This week I’m marking one hundred consecutive weeks of my practice of writing Very Personal Ads.
And I’ve been thinking about all the beautiful wishes that have been wished for, and about everything that has happened as a part of this.
We can talk about some of those incredible Very Personal Ad stories at some point. But today I wanted to talk about those times when you ask for something and you don’t get it, because this is important.
First a hug!
There is nothing more frustrating than not getting what you want.
Oh, wait. Except getting up the courage to ask for it and then still not getting it. That’s even worse.
It’s an awful feeling. Vulnerable and lost.
This is the hug for all those times you have experienced felt the pain of unfulfilled wishes.
For all the various parts of you who have craved love, support and sustenance, and didn’t receive it when they needed it most. I am so sorry.
And after the hug, let’s talk about Very Personal Ads and how the whole thing works.
What a Very Personal Ad is.
A Very Personal Ad is about discovery.
It’s how you find out what your relationship is with the thing you want. And with the wanting.
That’s because it’s a destuckification practice.
And like any destuckification practice, Very Personal Ads are about conscious, loving, mindful self-inquiry. Playful self-investigation.
You’re looking for information. You’re trying to get clarity about what it is you are really and truly asking for.
You’re looking for the qualities and essence of the thing you want. And for new ways to interact with both the object of your desire and with desire itself.
You are collecting data about how you interact with the world and about what needs to happen for you to feel comfortable and safe connecting to the essence of the thing you want.
What a Very Personal Ad isn’t.
A magic fountain you throw pennies into. Suspicious beans that one might theoretically trade a cow for.
Of course, sometimes — even fairly often — outrageously and seemingly magical things happen as a result of writing Very Personal Ads.
They happen in part as a result of the new-found clarity and sense of purpose that come from investigating your relationship with the thing you want.
The problem with treating Very Personal Ads (or any other destuckification practice) as a form of external salvation, is that then we’re relinquishing responsibility. It’s like handing over your sovereignty.
If I give the tooth fairies and the fountains power over my happiness and well-being, I’m pretty much always going to end up disappointed.
But when I stay connected to myself and to the conscious, loving, curious, investigative approach, I will always learn something useful and vital about myself and how I operate. And something about faith as well.
An example of a Very Personal Ad not working.
“I want a million dollars! I want a new job. I want the perfect girl/boyfriend. I want ten new clients.”
It might work. It might not. It’s like the fountain thing. It couldn’t hurt. Toss the penny in if you want to.
But it’s not really a Very Personal Ad because there is no curiosity, no play, no experimentation, no mindfulness, no self-inquiry.
And how you would make that Very Personal Ad start working.
Let’s take the ask for the million dollars.
And put it through the filter of the conscious, loving, curious, mindful, playful destuckification appproach:
“Okay. I’m noticing that I just named a sum which scares me. I’m noticing that I can’t even say it out loud. Oh, and also this: when I think about large sums of money, I get this tightness in my throat. Almost like I can’t breathe.
So maybe what I’m asking for is to feel comfortable having — or even wanting — larger sums of money. And to have that comfort in my body too.
I’m also noticing a lot of internal rules about how things can come to me or that I have to work insanely hard for things and even then it’s not okay to get them.
It seems like this is about safety and trust. So one of my asks is to get better at bringing safety and trust into my life in relation to money and in general. And to brainstorm ways to get more comfortable with receiving.”
That is powerful stuff. And each week you can check in to see where you’re at, you can use what you have learned to edit and alter your request
The truth about Very Personal Ads.
As long as it’s a conscious practice, it can’t not work.
You get information about who you are and how you function. You connect to the essence of the wanting. For example:
How do I bring more safety, support and sovereignty into my life?
And then you try stuff. And you keep trying stuff.
You test your hypotheses. You do a spangly revue review.
After one hundred weeks of asking for three or four things a week, and several months of doing daily Very Personal Ads in my Hello, Day ritual, I can say that they always work.
Do I always get what I want? Of course not.
But I always get useful information that can lead me to what I want. Or to understanding how I’m getting in the way of what I want, and why I might be doing that.
And the hug again.
Every once in a while someone will say to me:
“I wrote a VPA for X but I didn’t get it so I stopped writing VPAs.”
And then I give them a hug.
Because that’s the only relevant response in that moment.
The moment of pain not the time to explain why. It’s not the time to respond to the content of their experience: just to the hurt.
It’s like someone you love saying to you: “I started looking at why my relationships are so painful but it’s a mystery so now I’m not going to love anyone again.”
You can’t really convince them to not give up on love. At least not immediately. All you can do is give them love.
So I know that a lot of what I have said here might not sink in right away. And if all you want to take from this is the hug, that’s fine by me.
The answer is usually somewhere in the ask.
And that’s why we keep asking.
But the asking is never prescriptive.
It’s always about wondering, discovering, finding out and being willing to be wrong about pretty much everything.
And comment zen for today.
The usual: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. It takes time.
We let other people have their stuff, and we don’t tell each other what to do.
What I would love today:
Stories of how Very Personal Ads (ones you shared here or made silently in head/heart) resulted in you discovering something new or interesting about yourself or the thing you were asking for.
p.s. Should go without saying but of course Shiva Nata is the great destuckifying pattern-untangler of all times. Most of my VPAs have been helped by doing some shivanautical flailing in order to get the insight needed to change the patterns.
Follow
I’ve written up VPA’s in my diary for over a year, moving along more or less with the Sunday part of it but mostly reverting to the technique when needed.
Noticing the following:
– a lot of it works – but never in the time schedule i think it will
– asking for results/more hard work by me has been hurtful, as it doesnt work and i keep disappointing myself
– keeping my eyes open to ‘ways it could work’ with more ease has been the best part.
it doesn’t have to be this hard. most of the hard comes from my internal rules about the level of excellence and giving i have to achieve before i am good enough to get results
its not about results! its about being there and seeing what there is most of the time
but i wasnt built that way. i don’t see it that way every moment of the day. and so i will keep practicing
EASE
🙂
Namaste 😉
About a year and a half ago, after I got laid off, I wrote a VPA about getting a new job. Most of my previous jobs I had just fallen into, but for the first time I sat down and really thought about what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what qualities a company could have that would make it a nuturing environment for me.
Less than a month after I wrote the VPA, I interviewed at a non-profit that works with individuals with developmental disabilities. It was everything I was looking for – something meaningful and fulfilling that uses my my ability to organize and work with large amounts of data. Now I’m working at the job of my dreams, for the best possible manager for my style and needs. I am deleriously happy.
It’s not a job I had ever imagined myself doing, but once I wrote out what I really wanted and needed, I recognized it when the opportunity presented itself.
Havi, thanks for a great post! It’s very relevant for things I’m working through in my life right now. And here is a *hug* for you and for everyone else who writes a VPA and doesn’t get what they want–because it *does* take courage! I really, really like what you say about using the VPA process to figure out one’s *relationship* to the thing requested–I need that in my life right now!
ps follow-up to my comment, in accordance with your Comment Zen request for today: An interaction with a friend was really, really bugging me, and I told them about it. I was a little accusatory (besides being assertive in a healthy way about my own needs), and then I apologized, both of which were VPAs of a sort in asking the friend for empathy for my point of view. The friend accepted the apology but hasn’t yet addressed my legitimate concerns; they may never do so. So what I’m working on right now is figuring out whether I really *need* the friend to acknowledge my needs for this particular interaction, or whether I should just let it go and figure out better ways of being assertive if this comes up in the future. Hm…think I may have just answered my own (implied) question…
Thank you, Havi! This is so helpful. I have a tendency to overwhelm myself when I start thinking about VPAs, and this is just the reminder I needed that, as you said, the answer is usually somewhere in the ask.
Last year, I asked for a new job, and I got it. This was pretty much a miracle, because I was going through a REALLY tough time, so it was one of the worst times ever to be job-hunting. Of course it was totally magic that I got a way better job that is now helping me to achieve lots of other goals. But the part about the answer being in the ask was this: Asking for it helped me to understand that I deserved a job that was good to me. Even though lots of people were telling me that, VPA-ing it up was the thing that helped me know it in my body.
Here’s to many more VPAs. *Clink!*
I haven’t done VPAs the way you do, but I’ve done this thing where I write a short bio of myself at some point in the future. Basically what my life is like a month from now or a year from now. Anyway, I was looking back over these, plus a stack of affirmations, some old private journal entries, some magical work, etc. around the new year, when I suddenly realized that the things I’m not getting are the same three things. The same three asks, that I’ve been asking for over and over for 20 years, but haven’t been making much if any progress on.
This is amazing! And while it could be depressing, it was also a revelation. All the other things I’ve asked for I’ve gotten (or the ask ended up not being relevant or important)… except these three. Which clearly means that’s where I’m stuck… which means I know exactly where to apply my energies — not on forcing those things, which doesn’t work, but on getting them unstuck.
It’s like I suddenly realized that the things I’m not getting are way more interesting and important than the things I am getting! It’s where the chewy stuff is!
In the months since my discovery, I’ve been working on ways to unstuck those three things, with varying levels of success. But the point is that I’m working on the right things now and applying my energy to those blocks. I’m still asking for other things I may need, but I’m having more faith that those things will be OK.
Oh so much power in this post!
I’ve been getting a lot of what I asked for lately.
I have enough abundance to spend my days writing and going to rallies. I have a beautiful park nearby. I am developing my business. My new website is beautiful. I’ve rather effortlessly made new friends in less than a month in a new city.
But I’ve been asking for most of those things for a *year*. And working through why I was uncomfortable with them. And what it was I really wanted. And the closer I get to the essence of the ask, the more likely it is to come true either entirely or in essence.
Like finding a boyfriend for the first time in 5 years within a week of moving to Portland. That one came true pretty much like a fairy tale, but only after I got clear on what I was asking for. Which was appreciation, respect, delight, and new experiences.
Which I get not only in this relationship but all across the board, really.
A house. A perfect, small little house in the best neighborhood in Austin, across the street from one of the best school’s in Austin at the *perfect price.
This was what happened with one of those secret wishes that burbles up in your heart…I couldn’t even put words to the wanting of a home. Granted, this also came after two years of searching, searching for a home and finding consecutively worse and worse living situations. Ug.
Ah, timing.
Thank you so, so, so much for this, Havi. I didn’t get why every instance of a VPA came with chest-clutching anxiety and a strange mental resistance which can only be felt to be believed. It’s because I have too much baggage to examine why I was asking, why I wanted, why why why.
It’s particularly interesting because of the context. Things which I did not ask for, marvelous beautiful things, poured themselves into my life like a waterfall. I’ve been crazily, happily blessed with romantic love I’d given up on, and security and ease that I thought was unimportant.
The writing? The monetary security? No such luck. It’s like my mental critic will not let me have success or money. it’s a strange yet beautiful thing. You have given me a key to examine that dynamic in my life, and I’m grateful you’re there to point out my disconnect with both gratitude and self-awareness.
Havi, Thank You, Thank You.
Havi,
Thank you for this, verrry helpful & wise :-).
I have been VPA-ing to find my Right People to help me with a certain situation.
Not only am I finding Right People, I am meeting Allies, great people, but also
Allies as metaphors, rituals, practices, insights, experiences….. The result of clarifying & focusing my intention with VPAs.
I love the “Hello Day” ritual, & find it “very centering”, as you described.
And I am learning, ‘you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need’.
A-ha moment! I now realise I didn’t really get the VPA thing yet, but I think I do now. Going to play around with this practice again…
Thank you for the explanation and the hugs!
Very timely, very wise. Thank you for this post. And thank you to everyone who has commented.
I VPA’d for “more yay, less ack, ick, and euw.” The next day I wrote in the comments that I wanted others to write VPAs for me because I had a lot of AACKK!
I thought I must be doing it wrong. But this makes it clear that I’m not doing it wrong. Because the same day I wrote that, I told other people the good side of the bad things: ” X happened but Y did not, so yay for that”.
It’s really all about my relationship with the things I’m asking for. What makes this thing “ack”?
Answer, it’s yet another scary-bad, on top of others and others and others. We pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and keep going, but we’re having to do it more and more often and it’s wearing me down. Not traumatic. Just exhausting. And there’s no end in sight.
And there’s not much help. The gatekeepers have locked the gates and they’re ignoring the call box. I see clearly what would help but it’s out of reach.
So that’s more clear. I don’t yet see what — if anything — to do about it. That is maybe the next VPA.
thinking about it I have been overall asking for what I think I should want. even with the job thing for my husband, etc. hmmmm.
This makes sense.
For me, just the acknowledging the want is hard work. I don’t really care if I get what I want, but to acknowledge somewhere in writing that I have wants helps.
I’ve started doing the hello day letters (i call them letters, like i’m writing a letter to the day) and it is always a struggle for me to think about what i want and ways it could work and committing to it. It’s like somewhere along the line I was conditioned that it’s not okay to want things and to try to get them for yourself.
I’m not sure where this came into my head or why, but for the time being at least the VPA’s for me are more about exploring my relationship with wanting and why it’s hard for me to acknowledge that want.
I feel like I’m not very self-aware and the VPAs kind of give me a window into myself to be more aware of things.
A few years back I was very stuck, in a job that paid well but was very bad for me emotionally/mentally.
After years of struggling with it and trying to Make It Work (my default mode), I don’t know if I had a moment of clarity or if this was even conscious but on some level I thought: how can I, really, make this work?
And the answer was: I can’t. The problems here are not with me or with anything I am doing.
So as I was peering into that abyss, I had another crystalline thought: I need an exit strategy. I need a rope bridge out of here. If I can’t make it work, I need to be somewhere else. How can I get there?
And from there it was … almost … easy. Like others above, I thought, What would I *like* to be doing? How can I start doing that?
The answer was, as it almost always is for me, to start Studying. I studied, took exams, and got certifications, and started doing the work (just a little bit, here and there) to develop competency.
The funny thing is that I am still doing the type of work that I was doing when I was in the bad place, but with a better vision of Future Me and a much better understanding of how I am merely, and constantly, moving through any given situation … and not stuck there.
This is so, so helpful. I’m starting to think that maybe when I make any kind of wish for things to happen (such as writing to-do lists, which I do almost every day), I should ask myself why I want these things to happen and also why I don’t, becasue it’s probably safe to assume for any big thing that there’s a part of me that doesn’t want it to happen. And then interact with that part.
This week my VPA was for lots of writing to get done. It’s sort of happening and sort of not. But I think a big part of the problem is that part of me stills sees writing as just another thing to do, or something to hurry through so I can get to the rest of my list. When really, the rest of the list doesn’t matter if the writing doesn’t get done. I’m a writer – writing is the whole point.
What I love about VPAs is that even if I don’t get X, I get the cool process of distilling it, sending it out, seeing wehy it didn’t come true and then processing until it becomes more closely aligned with the best outcome. Soemtimes the first ask is about etting the courage to ask. And then the courage and discernment to evaulte the ask better, to refine the ask better, to get it more likely to succeed.
And stuff always is generated by th VPA which helps strengthen me in oher ways. Ands all of this helps me be strong and fearless in what I ask. Soemtimes you making the ask is the scary part.
i want my boyfriend back.
we’re not together now. we live far away. our facebook statuses are single, and we are allowed to do whatever we want. there are no obligations, commitments, or promises.
and yet the email exchanges and conversations are the closest we’ve had in a year, full of affection and attraction and love….
and yet half a continent away, with neither of us making any money, and not even talking about a plan to get back together?
oh, oh, oh, what should i be in this situation? what do i need to be for me? what is best for me? what will make me happy?
i would like that.
and maybe, some regular form of income that fills me with joy. maybe someone will commission a mural or a painting. or give me a writing job. or ask for art lessons. something… anybody… oh well… we’ll see.
i’m sure i’m doing what i need to do, the very best i know how. when i know how to do more i will do it. and i will not do anything that makes me feel less love. i promise, dear little self.
@ Sylvia, wow, that’s a great idea. I think the asking myself why I don’t want it and why I do just got added to my VPAing. I know I get stuck a lot, just asking myself why I don’t want it and what part of me that is is huge. I get stuck a lot – which is probably why I read Havi’s blog in the first place to get out of the stuckness.
I really appreciate this post, and all the comments as well. I can relate to so many of the things that have been said here.
It’s interesting to me that I nearly always choose just one thing to ask for in my weekly VPA. I’ve been telling myself that it helps me to prioritize, and to focus, and to — ack, I’m not about to use the manifest word, am I? — bring the thing I want into being. It occurs to me, though, that there is probably some underlying fear of asking for too much. If I ask for too many things, I’m greedy and undeserving. If I ask for just one thing — just one little thing! — then maybe I’ll be allowed to have it. (And maybe no one will get mad at me. Whoa, where did that come from?)
So, maybe next time, I’ll tell myself that for me, VPA stands for “Virtual Potato Chip Asks” — and not stop at just one. 🙂
(Unless I really, really want to, of course.)
Also, I intend to remember what you’ve said here:
The problem with treating Very Personal Ads (or any other destuckification practice) as a form of external salvation, is that then we’re relinquishing responsibility. It’s like handing over your sovereignty.
That feels important to me…and I do like it when I can find ways to be my own fairy godmother.
Yes! I am one of those people who wrote a couple of VPAs and didn’t get what I asked for, and concluded they just don’t work for me. Thank you for the hug, Havi, I really needed it.
I’m not sure where I go from here, though. What I really want is stymied to a degree by where I live, so I don’t know if it’s my own stuck or just one of those things.