A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

Interview with a beam

Accidental Assertiveness Training (here at the AAT)

Over the past few weeks I have been immersed in Assertiveness practices.

Or maybe it’s better to say, I have been given situation after situation, handed opportunity after opportunity, to work on this, whether I want to or not. And apparently I do want this.

Or maybe it’s better to say, sometimes you sign up for the advanced practice, and sometimes you get knocked into the ring.

Or maybe it’s better to say: a beam

Or maybe it’s better to say, I am in the process of learning how to be a beam of light.

Which is to say, I am practicing being a beam of light: concentrated, powerful, direct, clear.

Well-boundaried, because that is the nature of a beam, it takes up the amount of space it takes up, and it glows its boundaries without that work being effortful.

A beaming beam is always beaming.

A light source. Light-sourced. The source is source.

Or is it another kind of beam

Or maybe it’s better to say, I am practicing being a sturdy wooden beam: just there, part of a larger support structure, all the parts supporting all the other parts.

Like a beam, I am of the earth and from the earth, to one day return to earth, can I get better at remembering that I am earth.

Saying yes to being a beam that is a building block.

What is a beam / what’s in a beam

I am thinking about a funny day from last summer when my brother and I were dealing with the house that had been accumulating [belongings, a funny word] for fifty two years, without ever having been emptied…

The basement took several weeks to empty, and once it was empty, I had the odd experience of looking up and encountering a beam.

Not of light, the wooden kind of beam. A structural beam.

And on this beam was written, in my mother’s handwriting, in all caps: BEAM!

BEAM!

A delicious and compelling mystery

Why did my mother write the word BEAM on a beam? Why the exclamation point?

She has been dead for eleven years and the only other person I might ask about this has a ten second memory, so there is no way to know.

Was this related to a house project that never came to pass? Did it mean, don’t think about doing anything here, there’s an important beam!

Or was it one of her little jokes, did she also find it funny that beam is a noun and beam is a verb? Maybe.

I mean, for sure she would find that very funny, but I don’t see that being the reason she got on a ladder to write this message for [an unknown recipient], who turned out to be me.

The many mysteries

Many things are unsolvable.

I place it all lovingly into the cauldron of It Solves Itself, and then it does or it doesn’t. Solve itself, that is.

Or maybe it is all simmering in this solution (double-meaning) so that something can resolve itself later on.

What am I noticing & learning in my interactions with [being a beam]

What am I learning in my accidental assertiveness training?

I can tell you what is working:

Regularly checking in with myself to make sure I’m not saying yes to a no. Regularly saying things like, hey here are my considerations/concerns here.

And pausing as often as possible, so that I can notice when I am trying to accommodate when accommodating is not my job and does not serve being in my own beam of radiance.

All this is working.

Something about false ease or a facsimile of ease

What else is on my board of red strings, like I am the conspiracy theory gif guy, piecing it all together…

Noticing: on the surface it seems like it’s so much easier to not be assertive than to be assertive.

As in: Just make do! Go along to get along! Be flexible and easy! I can do this. I can excel at this.

However, the actual price, in energy and in all ways, of not being assertive is much higher. It’s pretty much always worth it for me to just say my piece. Certainly better than to hold my peace.

True ease comes from the clarity of I got clear on what I want and need, shared that information in a neutral way with others, and we all benefit from that exchange.

Translation time

What do I mean by ASSERTIVE? What is my own personal definition or ideal definition of the quality that I want to channel here?

Assertive = Clear, Candid, Radically Poised.

It means: I get quiet, tune in & listen then act on what is received.

It is not about being brash or overly chutzpadik, though if that’s what it takes to get my point across then sure.

So i need to translate this in my brain: it ACTUALLY CREATES MORE EASE to say what i want and need than it is to contort and accommodate and work around what I perceive other people want.

Who is the self who beams?

Who is the self of Radically Poised / a well-boundaried beam of light and love, the version of me who finds it easier to be deliciously assertive?

Residual pain

I was humming about various fears around assertiveness, like what if I am misunderstood, my biggest fear, and people think that I am being obnoxious or demanding?

Or what if everyone hates me and then I am at risk of BANISHMENT.

Noticing there is some residual pain from being on the receiving end of the outdated Jewish divorce rituals that I had to go through at a too-young-for-that-shit age, not that any age is the right time…

Remembering my husband throwing the paper at me and saying megureshet megureshet megureshet

Like a spell

Like a spell: You are divorced x3

But really, more or less, it is saying: you are banished, you are cast out. Sure, you are liberated and free but also you are being sent away…

He didn’t want to throw the paper at me or say the words, but we gritted our teeth and got through it.

Reversals & reconfigurings

How do we reverse the banishment spells, real and perceived, that accumulate over the course of a lifetime, the hurts of rejection, the grief, the despair…

How do we reverse whatever brought us to the point of gritted teeth life? Some new spells are needed. Some solutions of undoing and reconfiguring.

No more days of gritting

I have a friend who never wants to go home, and when it’s time for them to go home, they say, “well now it’s time”, but you can feel how their teeth grit.

Actually it is more than one friend in this situation.

I have also lived in the gritting places, the friction places.

And if we take this idea more on a metaphorical plane and less in the literal sense of HOME, there are still places in my life where I grit teeth and go along to get along.

What if we wanted better for ourselves the same way that I want better for my friends?

Let’s talk to the self who beams

Hi there, beam who beams. I am going to call you Beam. What does Beam wish to share with me?

Beam says:

“Trust the Known Knowns. You can always list what is already known. Work within those parameters, and also stay open to the idea that they can shift later.”

“To be a radiant beam of light, you have to stay alert and aware to what drains your energy, and be willing to shift location / venue / mood speedily.”

And what do the shadow selves say?

Let’s talk to Jolene, since everyone seems to think I am Jolene-shaped lately, even though my interest in taking someone’s man is as nonexistent if not more than my ability to do so even if I wanted to, which I do not.

Okay, let’s talk to Jolene

Jolene Self says: Go full Jolene. Turn it up to eleven. Experience me.

Recognize that other people’s jealousy, projections, narratives etc have nothing to do with you.

If they are afraid of what they think is your power, all that means is they are afraid of their own power, or afraid to be powerful generally.

Or maybe, equally, they could be afraid that no one has any power, including them, and that life just happens, and sometimes the person you love falls out of love with you and it fucking sucks and there isn’t anything that can or could be done.

It’s okay to be a muse

Me: Yes. I experienced that last fall, that someone fell out of love with me for seemingly no reason, and now it is fall again, and I am noticing all the trepidation around that.

Jolene self: Be me. Wear sexy boots. Laugh at shadows.

Be me. Enjoy vitality and aliveness. Red lips and take no prisoners.

Be me. Smash some walls. Be a wrecking ball of love. Leave the party early without saying goodbye.

Let people write songs about you while knowing that they don’t know the story at all. They are inventing something new and that is art. It’s okay to be a Muse, and it’s okay to be amused.

Well-boundaried as in being a well

I am a Beautifully Boundaried Bell.

Well-boundaried as in being a well, drawing from the well, staying well.

A beaming beam of light and love.

I choose love and to love life and be love and be life (to be a bell).

Be(ing) a bell

And some of the people who have left my life will return to my life in right timing just like my long-lost friend did, and others will not, and I don’t need to sweat it, I just need to light candles and incense to burn away residue.

I can put all these seemingly troubled or confusing situations into the cauldron of It Solves Itself, with love, and practice not making things about me and not worrying and letting things be. Let them be.

Be a bell and be love and loved.

What does BEAM wish to share?

What does BEAM the well-boundaried glowing beam of light & love wish to share? What do they already know vis a vis what we know that they want us to know?

+ It’s Easy If You Do What You Want
+ Into The Cauldron Of It Solves Itself
+ Say it with kindness if/when you can, and the more important part is just fucking saying it
+ Practice some good Nourishing Entry
+ Call on the energy of that Elmo gif with the flames behind them

Sometimes I am the flame and sometimes I am what is burning

As my wise friend Kat remarked re that Elmo imagery:

“Sometimes I am the flames and sometimes I am Elmo and sometimes I am whatever is being burned in the background!”

Yes, it is like the Jungian dream analysis style where every character and object in your dream represents you.

What if we can be or contain all these elements at once

What if we can be all these things at once?

Love and assertiveness, Dolly and Jolene, the one who sets something on fire, and the energy that is asking to be transformed?

What if we can play our way into solutions, into a good third way, into some loving clarity, into a new realm of what might be possible?

Into expansiveness, beaming our way there together

I think there is some expansiveness here for us, if we let it be there, and maybe, paradoxically or not at all, the practice of being beautifully well-boundaried might even be what allows for that expansiveness.

Let’s beam our way to something better, however clumsily this might go at first. It’s all practice, we are allowed to wobble and plop as we try new things.

There is an expansiveness to that too, a beautifully boundaried container to that too, a beam of light to that too.

Here’s to being surprised by beautiful, simple, elegant solutions, and to generating even more, through taking exquisite care of ourselves, may it be so, or something even better.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.