It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Trusting.
Every time I started to feel shaky and scared this week, I immediately said to myself: “My love, this is a completely normal part of taking time to figure out what you want!”
When I used to run retreats, invariably someone would have a total meltdown around day 4, and we’d always say, “It’s not a retreat until you fall the fuck apart!”. And then giggle hysterically.
So yeah. It’s just part of the voyage.
If you undertake something big, and ohmylord taking time for myself to be in a state of not-doing and not-producing is big, then things are going to move and shift.
You’re going to get new intel (or new insights into the intel you’ve been ignoring, in my case), and it’s going to shake things up a bit.
So falling apart is natural and normal.
Like when you do long, slow, extended yoga poses for the hips and spine. Your body will probably feel, in Paul’s words, fragile and vulnerable, and this is a good thing.
Remembering this, and trusting this. That was my salvation this week.
Next time I might…
Ask sooner.
I put off asking for something this week, and then it was so completely simple. Let’s be brave and ask!
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Grief. The sadness about losing my mother takes different shapes and forms, like watching someone paint in watercolor. A breath for permission.
- I finally got quiet enough to hear what I really need. I’ve heard it many times this year but each time responded with “well, but that’s impossible though”. Now I am at the point where it doesn’t matter if it’s impossible. It is what needs to happen, so it’s going to have to happen. I imagine this will, at some point, feel incredibly liberating. Right now it’s just scary. A breath for sweetness.
- I have so many elements of the thing I want, and I can also see how I get myself into cycles where I forget to nourish myself, and how I pay the price for this. A breath for ease and for change.
- Insecurity. Sometimes I need to hear the same reassuring thing whispered in my ear, or in my heart, a hundred times a day before it even begins to break the hard built-up surface of disbelief. A breath for patience, sweetness and courage.
- Things that are unknown. Sitting with the void. A breath for trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
- Forgetting truth-love, forgetting to take care of myself, forgetting that this is my job. A breath for remembering.
- And in the ongoing theme, the continued encounters with all the ways I relinquish my sovereignty, compromise my desires, neglect to state my preferences, avoid opportunities to treasure myself. It is fascinating to me just how easily I will pretend that what I want is not important, or act as if I don’t even know what that is. Yet again, a breath for trust and more trust and even more trust after that. And for practicing wearing my crown.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic: It is so much better than I was imagining. Mind: blown. All of my Ludicrous Fear Popcorn that it wouldn’t actually be magic, or that I wouldn’t feel tranquil or that I wouldn’t like the tranquility or that my adventuring companion and I wouldn’t really connect, it was all absurd, all concocted by well-meaning fuzzball monsters who want me to be safe. Every second of this trip has been luscious, sweet, healing, infused with warmth and shared delight. A breath for receiving.
- Holding hands and smiling the most sweetness-laced joy-filled smiles for fifteen days straight, doped up to the gills on happy. A breath for lalalalalalalala I like this.
- I am having a wild passionate affair with life right now, and this is so very healing. A breath for sea and sky and breath and quiet knowing.
- My body is getting so much gazelle time. Hours of walking by the water. Sun salutations, stretching, old turkish lady yoga, dance practice, dancing every night. A breath of thank you.
- I got the intel I have been waiting for. It wasn’t what I was expecting and that is okay. A breath for being held in love.
- Dirk and Annette, our alter-egos, killing it on the dance floor. And I went on a rollercoaster! Twice! If you know me, feel free to laugh hysterically about that one. I did it and it was fun. A breath for pure play.
- I asked for joy on Sunday and not only did I get a thousand tiny sweet moments of joy, on Wednesday we ended up at the joy-filled house of a woman whose last name is Joy, and there was even more joy to be had. And laughter. So much laughter. A breath for the gift of being able to see something beautiful and true while it is happening.
- Thankfulness. Heart full of love. Tiny miracles everywhere. So much sweetness in my life, so much kindness, so much generosity and permission. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I am away on Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic, which means that I’m writing, writing and writing and editing like crazy, while trusting the fractal flowers. And finished big chunk of the Internalship. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
The surprising practice of asking what is more astonishing.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I had the power of Sleeping In Until Eleven — I usually have the power of automatically waking up at 6am so this was completely new for me and it was awesome.
And I had all the powers of Being Deliriously Enthralled And Enthralling At The Same Time, which was hot, and I will take more of that please.
Superpowers I want.
Same as last time. The superpower of Joyful Full-Hearted Adventuring While Treasuring Myself.
The Salve of Tranquility Recovery Magic
This salve contains many qualities, including:
Rest. Surrender. Love. Receiving. Anchoring. Softening. Glowing Boldly. Rejuvenation.
It is salve that softens everything, immediately. It is just the tiny bit tingly, though that part is mostly just that moment when you notice that you have suddenly become more receptive to moments of joy.
Judgment wafts away as you realize that actually there is nothing wrong with just going to bed, or with eating now instead of waiting until everyone else is hungry.
It’s a secret sovereignty salve, because as you begin to take care of yourself and your selves (and your elves), everything begins to make more sense. And then you no longer agree to giving up on what you need in a misguided attempt to make other people happy. Pretty subversive stuff, if you think about.
That’s the magic part of the tranquility recovery magic. Well, that’s where it starts. This salve is creamy, rich, nourishing. There is no name on the jar, just a faint imprint of a unicorn.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is from my obsession this week with redirecting myself to the question: does this take care of me, does this help us take care of ourselves? Autocorrect prefers elves to selves, so this week’s band is called Taking Care Of Elves, they are a ska funk sextet that is somehow still only just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am still recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, since they are keeping things good around here for me.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re feeling quiet. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. We’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way. Feel free to leave pebbles (or petals!), hearts, warmth, sweetness. Those always work.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
It is indeed Friday.
The Challenging and Mysterious:
Finding out that the ex is engaged. Expecting it to feel like a sledgehammer shattering a plate glass window, but instead it was like a cat jumping on a mattress and tipping a small glass of water.
Body things moving towards improvement but still need more attention.
The Lovely and Grace-filled:
Having just the right person tell me the information. And realizing that the sledgehammer is long rusted against the fence and not going swinging through anything.
Writing group. New people that brought wonderful energy.
Choosing sleep above all else until there was enough of it.
Being able to begin again each day.
OMG! I love love love the idea of elf-care as a metaphor-mousing for self-care. Because elf-care involves lots of time in the woods and lots of singing and lots of delicious food and lots of it-is-always-the-right-time and lots of flowy clothing and pretty hairstyles and lots of beautiful architecture…which coincidentally are many of the same things that I need for myself!
Elf care! I love it. It reminds me of an accidental tradition in my town—one year, right around the holiday season, the first “S” in the neon sign of a local Self Storage place burned out. It read “Elf Storage” for weeks, at exactly the right time (all timing is right timing!). People loved it so much it became a yearly ritual.
This week all the hard stuff and good stuff basically boils down a single two-sided coin: heads is “All Timing is Right Timing” and tails is the “OMG There’s No TIIIIIME” monster talk. The past few weeks have been a constant flipping of that coin. Maybe if the coin flips fast enough, it’ll be like that illusion where a bird is drawn on a card, a cage on the reverse. Flip the card fast enough and you create a new, third image before your eyes. What is the new image I can create by flipping this coin? Hmm.
At the top of the “Good” list (and reappearing sometimes on the “Hard” list), though, is one big thing: we have our Burrow. We found it, it is ours, we are here. My heart, and my plate, are full. Everything else will follow; I just want to remember to trust more while I keep flipping that coin.
Friday!
I was afraid I wouldn’t have time to chicken this week and yet here I am with this island of time just calling for a chicken.
Hard:
– I am going back to school. Instead of having another baby next year, I am going back to school. This is about as astonishing as when I dropped out of school in the first place. I’m scared and sad and a little overwhelmed.
– Still shaky from [not betrayal].
– The new dishwasher I was so excited about is proving less helpful than advertised.
– Watching someone I love in pain, and getting a few shoes thrown at me in the process.
– My body made a large shift in size without me noticing, and now my clothes don’t fit and my monsters are up.
– People keep asking me when/whether I want/plan/will have another kid and then telling me things about how siblings close in age get along better and this is difficult for me. Kind of breathtakingly personal and the only honest response would be something like bursting into tears. I just wish this question could be retired.
– So we have this chicken run. I made it. It has been destroyed by two unexpected accidents so we’ve rebuilt it twice. It *still* needs a roof. I am so tied of repairing it, so tired of planning around it, so tired of being just terrible at construction. All of it. Ugh.
Good:
– My sweet Scarlet Ellora turns two today. A few minutes ago, actually. We had a little party with her Spanish group this morning that was utterly perfect, and then my dad and his girlfriend are coming over to open presents with us in a few hours. Two years of being a Mom and I’ve really landed in it, right where I want to be.
– I got to go spend a day with dearest Esme in her new house!
– I’m going back to school. And despite this being the weirdest news my psyche has given me since the news I was dropping out, I’ve come so far in the last four years that I immediately accepted it. When I get news from a clear calm place about what I want, that’s what I do until I hear otherwise in a similarly clear calm place. It saves me a lot of time fighting myself. So my application is in and the money has appeared and I’m putting together babysitting schedules. I’m actually excited.
– My sweet husband got a good enough roof on the chicken run and I don’t have to bother with it anymore. Finally.
Yes, laughing about the rollercoaster. Or maybe straight freaking out. Or maybe admiring. Roller coasters! That’s legit.
Hard: This day.
Good: Most of the rest of the week, really.
What worked? Practicing sovereignty. This included several different things, including taking responsibility for my emotional needs, verbally expressing loving boundaries with others in my household, and actually visualizing my shining, sparkling, beautiful, jewel-covered crown.
Next time…I want to apply lots and lots of Tranquility Recovery Magic salve. In fact, I now invoke the superpower of Next Time Begins As Soon As I Decide It Does, which is right now. Thank you Havi, thank you everyone, for being here and being you. <3
What worked: Letting vacation be vacation. That become a sovereignty practice when I refused to spend half a day or more taking a broken suitcase to the airport so the airline could decide whether it was still usable. Letting vacation be vacation when we decided *not* to spend the days in theme parks and at other attractions.
Next time: Double check the information and print out everything. Ask questions about what will happen if…? Because there were things I didn’t know on this trip that made things more complicated than they needed to be.
The Hard: Weather delays. Temps in the 50’s where the average in November is 70’s, gray skies when I hoped for sunshine.
The Good: Vacation. Trying new things and returning to beloved former activities. In other words, tie-dye and painting. Loving and feeling loved. Appreciating and feeling appreciated. Not overindulging in food and drink just because it is available. Being out of touch and in touch. Knowing about Conscious Exit and Conscious Entry.
Happy Saturday, cluck!
What worked this week: breaths and pauses, resting. beign kind
sucks:
-dark, depleted feeling
-migraine this morning, not a bad one, but stll
-the long dark friday evening of the soul and my perverse insistence on doing ll the bad dysfcntiony things and none of the good fucntiony things. WiserMe says i just needed a night to rest but I’m not sure i buy it.
-not much progress on Ops, lots of uncomfortable bubbling and pprocess and ugh
-oh the wretched violence of our culture, there’s not enugh real stuff that we must infuse every media fiction with more
-ptsd up
-work sucks
-kid sucks
– no sex in months, no sex on the horizon, can’t step out with honor. Friendly Dogs are toxic. so much sad here
the good:
-constant contact with gratitude
-lil gifts all the time
-strong foundation, best practices. what works, works, and if i do it it works for me
-contact with ancestors and guides
-transforming the weekend into a time where no matter what, i arrive at Sunday nite rested and not exhausted
-when in doubt, go to bed
-lots of good contact with the Girlfriend
-as hard as Scorpio has been, its alchemy processed toxic shit of my life.
Cluckings, fair chickeneers.
Hard things…..
* interpersonal dynamics btwn me and several significant people in my life. A breath for Compassion for all of us. And Boundaries.
* people around me wanting reality (specifically, me) to be different to what it is (I am). Maybe these are bridges that need to burn anyway? A breath for Trust and Freedom and Reconfigurations.
* dizzying, frightening freedom. What do I WANT? A breath for You Cannot Screw This Up.
* the vicious voices in my head have been speaking more clearly, and oh they have been vicious. A breath for Patterns Being Pattern-like.
* I am a subject of my social, familial and marital conditioning. I am hardly free at all.
Seeing the damage (or rather, coping mechanisms I have learned and developed given the environments I have lived in nearly all my life) and how I act and re-enact these less-than-optimal patterns out in my present, and how I am conditioning my kids with similar beliefs and patterns.
A breath for The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Piss You Off (And/Or Just Hurt Like Hell). And a breath for finding The Courage To Be The Change.
* oh, oh, oh, so lonesome. A breath for the laws of thermodynamics and the inevitability of an Equal And Opposite Amount Of Incoming Sweetness? (I can go with this bastardisation of physics right now!)
Goodling things………..
* Hearing. And seeing. And awareness. Oh my. A breath for Treasure despite the burn of it.
* Freedom. What DO I want? A breath for Possibility.
* The tiny part of me that believes in TruthLove despite the vicious voices. A breath for The Truth Defends Itself.
* I am calling in my resources and trudging the trudge. Things have GOT to shift somehow soon. A breath for This Is What Evolution Looks Like.
* Another clearly spoken desire towards My Thing (Thing!). Or rather, package of things. A breath for Beacons and Stepping Stones Appearing In The Fog.
That’ll do.
<3 <3
Hahaha yes to The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Piss You Off (And/Or Just Hurt Like Hell), I am right there with you on this one right now. <3
The stuff that got me down:
– Still exhausted from the nasty sneaky virus that had completely felled me for three weeks and had seemingly imbued every single body cell with fatigue
– Looking / feeling pale and shitty due to above
– Recurring moments of insecurity in various ways
– Husband’s obsessive cleanliness
– Having a husband who does not cook, otherwise he would know that it is not possible to cook and at the same time make the kitchen look as though it has just been newly built in
– Realizing that it has almost been one year that eczema has been a big issue
The uplifting stuff:
– A touch less tired this week than the week before
– I have a doctor who does amazing stuff such as ozone therapy and dark field microscopy and the latter may have brought enlightening ideas about the eczema problema
– I have an amazing health insurance that covers all sorts of alternative medicine stuff around 80%
– Female alliance
– Two new pairs of funky wrist warmers
– Ex-neighbour and friend visited pretty much out of the blue after 7 or so years that seemed to vanish into 7 or so
days
– Spanish almonds and a Danish surprise in my snail mail box
mmmm Spanish almonds! Hugs.
Some things that worked: going to the museum. ordering hot sake.
Something to try: discreet NVC temp tattoo. or bracelet. or pendant. secret turning-shoes-into-sweetpeas powahs.
A clew: the band for this week’s dance is Turnip the Beet.
Frustrating:
Lung crud.
Wrong-size container.
Delightful:
Mushroom ravioli.
Swiss team won Davis Cup.
Warm wishes to all y’all.