It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Treating the emotion, not the symptom.
Straight to the source.
Next time I might…
Ask for help.
I hit a situation I couldn’t handle on my own, and instead of asking for help (internal or external), I just kept alternating between running at it headlong or trying to avoid it, both of which were — surprise! — totally ineffective.
I was so stuck on this that I forgot about the fox and the video game.
Yesterday I met a new version of Incoming Me or slightly-wiser me, and she solved so many things with her superpowers of Marvelously Unfazed By Any Of This and Creative Exits and I See The Hidden Treasure In This Situation.
I asked why we hadn’t met yet, and she said: Invite me and I’ll show up.
That’s basically what asking for help is. Give a clear invitation. I forget this and I am ready to remember it.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- While I am doing a lot less hobbling and a lot more walking, the knee injury is still a thing and I still can’t dance and if one of the lessons here is patience, I still haven’t learned that one either because I hate this. A breath for release and relief.
- Working too hard in preparation for not-working. As someone said, “I just want to be working my body, instead of working whatever it is I’m working. What am I working? Worry I guess, I work at worrying.” Right. Me too. And that’s stupid. A breath for Shmita, and for remembering that there is no later so choose with love now.
- God I miss dancing. Also I feel conflicted about dancing. That was a big theme of the week. A breath for all parts of me, and for the solution to this, which is love.
- Completely blindsided by a very distressing thing in the space I rent, something I can’t currently talk about. Multiple confrontations, always fun. And of course I went into all my patterns, including placating mode (“please don’t hate me!”), and this resulted in feeling extremely shaky. A breath for safety, for acknowledgment and legitimacy, for noticing patterns with love, for interrupting patterns with love, for taking care of myself with love.
- Both the above situation and the not being able to talk about it really threw me for a loop, and I haven’t been able to focus on any other work stuff. A breath for this being okay
- Apart from my lover for six long days. A breath for missing.
- So many monsters about money, and money-related things right now. I really don’t want to believe the narrative of It Doesn’t Pay To Be The Good Guy, however all evidence is currently pointing towards it. A breath for a new way of seeing the pieces.
- 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. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- On Wednesday I woke up with no pain in my knee, and had THREE WHOLE CONSECUTIVE HOURS of no pain. And now I can bend it in a new way, very exciting. I’m walking without the brace. Some things still hurt. But in general there is big improvement. A breath of appreciation and gratitude for this.
- Managed to successfully subvert Valentines day, a day I generally loathe, by intentionally spending it with The Vicar. We drank delicious tea and talked about life stuff and avoided the internet. A breath for rewriting.
- Many beautiful hours in the Playground, soaking up its love and magic. A breath for the sweetest goodbyes.
- The years of All The Barns Burning taught me that there is only good, that sometimes blessings are astonishingly well-disguised but the blessing is there. And, more importantly, the blessing isn’t just a yin to the yang dot of good in a sea of hard, or a silver lining to a cloud. Invariably it turns out that the experience itself is treasure and leads to more treasure. It just takes time to be revealed. This deep internal knowing kept me from massively falling apart about the [situation]. A breath for this hard-earned life wisdom, which is also part of the treasure of the burning barns from then.
- As Agent Annabelle wisely said to my monsters, “Monsters: this story is still unfolding! SETTLE DOWN.” A breath for remembering this, and for backing off to look at things from the perspective of listening to a story. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. Superpower of “settle down and listen to the story!”
- Being back in my lover’s arms after our time apart and all that missing. A breath for pure joy.
- Wise counsel from friends. A breath for this is what it is like to be adored and cared for.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Emptying out. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!
Operations completed. Wham boom!
Did even more Playground-emptying. Made the (metaphorical) call. Dealt with the Munich op. Dispatched two more ops that have been super stuck. Thank you fractal flowers. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise words from past-me.
This one is from SEVEN YEARS AGO, and I’d probably rewrite it today and add a bunch of things, but wise-me was wise, and this is full of love and permission, so here you go: The little-known self-work practice of watching TV…
Superpowers I had this week…
Okay, this is so funny. For the least three weeks or so I’ve said the power I want is Totally Unfazed By Any Of This. Because my life is basically the opposite of that right now.
Until yesterday when out of nowhere, I encountered the me who is Marvelously Gloriously Unfazed, and got to watch her work. She is incredible. So now I know what this power feels like, and I just want to keep playing with that.
And even when I got thrown, she wasn’t fazed by how fazed I was, and showed me how to find the treasure.
Powers I want.
I will throw into the pot again the one called I Let Myself Really Know What I Want Instead Of Hiding It From Myself Out Of Fear. I had a taste of that this week, and I want more.
And I will take the power of perfect simple solutions everywhere.
The Salve of Marvelously Unfazed.
This salve is wonderfully steadying. It is the salve of pause, take a breath, reset. It is the salve of enjoying the red lights, knowing you are okay in this moment, and that whatever you think is bad news may well turn out to be fine.
When I wear it, I feel it sinking into my skin with so much permission, so much presence, that my focus changes.
Suddenly I see the yellow daffodils, the rich redness of the rug, the things that are steady, good, supportive, available for me to appreciate.
I remember that love is inside of me, not something I need to go out and acquire or obtain or earn. I remember that solutions will reveal themselves when I get quiet enough to listen, so I put my hand on my heart, and feet on the floor, and take care of myself and breathe.
When I wear this salve, I see things as just right. Put on hold for ten minutes? Perfect, that’s more time to ask Incoming Me for advice. Someone banging on a drum set while I’m trying to work? I’m being redirected to work in a cafe, and/or this is my chance to get better at smiling while being firm and clear about what I want and need.
And everything I try is an experiment. Whether it “works” and I get the result I want, or I get a different result altogether, I am Marvelously Unfazed because I am just gathering intel, and this is all useful intel.
This salve makes it easier to navigate. And it gives me sweet dreams.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is from my conversation with the Vicar, it’s called Reiki Infused Sex Toys, their latest album is Their Butt For The Grace Of God, and it might or might not be just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
It’s the last week to join the Secret Sword Society, embarking at the end of February! It’s the only thing I’m doing this year and it’s going to be amazing.
And 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. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!
Follow
Marvelously Unfazed. *Yes*. I will gratefully accept a heaping, healing helping of that salve. <3
Today, I learned that an anagram for my name is Ask Invent Heal, and that another is Henna Salve Kit. Both of those sound pretty good to me.
Happy weekend, everyone.
Friday.
The Hard:
– Everything hurt. So much that I was left screaming and gasping and sobbing, sometimes for hours. it came and went randomly, accompanied by an unvarying exhaustion. And then someone said “you probably have fibro,” which sent me on a whole difficult mental journey I’d rather not have gone on.
– I’ve found a pattern, so ubiquitous it seems like *the* pattern. And it’s everywhere.
– Treating my daughter and husband in ways I’d rather not treat them. And disliking myself for it.
– Scholarship applications, round two.
The Good:
– Native plant sale! AKA the reason I showed up at sushi on the 14th completely covered in mud and unaware of what day it was.
– The amazing Montessori school my daughter gets to attend. We went to a parent night tonight and I swear it was healing just watching young children treated with such respect and acceptance. Plus it was several hours of switching languages, and the world just feels better bilingual. For me.
– Also hearing how much they value my sweet little HSP’s attention to detail and obsession with gloves and need for quiet. Yes! She is wonderful! Thanks for noticing her differences and being not just tolerant but excited by them. Compare this to my daycare, where I got sighs, eye rolling, or even yelled at for being so “particular,” and “picky.” I feel so lucky to have found this place.
– An epic conversation with Scarlet about all the things a taco is not. (Pink. A bus. Soup. The bathroom.)
– You wouldn’t think dropping things off at hazardous waste would be fun. But you’d be wrong. They are the most cheerful playful nice people I run into almost ever. And now we are truly done with all the poison the former owners left here.
– I got to spend the sweetest day with my love, where everything just flowed and was so relaxing and romantic and just wonderful.
– My seed starting stuff came, so the little miss and I planted a bunch of plants! She’s got all this practice in spooning things from school, so she spilled less dirt than me. But more seeds.
– Tied up a bunch of loose ends with decluttering, and it feels great.
– Riding the bus. The bus! I love the bus.
– Hilarious potty training adventure that’s probably too gross to recount here. So funny!
<3 to all the Chickeneers.
Thank you for a new thing to tell my monsters: “settle down and listen to the story.”
<3
Long breaths. Bell breaths. Breaths between and among pebbles and flowers.
Something that worked: reading aloud.
Next time I might: factor [x] in the timing of [y]
Hard, challenging, frustrating:
* fatigue vs. I Wanna Get Better At Everything By Dinnertime (AND A Pony Too)
* disappointment, of the “dude, not cool” kind
* chipped nails
Good, comforting, happy:
* snow days. A breath of thankfulness for safety.
* hot sauce. A breath of delight.
* revising and recording poems. A breath for distillation, and another for connection.
With warm wishes and wishes for warmth to all y’all.
Chicken, hai.
Hard
Forgetting that Nothing Is Wrong leading to hello My Stuff!
Good
Hope
Acting on hope
Being held, noticing I am held, appreciating held.
<3 <3 <3
Heart sighs this, and cluck!
Such week!
I went to Pantheacon and got all the wells filled. all of them.
I Embarked the hell out of this caper, and i was sure that my re-entry would be smooth and it had never ever been worse. Still processing this experience:
so the sparkles:
-setting up beautiful Embarking for Pcon, at work and home, enjoying the work, feeling contact with Girlfriend
-everything is fine!
-Pcon is joy. even in momments f checking schooled or checked, i got fed in ways i dont get fed anywhere else, and i needed it
-Pearl!
-i got to do my Ochun presnetation, lots of fun stuff for her this year, she dug it
-had a lot of my work laid out for me, and came home really excited to get to work.
the suk:
-coming home off this incredible high, to an angry, unhappy house of incompetent men and children. total system failure and the only ting i cold have done to prevent it was to make sure that my kids were in the care of other adults. THIS IS FUCKED.
-much like Rally, coming home from Pcon just shines a Kleig light on the dysfucntion of my life.
-car nd computer issues FTW
-i love my husband with far more pssion and devotion than he will ever feel for me, it’s just not in him. i go from an environment of such deep warmth and positive regard to here, it’s disorienting.
-back home, back in old habits and patterns, back to not getting to what’s important
-plus Gilr scout booth today, in some ridiculous Hoth weather. ugh, i hate this fucking cookie fascism.
The conditional acceptance of my 1st poem – if I made it longer (!) => I made it longer & it’s much stronger too => “oh sorry, it doesn’t fit our issue after all”.
Had a lot emotionally riding on if AROHO would accept me as an ‘out’ nonbinary-gendered writer. I’d attended in 2013 & it changed my life. I wanted to reconnect w ppl i’d met. I wanted to feel *welcomed* *as I actually am*. That would have been amazing. Instead, I got waitlisted. And… I’m done. If a space opens up, i’ll decline it.
I’m such a sad panda. And yet, this is better bc I’m valuing myself. If you’re not thrilled to have me there, then you’re not a good fit. I’m enthusiastic abt stuff & for the first time in my life… I’m gonna hold out for ppl/opptys that feel the same way abt me.
The good:
Made progress on a project.
Had positive interactions with some surprising people at the all-day meeting this week, an occasion I normally dread.
Made it through some difficult meetings better than expected.
The hard:
Continuous headache and strange medical issues popping up all week. New this week, I find I clench my teeth till it hurts in my sleep. OH JOY, how do I get rid of this?
Really, really tired. Crazy subzero temperatures not helping.
Overwhelmed. How am I going to do all these projects? There is a LOT going on and I am not good at being patient with myself.
Bad news 1: A feral cat my neighbor has been caring for got loose from her carrier in a strange neighborhood, the day before the deep freeze set in. We all wanted a happier outcome to her story, and now it seems to have ended. It seems impossible to find her. Feeling helpless.
Bad news 2: Friction between C and J. I urged them to work it out between themselves, is this the right position? Who knows.
The way forward:
Give myself time to rest and process all this stuff. I may never make progress if I am in such poor shape.
Booked massage on Monday.
Returning to meditation to mitigate the sleep stuff. Maybe there’s a good app I can find that will help.
Start the project, to the extent possible. This will need the same focus I gave to school, with breaks.
Try to get more sleep.
Find some sort of grieving ritual or action for all these losses lately, plus the big losses that are always in the background. Dropping flowers in the river, if the river weren’t a big chunk of ice, for example.
Sometimes it is OK not to expect too much. Sometimes you can’t pretend everything is OK. Sometimes you just take the smallest steps you can manage.
I wish everyone a good week.
A late Checkin
The hard:
Brain being difficult. Beyond monsters. So hard to remember not to believe it. It seems so right. A breath for staying here even when I believe it.
I can’t draw. The things I see in my brain don’t come out if my hand and it is so frustrating because I’m trying to make a picture book. A breath for patience and recognizing that this is a sign that I can’t do this by myself and need to say help please.
So many things I want to do need money. And there isn’t enough for it all. A breath for restraint.
The wonderful.
Scene class. My first performance! People who are experienced saying “you really pulled that off!” A glowing heart.
Having my friend back. Texting her on Saturdays and emailing her during the week. And sneaking out in snowy Sundays to have tacos. Having a place for my heart to rest.
Realizing that being around people is energizing fun wonderful joyful important and so so wanted – when they are my right people! I wasn’t introverted and nervous, I was just with the wrong people. A breath for not giving up the search.
I can’t wait to hear the rest of the story.
Lots of stuff that I didn’t want came up this week: pain, sickness, having to cancel things I really wanted to do, anger and resentment made worse by the fact that 1) expressing it wouldn’t make anything different and 2) not sure what to do about the situations that triggered the feelings.
Also inadequate heat — it didn’t used to be this way but the last few years, our heat pump and furnace have had trouble coping with changes in the weather and especially with extremes.
Also being chided for not taking the initiative when the initiative wasn’t mine to take. And finding that a certain person has been blocking something that should be happening.
But there was good: teaching is always a pleasure, and this semester most of my students are the kind of people I would like to be friends with. Not sure if it can happen with this specific group but it’s nice to have a reminder that that kind of person is not “scarce” and “hard to find.”
And I waded through some processing and eventually came up with a list of qualities that I want to bring more into my life and now I can focus on them and that will be good.
The hard:
– my head is still full of gunk and it is getting between the cogs and gumming up the works and everything just feels like it has this thin film of awfulness over the top of it
– and it is showing me scary stuff too, and even though I know that the scary stuff won’t hurt me, I know too that even having pictures of the scary stuff is a bad sign.
– and I just want to howl and go awwohhougggharrgghhle when will it stop?
– (I feel as if I ought to apologise for howling in Havi’s comments. But I know that ‘ought to’ is something my monsters say a lot and it is probably fine to howl here.)
– [work stuff]
The good:
– I went to a bi history event which turned out to be talking mostly about Doctor Who. It was excellent.
– and I went to a book talk and the author told me that Everything Will Be All Right In The End. (And he used to be one of the Communards – the pop group, not the Parisian revolutionaries – and now he is a vicar, so he ought to know.)
– we borrowed the car and drove to Derbyshire and back and there was singing.
– hot sexy mermaid affair, all week! Secret mermaid rendez-vous on the 0745! Everywhere we can find! Trying to be cool but really thinking about when we can next see each other! And beginning to think that actually, yes, they are as good as I think they are.
What worked – telling people. Generally speaking, people are lovely when I tell them. I should remember this.
Love to you all.
Ola chickens, a late one for me too… very, very HARD week. Complete ME relapse, income cut off, things in new house not working and not cleaned. Deep in my stuff. Good: I moved house last weekend and all my friends and family were amazing and my new house is lovely. Broken things mostly fixed. My brother was here when I had a fit and knew what to do.
Thank you so much for reminding us of The Fox & the Video Game and the SW Practice of Watching TV. I really needed both of those today. I’m now going to slather myself in the salve of Marvelously Unfazed, and light up the joss stick and drink the tea as well… and watch an old episode of Buffy…
<3<3<3 to all x
The Hard:
— Shoe-Throwing Co-Worker threw lots of shoes this week. Managing the fallout from her shoe-throwing is literally my job.
— Being behind on lots of more important things, because I’ve spent so much time dealing with shoes.
— Frustration with disobedient software.
The Good:
— Set a boundary that needed to be set. It helped.
— Project ending means Shoe-Throwing Co-Worker is only my co-worker for another week.
— Awesome new projects starting soon!
the Hard of Monday Morning:
got to work and the fire alarm was going off. flashing light and periodic wailing banshee/fingernails on the blackboard noises (just at the right interval for me to notice the blessed silence and calm and hope it’s over before the next assault). even more hellish? in the parking garage. so tiny enclosed echoey space with flashing lights and agonizing noise.
got to the office, and no one had cleaned the fridge on friday so we had the Wall of Stank going. and flashing lights for the fire alarm. yay . . .
all i needed was cough drops that tasted like sour milk and a fiberglass undershirt (yay Lent!!) and i’d be miserable in all FIVE senses.
then I read this:
“Reiki Infused Sex Toys: Their Butt for the Grace of God” and I can hear it via http://www.earworm.com. a little bluegrass, a little punk, a touch mariachi, with Vedic hymn inspired lyrics. amazing that this is just one guy; I want to see him perform this live.
a breath for hilarity in the middle of suck. may i always be able to find such.
Chicken-to-date.
Also from The Dude, Super-lurker:
He deeply appreciates the salve of Marvelously Unfazed. He poured a big bottle (over a liter) full over him on Saturday. He likes the way it feels. He says it smells good. He’s going to repeat it today.
Mine is a cocktail that looks and tastes like a martini, because fictional martini drinkers – James Bond, the Norths, Nick & Nora Charles – are always Marvelously Unfazed.
The good:
Operation Play Dough
Valentine’s Day with my sister, playing with Minions. Hee, hee, hee! Great snapshot of lady with owl.
My birthday at the Indio Date Festival. I remember most that the Junior art exhibits were way better than the Gallery show of adult artists. And the blackberry pie with graham cracker crust dessert. The Dude remembers the Nasty Traffic Jam on the way home – 2.5 hours to go 12 miles. Next time he might let me drive to save his achy knee and take the pain pills sooner.
This salve works great! A recent internet money transaction did not go through amid finger-pointing between the companies involved. Unfazed, I e-mailed the vendor who graciously will accept a Check in the Mail. The vendor works on a Pirate Ship.
The Huh?
Feeling a hot red marble of rage for a short period. It’s legitimate, but baffling. Scientists are tracking down the cause: possibilities are food, or lack of, P_S (I don’t have the M anymore), and frustration with technology.
Other stuff since the last Chicken:
What is my left hand grasping? What’s with clenched fists?
Clue: I know The Quest is too big for me to get my arms around.
Fake Band – Cranky Old Geezer. Big hits: Frustrated with Technology, and My Smart As#*! Phone. Just one guy mumbling rap without a microphone and playing totally acoustic instruments.
happy birthday!!!