A year ago today, I accidentally came up with a just-right-for-me birthday practice.
I put it here, of course, and called it a letter from me-today to me-a-year-from-now.
And now I just reread it.
Thank you, letter. Thank you, last-year-me.
Man, I had absolutely no idea. I knew how big the vision was but I didn’t realize how big my plantings were. I didn’t realize how incredibly different today would feel.
Today. Today is a really big day for me.
As you know, my company turns SIX today.
The vision for it turns seven.
And I get to find out what it’s like to be thirty five. It’s kind of hot, actually.
Meanwhile, my most glowingly beautiful and long-awaited tiny sweet things, Stompopolis and the brand new Playground and the Floating Playground have all come into the world last week.
Everything is new. Everything is big. Everything is crazy-sparkly and impossibly full of possibility.
I remember reading an interview once with a scientist who said something about the feeling of having made an outrageously bold prediction and then it turns out to be right. It feels like that.
And the biggest thing is that I’m hardly falling apart at all. Weirdly enough.
Bridge. Me from a year ago. Me from a year from now.
Actually the biggest thing is that last-year-me set it all up. Without even knowing that this was what would or could happen.
So I want to hug her! And I want to pass the gift that I received to next-year-me. I want to prepare for the voyage by remembering that everything I do is for us.
Oh, next-year-me. Wow. She’ll be experiencing things I can’t imagine — a level or frequency of radiance, internal connection and happy humming that I don’t even know about yet.
Sometimes things will be hard. But she’ll meet the hard with more equanimity, with patience, curiosity and spaciousness.
And sometimes things will be ecstatically blissfully beautiful. And she’ll interact with that experience too.
That’s what I wish for her. Presence. Grace. Sweetness. Delight.
And I want to help.
Dear me in a year from now,
We’re here!
Thank you for your guidance and direction in getting here. And not just getting here but getting here like this.
What I wish for you.
Flow, sweetness, autonomy, community, agility, grace, possibility, courage, resilience, shelter, trust, beauty, voyaging, clarity. To feel like you belong completely — in your body, your power, your business, your home and your world. And, of course, to be secretly humming your happy hum at all times.
I know these are already available to you. But you feel them and you talk to them so easily.
What I do for you.
I still pause before each entry and each exit.
I give us loooong transitions.
I talk to the Director and Ath and my other incoming selves. I go into chrysalis mode when they tell me to.
I try to remove things that disconnect me from myself and from the hum.
I try to bring more of things that reconnect me to myself and to the hum.
Glow sitting. Old Turkish lady yoga. Writing. Stone skipping. Walking. Shiva Nata. Wanting what I want. Processing the process. Playing. Being alone. Finding out what is needed.
And, as Bryan says, respecting the decisions that my body has already made for me.
What I need from you.
I will repeat the thing I asked for last year, because it worked so beautifully:
Remind me that my gwishes are valid — that my wanting is legitimate and useful.
Show me how much you benefit from each piece that gets put into place now.
Comfort me when I am fearful.
The planting of the gwishes.
[This is where I listed all the things I want from the coming year.
These are silent gwishes – things that are in between goals and wishes. They have to do with being the queen of my internal world and everything that comes from that.]
What I am giving you.
Signs and reminders.
The double flags flanking the new door: Cascadia and the Jolly Selma.
A new fairy door.
Candles and candles and candles.
The book of OODs.
An itinerary for pirate queen holidays.
A brand new office, with the best view.
Flowers.
And going Long, Slow & Deep into the night.
This is your year.
I cannot wait to meet you.
Play with me! The commenting blanket fort.
If you like, write a letter to you-in-a-year.
It can be as short or as long as you’d like. You can share it here or not. You can borrow the structure that came to me or invent your own.
Otherwise, I am currently receiving warm smiles and waving of kerchiefs as this ship embarks.
As always: this is a wonderfully safe place. We let everyone have their stuff and their own experience. We make space for people by being welcoming, and not giving unsolicited advice.
Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads. And a wave to all the other fishies.
Follow
Happy Birthday, Havi. Happy Birthday, Fluent Self!
Working internally on the letter to my next-year self. Today is a day that I’m anxious about, although so far, so good. Hey, Next Year Me, could you just come hang out with me in person for a while? I could really use your help. Thanks!
*waves kerchief at the embarking ship*
Happy Birthday, Havi!!! And Happy Birthday, Fluent Self!!! Yay!
I think I am going to write a letter to me 6 months from now. I have been noticing clews that then is going to be an important time for me, and I am excited! 🙂
Happy birthday!! What beautiful letters.
*hand on heart sigh*
Happy birthday to the Fluent Self and to you, Havi! How cool to read these letters and think about this concept.
Noticing: that if I have a secret vision for Me-in-one-year, I don’t perceive any connections to it right now. What might that vision be? There are protesting monsters who are fearful of hope and plans (or more precisely, they wish to protect me from the pain of disappointment) but I do know it is possible to bring them along with me on the journey, if I wish, rather than avoid hope and planning altogether.
So that’s what I’d like to make space for: safety for hope and planning. And knowing that this is part of it.
Happy birthday, dearest Havi!! Happy birthday, Fluent Self!!
Happy birthday, Havi! And Fluent Self! 😀
Happy Birthday! So I remember your letter from last year and I just went to see if I had written in the comments and I did not. So this year, I am doing it. Yay! Hello to me from next year! Hello.
I wrote the letter here and then decided it was too personal. So this is just a clue I’m leaving for myself for next year. A sign of joy and play and possibility.
The letter is in your email in a folder that you did not know you had called “Self Care”. Go find it!
Happy birthday, Havi! Happy birthday, Fluent Self!
Love love love the letter idea. Silent retreating on the letter itself, but thank you for the notion.
And happy unbirthday to us all!
I love that it is your birthday! And I love the letter. Felicidades, Havi!!!! Omedeto gozaimas 🙂
*waves with a silk handkerchief in the colors of the rising sun*
Happy Birthday Havi and Fluent Self. Thank you for being you and bringing your business into the world.
Warm smiles and fluttering kerchiefs to you!
Happy Birthday Havi, Happy Birthday Fluent Self! Woohooooo!!!!
With so much gratitude for you and the shining light that you are!
Wishing you so much ease, comfort, magic, fun, laughter & delight-full foods as any 35 year old can take!
May each voyage be delightful, easeful, joyful. And each return home be rich and abundant with a treasure trove of magical wands and wishes, pearls and wisdom that make each step, each moment even better than the moment before that and even better than the mind could ever know how to comprehend.
With love and thanks,
Leila XXX
Happy birthday!
This is such a great idea! I could obviously write something to future-me right now, but I like the idea of a -ritual-. So, I’m going to put something in my calendar to remind me to do this on my actual birthday.
Keep the good things coming!
I am beaming smiles to you! And taking the letter-to-next-year-me into my own birthday ritual this Friday. Love and handkerchief waving <3
Yom hudelet sameach, Havi! May everything blossom and sparkle in abundance and then some.
Dear me in a year from now:
Thinking of you is helping me say gracious noes to an assortment of things, and to quietly ignore others that don’t require my attention. I can already tell how happier (and nicer to be around) you are having more space (physically, emotionally, and fiscally) to study and to spend more time with your loves.
Also? “More sovereign” is a good look on you. (As is the non-itchy face powder I’m going to find for you later this year.)
If you could help babysit the Not Enough and Regret monsters a bit more often, that would help me negotiate with Past Me. She’s crazy-protective of the books, clothes, and trinkets that neither you nor I are willing to make time for. I’ll try to keep reminding the kid that that ambition and optimism are normal, and that there are far worse sins than effectively donating money to authors and booksellers and craft stores. (Plus, holding onto the things isn’t exactly making the not-getting-to-them any less disappointing, y’know?)
I gotta scoot, MIAYFN, but stay in touch, yeah? Talking to you sometimes surprises the stucks out of their grooves. That’s a good thing. (Even when it’s disconcerting as all creation.)
Cheers,
Mwah
A hearty wave to the pirate ship!
Happy Birthday, Havi! Congratulations on 6 years of The Fluent Self!
Happy Birthday Havi! I hope everything goes well and thank you for your wonderful business and happy birthday to the business as well.
Happy, zany, glowing birthday to you, Selma, and the whole crew. Mmmwah! I’m so very grateful for all of you!
Many, many happy birthdays now and to infinity. But you know one at a time.
*sparkles thrown*
Happiest of birthdays to you, dear Havi! Happy birthday, Fluent Self!
xo
Happiness for your birthdays, Havi and FluentSelf!
Sparkles and cheers, bouncing and sea chanteys!
Hooray!
Oh happy day to you! Bon voyage and welcome home:)
A very joyous launchday to you and your soul-crew, Havi.
I am smiling a warm birthday smile across town from me to you and the Fluent Self.
Dearest Havi,
Happy, happy! Happy happy happy, joy joy. birthday to you! (imagine this in song, cause I’m singing it to you).
Just want to send good wishes to you and The Fluent Self. Because of you and your blog, today I had a super-surreal peace-talk with a monster, negotiated by a monster, that looked so much like a scene from a cartoon that it made me laugh. So thank you for your part in today’s laughter medicine and destuckification.
And I thought the birthday letter you wrote last year was such an intriguing/fascinating idea that I thought I’d try it for my birthday … but didn’t (for my usual “I-like-to-disappear-on-my-birthday” reasons). Reading your current birthday letter, I think: “Huh, maybe it’s not too late to write a belated birthday letter to Future-Me.”
A toast to you- enjoy your year!
I am sending you a beautiful warm smile from here where I’m standing on the shore. Giving my body and my Inner Self and all the other parts of me all the time they need before we embark, too.
Happy Birthday, Havi!! <3
Happy Birthday, Havi! Happy Birthday, Fluent Self!
I will take this idea to write to me from a year from now and sprinkle it with fairy dust and love and make it come true. But not tonight, I’m too tired tonight. I did get the pleasure of a bit of a chat with me from 20 years from now on Sunday; but I look forward to writing to me from a year from now during on vacation next week.
But warm smiles, sighs, and birthday hugs to you & all around for good measure.
mmmm… warm smiles… my kerchief is waving, and happy birthday!
I am so glad that you exist and thrive and share and are so real and are here…
happy, happy birthday!
Whenever you mention the Beloved Lurkers, my heart eases just a little. Because I am usually one of them, and also because I fear them. I’m still learning how to deal with the silence from them when I write something online. But every time you mention us, I feel a little more okay. Thank you.
Also, happy birthday! And bon voyage as well!
Happy happy birthday Havi!
And happy birthday to the Fluent Self!
thank you for writing such wonderful posts and I love the birthday letter idea!! thank you for your soulful presentation of your ideas, they inspire me to think in a more creative way. happy happy happy! happy birthday.
Happy, happy birthday, my lovely friend! May all the wishes you plant this year come true in perfect timing.
Happy Birthday, Havi! Warmest wishes and thanks for sharing yourself with us. Bearing witness to your flight has been marvelous. Marvelous. May every blessing be yours. x
Happy birthday, Havi! Happy birthday, Fluent Self!
Welcome, Stompopolis! And welcome big Playground! And yay Floating Playground!
And also: Hi, HedgeMouse!
And a note from me to Year-from-Now-Me: Hey, hon! I picked up your jacket from the tailor. It looks amazing.
Dearest Havi:
Wishing you a year filled with your gwishes, lots of gentle reminders that take you wherever you want. . . and sweetness.
So much sweetness and love.
Happy birthday! And happy birthday to the Fluent Self. 6!
Thank you for creating it! 🙂