Hello, week: we are here.
{a breath for being here when we get here}
Thank you, week!
This is the 404th week in a row we are chickening here together!
What worked this week?
Pre-emptive celebrations. I’ve noticed that I won’t pause to appreciate what I’ve done in a day until the day is done, and that is silly.
So I began each work day by giving myself credit for everything I did before sitting down to work, no matter how frivolous or wrong my monsters said these were.
[For the record, they also say it’s frivolous and wrong to pat myself on the back before I’ve done anything that “counts”, but they are slowly coming around because it turns out that actually appreciation is a huge source of motivation for me…]
Here is a sample celebratory list of everything I did before I started doing the things I thought I should be doing. If that makes sense.
- I got out of bed: WHAM BOOM!
- did twenty minutes of stretching and moving: WHAM BOOM!
- let the contractors into the basement: WHAM BOOM!
- read potentially scary update about my taxes: WHAM BOOM!
- found clothes and left the house: WHAM BOOM!
- told twitter about yesterday’s post WHAM BOOM!
- got through an awkward social interaction: WHAM BOOM!
- and probably some other things WHAM BOOM!
Next time I might…
Do less. Give things time to resolve themselves on their own.
Naming the days.
This week was the week of Do-overs Forever, and here were the days:
New day. So this is what “trust love” is like. Incoming me. A beautiful day. Excited and focused. Do Less. I am a genius.
Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…
Not Everything Requires A Response: the Havi Brooks story
8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- This was seriously the week of Shit Does Not Stop Going Wrong in the most expensive ways. For example, just Monday all by itself was three thousand dollars worth of news I didn’t want, in the form of my laptop suddenly dying followed by the plumber discovering leaks in the pipes followed by an unexpected invoice. Followed by having to take care of a health thing. A breath for ease.
- It was 88 degrees this week (31 degrees celsius) in Portland in April, which is so very distressingly extreme for this season, and I cannot stop thinking about the fact that there are people running for president of this problematic nation who are somehow not agonizing over climate change, and who don’t want to believe that we have caused the planet harm, to put it lightly. A breath.
- The three days of uncomfortable heat translated into flowery sundresses for me instead of my usual layers of black-on-black, and my hair has gotten long because I’ve been busy with other things and have the fastest growing hair in the known universe. Anyway, I’d somehow forgotten just how many social rewards there are for conforming to an external societal ideal of “pretty”, at least when you have certain magic beans of privilege that allow you to play that game. Suddenly everyone I encountered was so warm and welcoming, and every single person I passed smiled at me. I had this moment of ohhhhhh right I never look “girly” (which itself is such a problematic word), and I’d forgotten how much easier it is to just be in the world when what I am presenting makes sense with what most people are trained to prefer to see. And I find everything about this intensely frustrating. I’m grateful for the extra energy/spoons I had this week as a result of being surrounded by people who had instantaneous positive reactions to my presence for no legitimate reason, and also I hate the game, I hate that it exists, I hate that playing it “well” has so many rewards, I hate that it’s set up in such a way that not everyone can join in even if they want to, and that we are all socialized to doubt whether we deserve to play at all while still thinking that we have to. A breath for dissidence.
- Repeat from last week: Not tired at night, very tired by day. And I can’t nap because house is full of contractors making noise, and I want a home that is home for me, and I am tired of being in between. A breath.
- Things that are lukewarm when I want them to be steamy and thrilling. A breath for wanting what I want.
- Not feeling excited or motivated about dance. My favorite blues dance was not fun, skipped west coast entirely because it’s hit or miss, and my confidence is too shaky right now to handle a miss. A breath for trust and for process.
- The guy who thought it was hilarious to aggressively block my path and move back and forth to attempt to prevent me from passing him, while I was en route to the bus. I recognized him from half a block away, not as someone I knew but as a type, from back in my bartending years, the kind who can’t see a woman while around his friends without having to mess with her for their entertainment. He was out of luck, since I had already transitioned into Tel Aviv mode, not breaking course or speed, because Tel Aviv Havi is like, “Okay creep, you wanna play chicken? Get ready to MOVE OUT OF MY WAY or fall on your ass because I am going to plow into you with everything I have, and if I miss my bus because of your bullshit, I will actually destroy you.” He jumped aside at the last second. I was fine in the sense that I didn’t get triggered the way I usually do when men decide to get predatory around me. But I was also not fine in the sense that I did get triggered into being Tel Aviv me for the rest of the day, and Tel Aviv me is bitter, tense, angry, ready for a fight with ANYONE, and extremely wary about getting on a crowded bus. A breath for everything about this.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. May peacefulness prevail. Trust-more love-more release-more receive-more. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
8 breaths for the good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- I’ve been in a weirdly fantastic mood all week. To the point that despite the perfect storm of the aforementioned Shit Does Not Stop Going Wrong combined with lack of sleep, I just feel positive about everything in my life. It’s kind of amazing actually. I wish I could share some of this wild excess of probably completely unjustified hopefulness with you! Will sprinkle some here just in case. I don’t know. Nothing got to me this week even though normally the combination of dead-as-a-doornail computer, thousands of dollars in unanticipated costs, street harassment, delayed plans, AND SO ON ALL WEEK LONG would result in me experiencing this as pretty much the worst week ever. Also it would probably involve some pretty massive meltdowns. But I just felt really peaceful and trusting through all of it. Maybe the superpower I keep wishing for lately of I Have Forgotten How To Worry has kicked in? I am not at all worried about any of the worrisome things, and it is wonderful. A breath of joy and gratitude for this.
- Similarly, I have been Trusting Love (yes, that was my wish), and this is changing things in so many ways. A breath for how remarkable this is.
- I had the superpower of [Luckily, X!] aka What Fantastic Unexpected Luckiness, aka finding the good. For example, forgetting my wallet and phone while running late to an event actually turned out to be the best thing that possibly could have happened instead of being a disaster. A breath of appreciation.
- This week had a surprising amount of unplanned fun in it. While en route from one dance workshop to another dance event, I ran into a waltz buddy of mine and his new girlfriend having tacos and margaritas, and joined them for an hour. Yesterday took myself to see a movie (Hail Caesar!) in the middle of the day. A breath for joy, play, following instinct and desire, and for the pleasure of a gigantic bowl — yes, a bowl — of popcorn.
- This week I was really committed to the parts of life that are important to me, like being a free spirit and following joy and writing the things I want to to write, which is kind of a big deal, since the monster crew is generally pretty strongly opposed to these. A breath for lightness and lighheartedness.
- Brandi Tobias, probably my favorite dance teacher in the world, was in town for the weekend, and I was able to take six whole workshops with her! What unbelievable fortune to live in a city that regularly hosts the great dance minds of our time. A breath of thankfulness.
- I just feel good about life right now, and I don’t know why, and I don’t need to know why. None of the things I would assume would instigate this shift-in-perspective have happened, as far as I can tell, nothing has happened at all. But here it is. A breath of appreciation for life and aliveness.
- Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of the far-away beautiful cowboy whispering sweetness through the ether, waltz brunch, supportive friends, helpful strangers, hilarious coincidences, knowing what I want, a really good last dance (do-overs forever!), tears of joy for Harriet Tubman on the (future) twenty dollar bill. Everything is okay and so much is good. Nothing is wrong, even when I want to believe it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thank you for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Sparklepoints, superpowers, salve, fake band of the week!
Current ops and forward movement!
In progress: the Studio Op, The Fountaining, Wild Wild Nest, Operation Jubilation. Wild Montage and The Wild Convening are percolating. Thank you, fractal flowers.
Superpowers I had this week…
Last week I asked for the power of relax-and-trust, and that’s what happened!
Also had the unexpected superpower of I Don’t Have To Wait For The Bus Because Look Here It Is, which included a run of five buses in one complicated trip, and even kept me from getting caught in a giant hailstorm.
Powers I want.
The powers of Equanimity, Motivation Returns, and some seriously Coen Brothers levels of exuberant, zany deus ex machina solutions to everything that needs solving.
The Salve of Relaxed and Positive
This salve shifts perspective so smoothly that you won’t even feel it happening.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band:
Legitimate Mouse
Their latest album is Prospective Pastry, and this band is just one guy.
Announcement time….
More to come soon, but I left the monster manual in the place that used to be the the shop. So if you missed the closing of the shop, there is still something beautiful for you!
How was your week?
Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.
And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!
Follow
Woke up at 3 something am. It’s Seymour (my stomach) and The Digestive Track. Now I’m tired and will go back to bed. Have added the positive vibe and superpower to the Salve.
Positive Chickens to all!
” . . . that we are all socialized to doubt whether we deserve to play at all while still thinking that we have to.”
This. So much ARRRRRRGGGGHHHBARGLE for this stupid Girl Land Game. Thank you for putting it in tiny simple words in a clean succinct way. I can use this to explain the issue to someone who doesn’t get such an obvious dose of this poison in a way he can understand.
‘Cause guys get this crap, too — you have to be a very masculine male, or the girls won’t like you; and woe betide the small and slender fella who likes building things with Legos, or reading/writing instead of going out and playing team sports. But there’s not the huge and heinous dose of pink frilly arsenic that gets spooned into you if you’re the bearer of a double X and ovaries.
Add to that the the monster never sees the monster in the mirror, and you have a wicked game indeed.
The hard:
– sudden attack of Everything Is Awful What Am I Doing Nothing Will Change (but see Clue, below)
– my intestines do not appreciate some component of pizza. Dough? Cheese? Who knows? Annoying, anyway.
– [farewell, dragon tamer]
– scratchiness on the internet
– looking at money: kind of scary
The good:
– eight thousand words over the past two weeks! That’s a tenth of a book! We can do this.
– noise-cancelling headphones: go quite a long way towards open-plan office cancelling
– reading To The Lighthouse in memory of [the dragon-tamer]: so good at humans
– the most beautiful spring evenings
– after all, it’s not many jobs where you get to live-tweet from the Houses of Parliament
– speaking of which, things are marginally less scary
Clue:
*The future is unwritten*
(my building has clues all over the place, but I hadn’t ever noticed that one before)
Hello, Friday! Thank you, week. Wham BOOM boo-yah!
What worked? Buying socks and cava.
What next? Allowing more time for fewer things. Oy.
Yes, I’ve encountered that kind of guy. Ugh.
Hard, agitating, etc.
1. Directions not followed.
2. My rosemary has not taken well to being moved outside, experienced gardener’s assurances to the contrary.
3. My plumbing is still objecting to the five tacos I enjoyed two days ago.
4. Phone spam.
5. Phone calls to return.
6. Dear subconscious, I spend enough time on/at work. Enough with the dreams.
7. Climbing costs.
8. Time to [soooooo much into the pot].
Delicious, delightful, and such:
1. I didn’t lose this text when I smushed the wrong keys.
2. Cubs won!
3. Professional compliments.
4. Reached the Herbiary just in time for the right gifts.
5. Antique motorbike.
6. Rae-card with bunny and flowers.
7. The engineer being ingenious.
8. Most of the transplanted peppers are still alive, as are the cactus cuttings.
Warm wishes to all y’all.
Whee FridaY!
What worked?
Getting all of the facts.
What didn’t work?
Too many days of having the same clothes on all day. Bleck.
The Hard:
Money is still a hard. Not even the having or not having, but the having to deal with, and the weirdness around it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the privilege of not having it be a thing.
The Good:
Whatever is making my right eye sleepy is not a brain tumor. Not enough yays for that.
Got (most of) my taxes paid. Without panic or feeling horrible.
A boy I adore left without saying hello or goodbye as we just missed each other, and so I texted him to say “thanks for no hello or goodbye” and 5 minutes later he was standing there and someone asked him why he was back and he said “i had to say hello and goodbye to seagirl.” Sigh for the boy who drives all the way back.
Needing a new car and for the first time not needing my boyfriend/mother/boss/friend to come with me because I was grown up and self assured and not in a weepy panic. Also, finding a car that feels like it is hugging me. Also, having my credit union say “yes, we would love to lend you the money for that car.” A breath for being in a better place than before.
1. too much in/on brain
2. body screams that crisis is imminent, brain tries to find evidence
3. chaos! anarchy! hurry. forgetting. not forgetting. disappointment.
4. rewriting relationships = bigtime work. i am very oriented towards/with other people, and when relationships shift the rewriting takes over my thoughts. on top of which, thinking i spend too much time thinking about this and am somehow ‘missing out’ on whatever else i ‘should’ be thinking about… and i think myself into tight circles and forget which direction i’m facing
5. repeating the same news at least 5,000 times.
6. why does everyone know my name and my business all of a sudden? what happened to being anonymous? and why does everyone think my business is their business? ***infinitely glad i’m not on facebook, so this is not everyday*** **even though it might be useful per #5**
7. change.
8. blame, shame, name game w/ self.
1. remembering that nothing needs to be ‘solved’ right now. or today. or ever. it will be what it will be. what would life be like if i was not trying to solve it like a riddle? what if i …….. read it like a story? or it opened like a flower? remembering other ways i have thought, once i give myself time to think.
2. patterns
3. spring
4. people, especially trusting them and **especially** what happens with people when i trust myself.
oh right. of course.
5. coincidentally, was prompted to think back on a similar time in my life 5 years ago. very useful noticings of what’s the same and what’s not the same, and remembering i got through it (though i can’t recall HOW)
6. remembering to think in circles, but big expansive open ones, in fact the only way i can think clearly
7. change
8. finding steady, over and over, remembering that is the game
<3 to all
“I had this moment of ohhhhhh right I never look “girly” (which itself is such a problematic word), and I’d forgotten how much easier it is to just be in the world when what I am presenting makes sense with what most people are trained to prefer to see. And I find everything about this intensely frustrating. I’m grateful for the extra energy/spoons I had this week as a result of being surrounded by people who had instantaneous positive reactions to my presence for no legitimate reason, and also I hate the game, I hate that it exists, I hate that playing it “well” has so many rewards, I hate that it’s set up in such a way that not everyone can join in even if they want to, and that we are all socialized to doubt whether we deserve to play at all while still thinking that we have to. A breath for dissidence.”
THIS. THIS!
I want to frame it somewhere! As someone who never gets that reaction, I have spent my entire life pointing out to people that this reaction exists, and have had that denied to me all-the-damn-time, dismissing my lived experience and my perception of reality, which hurts.
Friday! Hello.
What worked: letting things be less than perfect. (Gasp!!!) The monsters are flummoxed at how frequently “less than perfect” turns out to be not only “good enough” but “actually freaking awesome”.
Next time, there are a few little shifts I’d like to play with in a guilt-free way. Most of them seem linked to getting up earlier, which (try as I might to deny it) also may involve going to bed earlier, and oh my, see what happens when I tug on *one thread* in the rich tapestry…
I’m going to light my candle now. It’s good to be here. Thanks for listening. <3
Shabat shalom! love to all! Cluck!
such week!
What worked: humming, next thing on the list-ing, discipline is remembering what you want, going to bed.
next time: more humming! more gentleness and forgiveness.
the sucks:
-lack of starch on the job
-all the triggers all the time
-the very bad nites of no-sleep foolishness. such a tedious and destructive pattern. banish that
-yes i know how very rigged-game the next statement is, but my weight has adjust north of 150 and i do not like it
-all the great new improved things that have just not taken: daily juice, turmeric, supplements, weekly working out etc etc. basically all the stuff i must do for my health, i took a dive on it all.
-i stopped writing to read, and to finish the event script. and then lost starch on it
-so many demands this week, so many people taking slices of my pie, til i’m left with crumbs. no i cannot START writing at 9:30pm when i’m exhausted. so resentful.
-several silent retreats
-enormous fucking car repair bill, and the angst that proceeds therefrom. also 2 credit cards, both spitting distance from maxxed out.
but so much sparkle:
-i finally took that mental health day, which was PAID
-and went to the sauna & steam, and ran on the track
-meetings were cancelled
-most everything i thought i had misplaced, came back, just in time
-a misconnection turned out to be SO TIMELY, thank you
-great new books at the library
-a clean house
-culling things and prepping for spring cleaning.
-ritual plans, plus my big event on sunday
-writing and more wrtiting, writing leading to writing
-this is a BIG victory–i got THREE deliverables out on time. yea me
-spent some time doing creative art work, namely BEADING a headdress with enormous pearls. it’s been decades and it felt so good
-found great books at the thrift shop! love that!
-despite way much stress, the husband and i are in a good place, lots of love and pets
Relaxed and Positive – I will take some of this salve, please and thank you. I would like it as an actual salve, plus a perfume to spritz on to start my day, and a cozy cup of tea and/or a cocktail in the evening.
Silent retreat on hard stuff this week.
Good stuff: Incontrovertible evidence that time and a little effort towards self-care work beautiful wonders. Hard and stuck is not forever-hard-and-stuck, the light always comes.
<3
Hugs for {{{TelAviv Havi}}}!
* It takes as long as it takes.
* Recognize. Remember. Real-ify.
HI CHICKEN!!
how’s it going?
awesome.
What’s been working?
+Superpower of Trick-or-Treating. this works because (a) I Always Have an Escape Hatch (b) Superpower of I’ve Earned My Own Trust (c) i probably wanted to do the thing anyway (d) i’m “not supposed to” do this, so i feel like i’m getting away with something 😉
+asking for help. Amazing how that works! And asking for really specific help, and saying no to help I didn’t ask for and don’t want.
+daily practice of the Lime Green Variety, mmmmm.
+whipping out the Toolbox
+letting other people glow at me (even though it makes me cry) (ESPECIALLY because it makes me cry) <3
I might try:
+shifting [Feelings First] to Feet First, and seeing how that Feels/Feets.
Breathing for mysteries, for tangles, for conundra.
+Breathing for the mystery of Sparrow Nest. Breathing for all the places in my body where I feel the tangles. Breathing for all the past mes that have Feet about Nests and possibly about Sparrows too.
+Breathing for the Releasing of Releasing, and the sadness whooshing it away, and the spaces it creates.
+Breathing for the mystery of If This Goes There, Then Where Does That Go? Breathing for the me who knows in my heart that I’m doing the right thing but wishes the right thing were different and NOW. Breathing for the me who isn’t sure; this me is also an okay me and I love them all.
+Breathing for the mystery of No I Did Not Ask for X. I did not ask for X. I am allowed to not ask for X and expect not to receive X and to kick up some sand when I am given X and X and X.
+Breathing for the mystery of KMK, may they rest in power <3
+Breathing for the mystery of Here Is Your Soup. Amazing how this soup seems to have been here all along but I had no idea because nobody told me there was soup. What do I do with this soup? Do I even want or need soup? Oh. Well. Here it is, soup.
+Breathing for the mystery of Mane Event and also the mystery of Banana Peel, which are still feeling tangled with each other whether they are or aren’t, and are still feeling tangled with me whether I want them or not (do not want, no).
+Breathing for the mystery of Agent V, and the colors and shapes and flavors and textures of [goodbye].
Breathing for delights, for donuts, for all sorts of lovely treats
+Breathing for the Steady Rock of Rock Steady, Steadily Rocking away
+Breathing for coffee caramel vegan ben&jerry’s ice cream because OH MY GOD FUCK YES FOREVER TO THIS.
+Breathing for the Me Who Is Totally Riding The Magic Bus and has all the superpowers and can do anythingggggggg
+Breathing for Agent Pterodactyl and the Glow Worms!!!
+Breathing for Agent Dino Spoon making my heart all yay
+Breathing for the P Ship captains being helpful and reassuring even if I secretly suspect that they are pod people sometimes
+Breathing for spaghetti noodles. Because, SPAGHETTI NOODLES.
+Breathing for the Me Who Won’t Give Up. That me. I like that me. I’m glad ze’s back. 🙂
And the fake band of the week is: The Rough Giraffes. Because really, that’s what it all is, isn’t it? Say it fast a couple times 🙂
It’s my first visit & I know I’ll be back. I so appreciate the freedom and de-light of you being you in all of your you-ness Havi. It is unlocking permission for me to bring my own irreverent me-ness to my work/play in the world. I have passion and earnestness and deep commitment but I also have an irreverence that’s been held back in my quest for success – which is something I’m still mastering. The money thing and self support and all that.
So my version of a very personal ad was to find some joy today as I was facing a list of to do’s. Moments later I found this site. And voila. Thank you for that.