’t think you were going to ask for my help. But now I have lots of ideas! If I’d known it would HELP you, I wouldn’t have minded all that pain so much. Helping!
Me: Alright. How can we avoid headache and heartache? Give me advice.
Her first piece of advice: everyone needs to pay in advance.
Past Me: At the Destuckification retreat, someone decided not to come. And didn’t even tell you she was canceling until it started. So you’d already paid for her room and food, and then you had to negotiate with her. Unpleasant.
It’s August now. People come in November. Three months. You need a higher deposit so you can pay the Inn from the participants tuition.
Otherwise it’s not a healthy, sustainable supportive way to run things, and it doesn’t help you do your best work.
Me: Got it.
Her second piece of advice. Calculate in EVERYTHING.
Past Me: Including your time. And the time of everyone who works for you. And the time you have spent so far finding the place and negotiating, which is close to 30 hours.
Not to mention the cost to your business of not working for a week, plus recovery time. You lose three weeks to each big event.
Obviously it ends up being like seven million dollars per person and you won’t actually charge that, but at least you’ll know what they’re getting and the copy can reflect that.
This may take time but it doesn’t matter. Everything!
Not just food, lodging and renting the space. Tissues! Gifts and swag! Photocopies! Worksheets. Staff tips. Whatever the center charges for serving water and whiteboard rental. Hiring consultants.
And write a blog post about how you calculate it and how you sit with the price until you get resonance. So they know what they’re paying is in a sense a symbolic price.
Her third piece of advice. Minimal payment options = less agony.
Past Me: Either your people pay everything at once (by paypal or check and get a bonus something) or they can do three monthly payments. Do not end up with fifteen options.
Last time your staff spent months negotiating payment options and invoices with a different set-up for every participant. Stressful!
Remind people to note which credit card they use because that’s the one that gets charged. And triple-check the email reminder system because last time it didn’t work and they (totally understandably) were upset. We can’t have screw-ups like that.
Her fourth piece of advice. The rooms.
Past Me: We went over the arrangement 700 times last time and it still came out wrong. This needs to get an entire dedicated Drunk Pirate Council.
And a chart for the office wall. So we can be extra clear. And not pay penalties.
Trash the application process. You don’t need it. Do something fun. With pickles!
Me: Okay. These are all really good. What other things do I need to look out for?
Past Me: I can’t remember. I’m getting a headache. Can I lie down?
Me: Of course, sweetie.
And then past me got to go on retreat.
Me: Can I say something else? Even though I am soliciting advice from you and I hugely appreciate everything you’re telling me, you do not have to run this program.
Pirate Queen me is going to run it with, along with many capable helper mice and with many forms of support, both visible and invisible.
You don’t have to do anything. Your hard, scary, stressful time is over. You get to retire.
Past Me: I do? Yay! What is retirement like?
Me: I don’t know, honey. What would you like it to be like?
Past Me: I want to be at the Week of Biggification! But not to participate.
I want to stay at the beautiful Inn and sleep in the soft bed and look at the mountain.
And I want to take the elevator down to the room and up to the lobby. I want to sit in the underground spa pools all day. And eat that one really good sandwich.
And drink cold beer and watch the sunset. Yes yes yes.
But she still might have a consulting gig.
Me: Go for it. We’ll get you a room.
Past Me: But I can still give you advice now? Like a consultant? And if I remember something else later?
Me: Absolutely. Not a problem.
And then she took off. And I realized it made sense that I’d been avoiding the copy. And remembered that avoidance is normal. Again.
Then I had an absurd conversation with the me who had already written the HAT, and promptly wrote up five pages of notes. Awesome.
Thank you, Past Me. Beer and sandwiches and sparklepoints for you!
And comment zen for today.
The thing is, talking to past versions of us can be … challenging. And even intimidating. It’s definitely one of those things that takes practice.
Some of the principles I’m trying to keep in mind while this is happening:
I want to acknowledge her experience, and the legitimacy of her pain/worry/fear without taking it on, or having it be true for me.
This lets me access potentially useful information without having to adopt any of her stuff — she can have her insecurities and I can know that these aren’t true for me.
Anyway, it’s a practice. Like everything.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let everyone have their own experience, which means not giving advice (unless someone asks for it).
p.s. You can totally share disastrous planning stories of your own or anything else you’re working on. Kisses.
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Good stuff. And good catharsis, I think.
I have a past me fretting about something, but I don’t know what or who or how to contact him to figure it out. All I know is that I keep intending to get work done and then realizing that I’ve started Luxor (a ball-matching game) started up again and I’m not sure how or why except that I don’t have to think about Luxor and I DO have to think about the things I have to work on.
So obviously something’s scaring me or turning me away there. I wish I knew what. I wish I had the self-awareness this week to be able to introspect enough to figure out what. Even Shiva Nata isn’t helping (le sad!).
So I am specifically asking for advice. (I ask only for myself and for no one else.) I would like to hear your experiences. What do you think I can do to figure out how to proceed here? How can I figure out which monster or past-me I need to talk to? How can I get into a place where I can do it?
Love to all. ♥
.-= Chris Anthony´s last post … Everyday Delight 10 – Falling Leaves Edition =-.
It is so fascinating to read the stuff you were writing – just on the other side of the wall from me. Crazy. *shakes head*
I really can’t wait to read/see/experience the awesomeness that was inspired in the other rallyscallions as well (all of you will let us know when your projects are ready for the world, right?).
I missed the Sally the Rally Recap from yesterday so will jump in here to say those three days have completely changed the way I approach, interact with, and how I feel about projectizing. It’s now an adventure. I love it.
Can’t wait for Sally the Rally to Ride Again!
.-= Larisa´s last post … Raccoons- Relaxation- and the Absolute Rightness of Being YOU =-.
Ah, Havi, I love that you made a blanket-fort for this talk with your selves! I’ve been cocooning mine in a silky quilt lately, even when it was hot and sunny outside, because my selves like being tucked in when we’re having conversations about things that scare (some of) them.
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … This business of chakras… =-.
@Larisa – hey sweetpea! Yes, I also want rallyscallion updates from everyone. And I love that you are adventure-ing. That is BRILLIANT.
@Chris – oh man, that’s hard. I’m so sorry. It sounds really painful.
A couple of thoughts:
1) the best way to get selves/monsters/etc to talk is to give them permission to not have to.
As in:
“I totally get that you might not feel comfortable giving me information right now, part-of-me-that-is-in-avoidance, and that’s okay. I just want you to know that I am here, and that I know you are here too. I see you and recognize you. I am not judging you. I just want information. How can I make things safe for you to give me information?”
2) the second best way to get selves/monsters/etc to talk is to state what you want.
As in:
“I really want to make progress on this thing. What is the tragedy that might happen if I do it?”
3) there is really no such thing as shiva nata not working — that only happens when it’s not hard enough for your brain. 🙂
So I would suggest doing something you don’t even slightly know how to do (Level 2 Transquarters! Level 3!).
And then shifting your intention.
So instead of your intention being “progress on this thing”, your intention becomes “I’m ready to have more information about why I’m in avoidance”.
4) You might also write a letter to Luxor and ask to know more about what it is giving you (confidence? security? safety?).
Once you know what qualities you’re trying to access from it, you can then ask yourself (or your Shiva Nata practice) to show you how you can bring more of those qualities into your daily life.
5) Resistance really truly is normal. Reminding yourself and your resistance of this fact usually makes the resistance less sticky.
6) pattern-mapping. Map out the elements of each step from you thinking about your project to going into the Luxor Loop. Then switch two elements in the pattern.
I’ll stop at six because that’s already a lot. And I’m wishing you LOVE and SUPPORT and all things good. Hug.
xox
My monsters read this and say, “If Havi is still working on making live events a net positive, who am I to attempt such a thing?” But then I remind the monsters that I just DID a live event. Even if it was with just one person, it occurred, and it was so much fun. My event doesn’t have to be with 20 people. Mine could be with three people, for starters. Or maybe I could practice by having events with myself. I have plenty of company here in my head. (Waves to Net Positive Monster.)
.-= Kelly´s last post … Continuums I love continuums Some of my best epiphanies are continuums =-.
Thank you for writing up the principles you’re trying to keep in mind while talking to past versions of you: this is a great complement to your modeling these things, one that’s really useful and helpful for me.
Havi, this is a great post. I was already amazed by the idea of meeting my fears, but asking my past selves for the wisdom of their experiences is just awesome. Can’t wait to try it!
@Chris — well, hugs, first, because it sounds like you need them. I just found out about the asking-past-selves thing so can’t share there, but I have been working with the wonderful Rachel the Caffeinated Elf. I was massively stuck on a project, got to the point where I’d rather scrub the floor than face the keyboard. She gave me permission to work on a project I loved a little bit, in addition to the project i was stuck on. I always thought I was a totally linear worker, but that one little piece of advice has helped enormously! I’m working productively on 3 things where I was previously stuck on just the one!
Otherwise, I’ve done the meditating on meeting my fears and negotiating, but it sounds like you already rock that process…
Don’t know if that helps at all, but hang in there. 🙂
.-= Cathy´s last post … Twitter-phobic =-.
Thank you so much for this, Havi! I’m currently working on a H..er… RAT?!!! but rats are cute and have twitchy little noses, so maybe a Romi Announces a Thing rat isn’t so bad…
Thinking, thinking.
*Waves at Kelly* (still working on the thing we talked about so it can become a real thing!)
.-= Romilly´s last post … Tree of Life =-.
@Havi — I love the way you can express your sovereignty, even with yourself — on both sides. What an marvelous model!
@Chris — I’m grateful to you for asking a question that resonates so deeply with my own avoidance patterns. Please know that I am cheering for you, and at the same time, I’ll be studying Havi’s suggestions to you very thoughtfully, because I can already glimpse their potential to shift my own stuck places.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … Thirty-one days later- and I’m still here… =-.
Of course I just reread the post and realized that it was really systems advice and not copywriting advice, even though it a) got me destuckified to write the copy and b) gave me ideas about how to frame things. Oh well.
@Kat – thank you. I totally appreciate that. It is challenging. So yay for the fact that this is apparent. 🙂
@Romilly – a Rat! A Rat! That is so cute I can hardly stand it. And instead of decorating a Hat (which is what I do when I edit them), you could …. dress the Rat? Play with the Rat? LOVE it.
@Cathy – oooh, permission. Awesome. Yay.
@Kelly – oh for sure. There are lots of ways to make monies on events, just not the way I have been doing them (with massive organization and systems stuff and planning of ludicrously tiny details). I approve of your way! It is a grand plan, and your monsters will soon see what a genius you are, and bring you ice cream.
Romilly Announces Bites of Insanely Enticing Stuff?
RABIES!!!!
.-= Kelly´s last post … Continuums I love continuums Some of my best epiphanies are continuums =-.
RATS: Romilly Announces Tentative Surprises
Or …
RUGRATS: Romilly Underhandedly Grooms Rugrats At Texas State
Or …
RECEPTACLES: Romilly Establishes Catastrophic Exceptional Pet Tentacle Affirmation Conspiracies Liabilities Ending Soon
And this is why you should never take copywriting advice from me. I rest my case.
These are the best acronyms ever.
I think I need a blanket fort. I finally have a couch with which I can build couch-cushion forts, so that may be a step. Maybe I should go in the fort and find an acronym for my Things.
I may yet be able to do Asheville in November, and maybe not, but I’m glad I’m not far from Portland!
.-= Shannon´s last post … Fire in the Skies audio =-.
Havi, Cathy, Kelly: thank you. I’m so grateful for your words and thoughts and advice. <3
Also: Havi, I adore you. I will shave my beard in order to meet you so that I can express your awesomeness in person.
.-= Chris Anthony´s last post … Everyday Delight 10 – Falling Leaves Edition =-.
@Shannon – couch-cushion fort sounds AMAZING. Acronym Blanket Forts FTW!
@Chris – oh, I totally give you beard amnesty. You can be on the official list of Bearded People I Am Perfectly Okay With. Mwah!
I totally giggled reading this – especially the p.s. What magical powers do you have? How could you possibly know? Mysterious Sparklepoints for you, Havi.
I’m a bit late in my reading – the Robot Rolls on Saturday, the 2nd. We heard on Tuesday, the 31st that our space for Fall Workshops is nixed: 25 high school students and no place to go. Planning snafu? 4 days warning to make publicity changes and 1 week before we start.
I’d post an Emergency VPA, but I’m so stumped, I don’t even know what we need right now. 🙂 But the Robot looks good.
@Chris (hugs): My dog has been taking a lot of walks these past few weeks but I just can’t sit still and focus.
@Kelly: re: RABIES! /snicker 🙂