Friday afternoon I was getting poked full of delicious needles by my wonderful, witchy acupuncturist.
And between the resulting blissfully doped-out state and a brain-scramblingly fantastic Shiva Nata practice a bit earlier to shake up some old, stuck patterns … well, I found myself in a pretty deep meditative zone.
So. Here’s what I experienced.
I was deep inside my body in an enormous room, and everywhere there were layers of some gauzy dirty-pink material.
It was like cotton batting. Or a thinner version of that fiberglass insulation stuff they use in building houses.
I knew instantly what it was.
It was regret.
Insulation made of regret?
Yes. Sort of.
I asked some questions. The regret was old and a bit bedraggled. There wasn’t any sadness left in it.
It was more like … a shadow of regret. A casing that had once enclosed sadness but didn’t anymore.
Okay. So I poked around a bit more. I asked things like “What does this regret need from me right now?” and “What happens now?” and “What is the kindest, most compassionate thing for me?” and “What do I need?”
And what emerged was that this regret was ready to leave and it was asking me to take it down. So I started gently untangling and unwinding, and whenever my arms filled up with a serious pile, it disappeared.
As I worked, I asked more questions, trying to learn more about where the regret came from, what purpose it served, if there was anything else I needed to know.
I was especially curious because, generally speaking, I don’t tend to think of myself as someone who has a lot of regrets, or any, really.
Fear, anger, guilt, sadness, resentment, sure. I work with and through these emotions all the time.
But regret? Not really. Not lately. I’ve spent so much time making peace with things, reminding myself that at any given moment I was doing the best I could with the tools I had available at that time. This felt like new territory for me.
This was regret that was no longer alive.
This regret didn’t have any emotional charge to it anymore.
Nor did there seem to be any specific memories attached to it. It was empty, spent.
As if it was the wrappings from various things I’ve discarded or cleared over the past few years.
And oh boy, was there a lot of it.
So I made my peace with the idea that I wasn’t going to be able to get a clear read on what this regret was about or where it had come from, and I was just helping it go where it needed to go.
You know what happened then?
As I peeled and unraveled the soft, dirty-pink layers of regret, I discovered that there were tall wooden poles holding it all up.
Unlike the regret, which wanted nothing more than to be allowed to leave, these poles weren’t going anywhere.
I stood looking up at them, at the beautiful wood, at their firm, confident stance.
And I asked, “What are you?”
Instantly, the phrase that came into my head was “U’fros aleynu sukkat shlomecha“, which is a line from the Hebrew prayer Hashkiveinu from the Friday evening service.
Spread over us your canopy of peace.
These wooden poles were — apparently, weirdly — the structure for my own, personal canopy of peace. They were supposed to be there.
So I started strolling down this long corridor (or maybe it was a path), flanked by my wooden poles, and sheltered by my new canopy of peace.
Remembering.
Being under the canopy reminded me of a lot of things at once.
It reminded me of walking down the Karl-Marx Allee in East Berlin in the middle of the night — dark happy trees on each side, their branches leafing out above me.
The same street during the day when there’s so much green there you can hardly see anything but leaves.
And it reminded me of a wedding canopy with no one under it.
This made me think of the deep, complicated, loving, challenging relationship that I have with myself.
And the commitments I make to myself to keep getting better at learning how to give myself love, and stuff like that.
It reminded me of forests. It was lovely. I was very happy under my canopy of peace.
And (finally) getting to the part that has to do with you.
Of course — and forgive me, because I’m about to say something that sounds seriously cheesy but is very earnest — I completely see my business as a canopy of peace.
The whole reason I do this thing — the blog, the consulting, the writing — is that I want to have a safe, cozy, comfortable place where my Right People can show up as they are, with all their stuff and their stucknesses, and feel safe, supported and loved.
Where I can show up with my stuff and my stucknesses, and feel safe, supported and loved.
And I have that. Which is ridiculously awesome, and something I wish for you too, if you want it.
What I realized though, while walking beneath my canopy, was that I don’t always share with you that much of my own process.
Sorry, I just said process. You know what I mean. How I get there. How I work through things. How I stumble and what happens then.
Indirectly, sure. I hint at it and refer to it. But you don’t often get to see what I do when I’m working through the things that I find challenging. And yeah, I find all sorts of things challenging.
So one of my intentions for this new year is to spend more of my time here doing that. Not just symbolically modeling how I do stuff, but letting you peek into the experience itself.
One more thing.
There are some big crazy changes happening inside of my business right now.
And I imagine that I’ll end up talking about them …. oh, a lot. At least over the next few weeks.
My big hope is that I’ll be able to talk about them in a way that’s honest and kind and useful.
That those of you who have businesses of your own will be able to use some of the stuff that I’ve gone through in my own (I’ll say it again) process.
And that you’ll have a little more perspective on how I do things, and why I do them in the way that I do them. And that this will be helpful for you.
That is all.
Glad you’re here. Wishing you good things. See you tomorrow …
Also, let me add that this Wednesday is Jen Hofmann’s wonderful “take two hours to get some peace of mind and much needed perspective while working through piles and stucknesses in your home office” thing.
I’m hopelessly addicted to taking this class and I wait for it the whole month.
You’re doing it with me, right?
Follow
Wow. Thanks for bringing me under the canopy with you.
This was simply lovely. The process, but more vividly, the imagery of the allee, and the safeness and content.
Betsy Wuebkers last blog post..THE ONE
I loved reading about your canopy! Your meditations sound pretty amazing too 🙂
I felt quite privileged to read about your process (even if you did say process), so thank you for sharing. Your canopy of peace sounded so nourishing – I want my own canopy of peace now!
Wormys last blog post..Old Year Edition
Yes, that’s just how I see it. A canopy of peace. I’ve been to all kinds of blogs and met a variety of different people who are very much “Just do it!” and the moment you express a fear or a doubt or a stuckness, they just trample all over you, as though you’re failing in some fundamental way.
This was the first blog I found where it was possible for me to have big goals and dreams, but where it also seemed I was allowed to feel terrified and uncertain and weighed down with doubt, and that sometimes I couldn’t do all the things I “should” be doing to “make it happen” because that fear and doubt became overwhelming. And that all this stuckness didn’t make me a failure, or weak.
For that I’m eternally grateful because it brought me on in leaps and bounds. Instead of trying to beat down my stuckness, accepting it has, for the first time in two years, allowed me to really start moving beyond it.
I love your description of your meditation. I have a form of synaesthesia which includes emotions having shapes and colour, so it made real sense to me. Did you know that fear, for example, looks to me like really expensive broccoli?
Joely Blacks last blog post..Sunday stuff: Twitter is under attack (but I’m not)
Havi,
Your experience in which you describe your regret that is dead and is being replaced by a canopy of peace is somewhat mystical and very profound. You are sharing something with us that is very personal and I admire you for doing that. I also understand that this experience is so deep that it highlights what you want to do (and have managed), namely to have something like a forum (your blog and your business) where you can interact and exchange ideas and feelings in a supporting, loving and harmonic atmosphere.
I think it would be easier to read your post if finished the post after describing your experience (including the “Rembering” section) and then just added the first two paragraphs of “And (finally) getting to the part that has to do with you.” The reason being that your experience itself is quite intense to process. For people to really take this in (maybe other readers will disagree), they need a break at this point. If you finished the post there, your message would have a far greater impact. You could then add the details and final section of the post in a follow on post. Then you could highlight the connection.
@Joely Black
I guess you’re a lot more sensitive than most people and people can be quite rough at times. I have never met anyone who has synaesthesia before but I guess that also creates a barrier between you and a “just do it” person. You will see deep connections between “every day” things that most people cannot see. You probably also tend to see “things than could/can/are about to emerge” as significant. That means you will feel more joy when a nice event happens (or you see a nice opportunity) and it also means that you will feel a lot more hurt by /afraid of things that are happening or could happen and people don’t understand it. I wish for you that are able to use your great gift to live a blessed life and that you are able to find a way of dealing with blunt, aggressive people or those who “just don’t understand” in such a way that you don’t feel trampled on.
Oh Havi, thank you for sharing. Your blog is top of my feeds list and the first blog I read every day precisely because it feels like hanging out with a good friend in a safe space. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your ‘processes’ and for providing the canopy so we can all feel peaceful under it. Regret to me is blue-grey, and fear is generally grey-black. I love Joely’s description above of fear being like expensive broccoli!
Dear Havi, thank you for creating and sharing with us your “canopy of peace”. And for offering a doorway into how you shape it.
Last night I woke up with some part of me tugging at my mostly asleep self, asking for attention. I was too sleepy to explore, but promised to talk with it in the morning. Meanwhile, I simply brought it into my heart, where it curled up, content. All it wanted was to be included.
So much of what you do here is make space for everything to be held in love.
We live in the shelter of each other’s hearts. Thank you for the shelter of yours.
Love, Hiro
Hiro Bogas last blog post..Creative Connection: Where’s Your Muse When the Baby’s Spitting Up at 3 am?
@Lisa – You’re always welcome here, my dear!
@Betsy – Thank you. What a sweet thing to say. I’m glad.
@Wormy – WORMY! Do I tell you at least a hundred times a day that I adore your blog? I adore your blog. And I know you are building your own canopy there because it is a wonderfully safe and comfortable space.
@Joely – Your fear as really expensive broccoli image is so, so great. Ohmygod. Love it. I’m definitely going to keep that in mind the next time I talk to one of my fears.
I will say, “Hey, fancy broccoli fear, you are very funny looking. And part of what is inside of you is nourishing and good for me, but part of how you give it to me is keeping me stuckified and paralyzed, so let’s make some soup (soup!) and talk about this some more.”
And it’s beautiful that you really, truly get what I’m trying to do here in this space. To move through stucknesses without being impressed by the fact that they’re there … and to have permission to be scared, upset, furious and paralyzed when that stuff comes up for us.
Thank you so much my dear for acknowledging the secret true essence of my work. That’s really very meaningful for me.
@Caroline – Yay. Hi! I’m so glad. I also generally (though not in this case, obviously) tend to see regret as blue-grey. And fear kind of as a muddy, messy shade of something dark.
Would be interesting to have everyone here do a fear sketch or a regret watercolor and see what we come up with.
That was just beautiful!
I don’t have anything insightful to add 🙁
but, it brought me some calm that I needed at this moment…just by reading it.
I love how you describe it as a canopy of peace. It’s how I feel when I come here. Your description of your blog made me think about my own blog. I want to help people work happy, but not in a “canopy” way, but more in a “guide” way. Someone that you can walk side by side and discover a little more work happiness.
Thank you for helping me get a better understanding of what I’m trying to do.
Karl Staib – Work Happy Nows last blog post..Work Happy Now’s Best Posts of 2008
@Chris – Sounds like you experienced a lot this morning while reading. It also seems to me — if I’m reading this correctly — that you’re feeling worried that people won’t be able to absorb it all or get the most benefit from this post in the form that it’s in now.
And if that’s what you’re feeling, it’s completely legitimate. I can appreciate that worry and that concern, as well as whatever else you’re experiencing through this post.
At the same time, I am also feeling worried and anxious when I read your comment because I need to know that I’m creating a safe space here for my readers and students and clients to feel completely supported.
Right now I’m teaching the Blogging Therapy course, and many (if not all) of the wonderful women in this course are absolutely petrified that someone is going to show up on their blog with criticism of what they have said or the way that they have chosen to say it.
I have an advantage which they don’t have, which is years and years of having worked on my stuff. I’ve collected, created and internalized techniques that help me recognize which parts are my stuff and which parts are someone else’s stuff. I have tools which help me process criticism in various forms.
So I can read your comment and completely appreciate its intention without taking it to heart.
Some of my blogging girls, though, would be devastated to get a comment like this.
And since my job here is to make sure that, first and foremost, this place is safe for them, I am needing to go into Mama Hen mode here and be protective of them, while being very clear about the boundaries that exist in this space.
So this is a reminder for everyone:
If you read something online and think “I would have done that differently”, that’s great. Now you have information about the way you can approach posting on your own blog.
You don’t get to edit anyone else’s posts, though. In your own space, in your own blog, you can create your own canopy.
In your own space, you can say whatever you like and give advice to whomever you like. Not in someone else’s space. Not under their canopy. Because it’s there for them.
I get a gazillion emails a week from people who want to comment here and can’t because they feel fear that another reader might judge them, criticize them or analyze them.
When I think about these people, I feel unbelievably sad because I need to know that they will be safe under this canopy. And the only way that I can find in my heart to make this canopy safe for them is to get better at being clear about how we communicate here.
The only way I know to help my right people feel welcome here is if this kind of criticism doesn’t get a place beneath the canopy. That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for it or that it doesn’t deserve to exist because it does. Just that the safe environment comes first.
The criticism can have its own canopy, somewhere else. Just not here.
The first time I have commented (it’s taken me time to approach the table) and I’m in my 40s, and wanted to say what a thoughtful comment and response and so apt – the only posts we get to edit are our own – it’s a call to action for me to know it’s ok to write the way I do. Thank you
<3 <3 <3
I took so much time thinking about and composing that last comment that I missed three of you sneaking in! Hi, guys.
@Hiro – Thank you, as always, for the sweet reminder. I admire you so much and love watching you live the wise things you teach. I totally aspire to one day reach a Hiro-like level of wonder and peace in my relationship with myself. It is so good to know you.
@Karl – What a neat thing to realize! I love it. That’s really beautiful.
@Amy – Hug.
Dear Havi,
Thank you so much for sharing your “process” ( I know. It’s an old baby boomer hippy word and it’s been WAY overdone. The way us old baby boomers like to do
everything (-:). It was like following you into a dream. And a wonderful teaching about how gentle and non-traumatic the healing journey ( oh oh. more cheese?) can be. I feel very touched and moved, as always, by your willingness to be so transparent with us and to be so generous with who you are, what you’ve learned and how you’ve gotten to where you are. You are an inspiration and a sweet, sweet balm to my soul.
I do love what you have created here on your blog. The sense of safety, permission, holding, honesty, open heartedness, kindness and just good old plain down to earth (un)common sense is something that I have been looking for on the blogosphere for a long time. And apparently I am not the only one!
You are really modeling how to create a sense of community that includes things like vulnerability and authenticity and is a model that I aspire to and hope to create on my blog.
When, oh when are we going to find out the DETAILS about this next new thing? Oh well, I guess it’s a good opportunity for me to practice being with my impatience in a kind and loving way. But I’m ready for a new self awareness opportunity already!!!
Lots of love,
Chris
chris zydels last blog post..The ART OF INNER CLUTTER CLEARING: MAKING SPACE FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE
Baruch hata Adonai, elo-henu malech ha-olam, ha’tov, va-ha’me-tev.
Like you.
Thanks.
Very powerful post. That kind of thing is really helpful as an idea of how meditation works for you. And I love the canopy of peace metaphor. That is an excellent description of what you have here.
I’m not sure all of us visualize our emotions in this way but it is also really cool to see in the comments the different ways that those who do “see” different emotions. But then as the mom of a broccoli loving kid, I had a brief moment of panic at Joely’s description of fear because I wondered what we’d do if that fear-broccoli linkage made it hard to eat broccoli. I guess no one in my house shares that particular visualization.
I’m looking forward to more posts with this kind of glimpse of the real process.
JoVEs last blog post..New directions
“I get a gazillion emails a week from people who want to comment here and can’t because they feel fear that another reader might judge them, criticize them or analyze them.”
I haven’t emailed you..but, I understand this feeling. I think it’s the same feeling following me to not make actual decisions about how I want to do things in my own space.
Though I have had static sites since ahhh..1996…I think they have always provided the “safety” of unknown visitors. If ya get what I mean? Now, that I really want to add the personal element of having it be a blog, I am (for the lack of a better term) scared s**tless.I realized this morning, I’m really in avoidance mode. I think the only reason I have the couple posts up on my blog was just the easiness of following what others were writing about at the time. I read them now and they really seem cheesy…lol It bugs me though, because in “real life” I am nothing of a follower.
I’m stuck on how I want to have the domains set as, the final designs in general, etc…but, I think my “stuck” is the avoidance and the confusion of the (new to me) media of a blog.
For your “Would be interesting to have everyone here do a fear sketch or a regret watercolor and see what we come up with.” sentence, I did this back in ’06, I have two very quickly done paintings that hang in my office/studio. One is titled “Comfort” and the other is “Protection”. My husband travels alot, and I was having a spurt of a really hard time with it and doing the paintings helped.
Eww, that was a bit revealing wasn’t it. But, I guess you’re right Havi…you make it feel like such a safe place here. 🙂
@Amy – that wasn’t ew at all! At least for me. I think it’s completely inspiring. I am absolutely going to do Comfort and Protection paintings.
It reminds me of a class I co-taught in Berlin this summer with my friend Andreas who teaches design at the Art Academy there. It was 15 people in an art studio. We alternated between Shiva Nata, meditation and free-form painting for FIVE HOURS.
Totally intense. And people came up with the most incredible things, drawing their patterns. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.
Love it.
And yeah, blogging is scary.
@JoVE – I thought of that too! I love broccoli, and I don’t usually get visuals in my meditations. I’m more of a WORDS person. But it’s interesting to discover what all we have inside in that big, crazy infinite space.
I’m sure every mom reading this is thinking Ohmygosh, what if my kid starts associating green leafy vegetables with fear?! Hilarious.
@Christy – Thanks!
@Chris Zydel – Tomorrow! At least, I think so! And I adore everything about you, for the record. Thanks for being my champion.
Havi, the canopy you’ve created here has made it seem all the more safe for me to acknowledge the canopy I create for others in my own biz. I just admire the way you’re the lead goose in the v-formation of others who want to create peace, too.
Hugs – and gratitude for the plug on Spa Day. Can’t wait!
🙂 Jen
@Jen, wouldn’t it be Miss Selma leading the V-formation?
I’m just saying … 😉
Honk! (from one of the stragglers down the end of the ‘V’)
Interesting thing about the Yijing (Change Book) – in its first 30 hexagrams it quite often says there are ‘no regrets’, but it’s only in the second half of the book, 31-64, that it ever says that ‘regret vanishes’.
Yeeks such as myself notice this and wonder why. Reading about regrets that are empty wrappings for things you’ve already made peace with, that want to leave, and simply disappear each time you unwrap a good armful of them… ooh… suddenly I have a whole new idea of what it might be talking about.
Thank you.
Hilarys last blog post..Direction
I should explain about the synaesthesia thing – broccoli is the only way I can think of to explain the dark green, puffiness of it. If you like, it might be easier to think of it as flying over rainforests, the way the treetops look. Personally, I love broccoli, and trying to describe my visual-spatial appreciation of emotion in such limited terms (because these things are huge, and often take place in the space around me, not just within the confines of my head) as words is really hard work sometimes. Even the simplest aspect of synaesthesia – seeing letters and numbers in colour – is incredibly difficult for people to wrap their head around. The joy of being a synaesthete is the full appreciation that there is a radical difference between the experiences you have because of the wiring of your brain and what’s going on “out there” in the objective reality from which they spring.
@Havi – Just to turn this into a real essay… Chris’ comment to me highlights just exactly why I’ve always found this to be such a safe space. There is no attempt to describe or make assumptions about me, but to respect my experience as it happens. I confess to feeling slightly turned off by a stranger assuming that they know what it means to be a synaesthete and that I’m more sensitive than others. Given that I’m a tank in most circumstances and plough through life regardless, it seems a little… presumptuous?
One of the amazing things you do on this blog is communicate in a manner that means we don’t get our stuff coming up in reaction to what you say. So I can see my stuff in my reaction to Chris’ comment (I dislike any reference to the idea that I might be more afraid than other people or assumptions made on that basis), and it’s difficult to react positively to whatever he or she was trying to say.
Your responses are always so incredibly and naturally respectful. I thought that was a brilliant response and wonderfully written.
Joely Blacks last blog post..Welcome to the Big Scary
Havi —
Beautiful, inspirational post. You really *have* created a Canopy of Peace. How lovely that your mind brought such a great metaphor to your attention. 😀
I’ve been lurking for a while … this is a good a time as any to finally stop procrastinating making comments!
Thank you so much for this and for all you do.
Peace.
Danielle
Danielles last blog post..Virgo Rampages, Going Green and Finding a Home on The Net
Thank you, Havi. Thank you for reminding me that I can get to a place like this, eventually, someday. I used to be a very spiritual person, but my life has underdone dramatic shifts over the past 10 years and somewhere along the way the spiritual connection broke or got lost. I am on the precipice of another dramatic change, but have absolutely no control over when the change will occur. That is up to the judge who is right now finally deciding who will have custody of my husband’s son. Either way, the decision will mean a huge change in our life — whether welcoming a 9 year old boy into our home, or learning to let go of the battle that has been raging for the past five years. Your post gives me optimism that perhaps someday I can rediscover my spiritual connection, which is surely buried under deep piles of… something, I don’t know what.
Anyway. Thanks again for the word-painting of your vision. It helps me, too.
@Jen, Hilary, Christy – From what I know of V-formations, the
duckone in front shoots to the back and lets a new one take over, and then no one gets tired and everyone gets a turn.So that’s pretty perfect.
@Danielle – HI! Nice to meet you here. Glad to have you around. The title of your last post sounds like fun. I’m going to zip over there and read it!
@Hilary – What a cool realization. Can’t wait to hear more about it as it progresses … should make for some interesting thoughts. I love hearing you talk about the I-Ching.
@Joely – It’s beautiful that you feel safe here, and I’m glad. It’s also beautiful that you can see your stuff come up and not be consumed by it. Love it.
And at the same time, no one here needs to be saying stuff that would set it off to begin with. Even if that person’s intention is pure (which I’m sure it is), it’s still not okay to make statements or assumptions about your experience and what it might be like.
I wouldn’t react positively to it either. Actually, I didn’t.
There isn’t room for that here. There are plenty of people who read this blog who spend even more time in sensitive flower mode than you or I do.
Even if you hadn’t had anything come up for you, someone else reading it would have.
I can’t have other people jumping in and giving a reading of another commenter’s situation, even if it is completely well-meant and comes from a place of kindness.
So I think it’s really valuable that you’re sharing your discomfort as well as all the other the stuff you’re going through as it happens.
Hope that makes sense. Not sure if it does but can’t give any more time to self-editing today!
Havi, Havi, Havi.
I want to make you tea and kiss you on your poopy little forehead.
I do.
So I make me tea and read what you write. I read the comments, I think about the dialogue, then I sit in awe.
I’m a biz kind of girl, just getting into the woo-wooey piece of my self. I love that your yogi self is creating a business self and the two are shared on these pages. Along with all the other family and living stuff you share. It’s brilliant. I love how you turn a phrase; create an image and mostly how you are so painfully honest.
For fear of sounding like 12 year girl seeing the Jonas Brothers in real life (read wild-eyed screaming fan) I want to close by saying coming across your blog has profoundly impacted me.
It foretells of an amazing 2009, which has been extensively planned out (meditated upon) on many levels, but all the less intimidating because I have Selma and you, getting my back and helping grow my spiritual self.
Hi Havi,
Wow! I find it amazing that you see and feel things like that when you meditate. (I guess that statement shows that I don’t – meditate or dream such things).
On Regret – I have always found that I regret more what I haven’t done rather than what I have done. I have accepted and come to terms with my actions. But things undone, paths not taken, possible futures not lived – those occasionally speak to me. (Enough so that thinking through possible regret is part of my active decision making process now.) I wonder if the vagueness of what you saw was because it was regret over the undone rather than the done. I think it would be much less clear memory-wise if that were the case.
On your Canopy – what a lovely image – “a safe, cozy, comfortable place where my Right People can show up as they are, with all their stuff and their stucknesses, and feel safe, supported and loved.”
How very wonderful of you! THANKS!!!
All my best wishes to you, Selma, your brother and gentleman friend for a fantastic 2009!
EVA
EVAs last blog post..FLOURISH!!!!!!!! – My Word for 2009
Dearest Havi – I read your post with full attention this morning (the best way to read your posts imo…)
And I feel softer now. Hearing the words “canopy of peace” together in that order was a beautiful, beautiful thing over here.
When I can bring the awareness of being in or under a canopy of peace when I’m out in the world, in my own home, sitting with myself, or doing my biz stuff online…
Wow…life is so different. So much lighter. So much more comforting. Life under a canopy of peace is, well, lovely.
I’m glad you’ll be sharing more of your inner workings here on your blog with us this year. I sure learn a lot about myself when you do.
This post is so wonderful. I just wanted to comment really quick and give everyone a huge hug.
I’m amazed that every day I can sit down at my computer (where I have SO much stuckness to deal with because it’s where I come to write) and with just a few minutes on Havi’s site, with all of you beautiful people, I feel like all my fear and self-doubt has quietly stepped away. That’s pretty nice. And amazing.
Thanks, Havi.
Diane Whiddon-Browns last blog post..Not So Resolute
dear havi [& the ever-marvelous ms selma]
with such consistency i arrive HERE to find an open ended space of exposure-to-pain and allowing its simultaneous ‘growth’ and the-option-to-dissolution …
listening earlier to one of the shiva-nata mp3’s, and bumped into IT with the suggestion to be un-impressed by one’s own stuckedness … ouch! (again & again & again 🙂
thank you (again & again & again 🙂
Oh darling – I love this!
I love your sharing, your vision, your dream for your business, what you are creating here for yourself and others, and the dreaming of what is to come.
Thank you so much. You are inspiring!
This place is so much better because you guys are here with me in this process-ey thing, and that you never mind when I get all cheesy but that you also don’t mine when I apologize for it. It’s really delightful.
@Hopey, Julianna, Eva, Mona, Diane, Joyce & Leonie – a kiss on the nose to each of you. Thanks for the sweetness … and warm wishes to you on whatever you happen to be working on.
So glad you’re here.
Wow. What beautiful imagery.
I often will see the outside of someone I admire (Havi=insightful yogi thinker of profound thoughts) unconsciously compare it my own insides (me=person with a million flaws and regrets) and find myself lacking. So for you to open up your “insides” is such a gift.
It means that, for me, just reading your words is an actual, immediate, and active healing opportunity. I doubt many “personal development” writers can say that 😉
I’m still working on two big regrets (from 9 and 7 years ago…yikes). But I know what you mean about the emotional charge lessening over time. As of now they’re just kind of in my back pocket–not stopping me from moving forward, but not quite gone yet either. Something you said reminded me of Maya Angelou’s words: “You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.” That’s sort of my mantra when I fall too deep into the pocket of regret.
Eileens last blog post..“Suggestion” #3: Shiva Nata
Havi –
Thanks for writing about your process. I find reading about it very helpful.
Also, your blog is functioning as a canopy of peace for me and I am very grateful for it.
Best,
Paulita
@Havi and @Joely:
Very interested in what you both said about experiencing your “stuff” as colored textures like broccoli and pink dust bunnies.
I imagine my creative energy as a floating hot pink energy plasma that lives just under my skin. It comes out of my head, or my chest, or I spray it out of my fingers and it becomes my artwork.
Weird right? But it totally feels right to me and so I illustrated it as my Twitter background.
Maybe it’s useful to try to experience both negative stuff like regret and positive stuff like love, creativity, etc. as textures, colors, smells, whatever, to help get a handle on them and direct them.
Nathan Bowerss last blog post..First 3×5 doodles of December
Dear Havi…
I’ve been reading your posts for a couple of weeks now; all of them deeply engaging, freakishly aligned (and I mean that in the absolute, most stellar sense) and chock full of practical insight/tools. Thank you!
I haven’t commented before as your comment threads are already so full. So full of incredible additions and insights. :0) Awesome. I’ve felt complete when finished reading all of them; no need to comment. This time is no different really…except for the intense urge to say, ME TOO.
I’ve been hearing that voice inside nudging me to add more of my own day to day process…on the way to the epiphanies. I forget sometimes that while it all just seems sort of second hat to me; that it may be more interesting and helpful than I give it credit for.
This is true for anyone, really. Our lives are colorful (you’re is exceptionally ducky :~) People enjoy reading other people’s ‘color’…it’s what weaves the tapestry that much brighter.
Here’s to putting more of “us” into our writing. More soul, anyone? Yes, please. :0)
Thanks for creating such a safe space, and for feeling safe yourself, with all of us in the space you’ve created.
“Spread over us your canopy of Peace”
Yes, please. There is *nothing* cheesy about that!
Peace, Love and Harmony… Debra
Debras last blog post..Happy New Day ~ Living an Inspired Life
Oops! Feel free to edit my typo. Please read:
Our lives are colorful (YOURS is exceptionally ducky :~)
Debras last blog post..Happy New Day ~ Living an Inspired Life
Oh Havi, I just found this post – I think I missed a day reading and that’s what I get for it!
I love your honesty, your passion, your “real-ness”.
I’m seriously on the fence about the kitchen table – because I know it’s SO worth it, but I also know I can’t afford it. oy.
I’ll figure this out. In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing and don’t throw your computer out the window please. I’d miss you 😉
Lisa
Lisa Woods last blog post..Tips for Using Your Marketing Toolkit Wisely
Hello Havi,
I read your blog for the first time today, and then read quite a few of your earlier posts.
Please know I am not a blogger or a blog reder, i have a life so filled up with my own goings on & things I tend to find blogging and or reading blogs take up to much time. BUT after reading yours and getting small insight into what/who you are… it was as if you were speaking my soul. I felt a deep connection to everything you said and if I had a blog… That would be what i would want for and from it.
I thank the Good Lord for people like you in the world, to help make it a bit easier? and maybe less scary? a place to exist and co-exist, grow and awake from the coma state in which most of us live.
Keep up the good vibe you are sending out.
Your blog definitely can make a difference in peoples lives. The right people, the people that want to break free from the oppression of those who would have us believe less.
God Bless