Mood
Not sure exactly what is behind the grumpy mood I woke up in.
The usual suspects of course include the moon, hormones, perceived boundary violations, the poor air quality, the memories of last spring in lockdown and the terrible fires, a post-celebration energy hangover, the long list of things that I do not want to deal with, the endless logistical strategizing of these past nine months on the move, the question of where I might be going next and where after that, because I’m moving again on Saturday and what’s the plan, not knowing if/when/how a vaccine is going to show up in my future, not sure what else exactly. All I know is that everything feels groggy, foggy, elusive.
However I know from experience that while it helps to list Contributing Factors as a form of applying Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, this is also not a mystery I need to solve.
We can shift the mood and the energy without ever figuring out the backstory if there is one. No matter how disconnected I feel from my wishes of Wild Clarity & Joyful Agility, that’s really just neutral information.
Me: Okay, I feel disconnected. Got it. Okay, I don’t like it. That’s fair, that’s reasonable and legitimate, of course we don’t enjoy feeling disconnected babe. We’ve got this.
Gleaming for Congruence
Something I play with sometimes on a day like this when seemingly nothing is working is putting aside my list and calling in a Gleaming day, sometimes known as a Congruencing day. Declaring it.
The idea is to see if we can bring in some playfulness and some order or harmony, maybe we make some things slightly shinier or slightly less foggy, maybe literally, maybe figuratively, maybe some combination of these, and then see how that changes things if it does.
Sometimes clearing space physically helps when I can’t clear internally. That might mean polishing something with intention, and it might mean moving things around strategically or intuitively.
Or maybe I want to throw a small dance party and then do something (haha something?) with that giant pile of dishes, who knows.
And will it make everything better?
Maybe, or, as my Grandma Sarah would have said, it couldn’t hurt.
The point is interrupting the habit-patterns of my mind, the story of This Bad Day, the looping cycle of trying to get things done and giving up and feeling terrible about myself, all of which is a boring tool of capitalism. We want to skip around that and do things differently.
Maybe our Gleaming Day will just make one or two things better, but maybe that’s a lot because everything is connected. Maybe it won’t make things better so much as it will make them different, which is kind of a form of better because contrast is a form of healing in its own way.
Our Gleaming Day doesn’t need to make everything better (though it might), we are just trying to get the energy moving in a new way.
And because everything is connected and fractal, shifting the energy in one place/plane/project will shift things under the surface for all other projects, or at least that’s our working hypothesis. We’re just doing a science.
Starting Points
You probably know already how much I love the practice of Entry, aka first steps, symbolic forms of approach.
And so these are the things I do for entry. You might want different entry practices entirely, that part is up to you.
Mine look like this:
STEP ZERO: RGW. Replenishing Glass of Water, begin with hydration
STEP ONE: ANTHEM. What song puts me in a better mood? Is there a playlist for this?
STEP TWO: TENDERNESS. Lip balm? Hand cream? A symbolic way to be loving towards myself?
STEP THREE: SENSATION. Change sensory state. Open a window, light a candle, deep breath of cinnamon.
STEP FOUR: NAME & RENAME. What three things can I do to change the feel of my space? And can I rename them to make them seem more appealing? Taking out the recycling is now Operation Clear Field Of Vision.
I have so many fun methods for renaming, however I promised myself and my inner monster chorus of No Time that I would only give half an hour to this post including editing, and that was some hilarious underestimating because I don’t understand time, so we will save those fun methods for another time because there is one more thing I want to mention!
Let’s play!
You are invited to use the comments to play along if you like.
I am going to begin with a song, my favorite candle, and I’m going to put the rest of my chai in the blender with oat milk and add some freshly grated nutmeg.
And my secret ops for now are:
- Operation Clear Field of Vision (take out recycling)
- Gleefully Demolishing The J. U. M. B. L. E. (the chaos in the sink)
- And possibly I will also heroically Told Some Fowels, who can say.
Bon Courage
I wish you courage & luck in your secret ops and your playful entry, and I want to just add one more thing, something I learned from the amazing Dori Midnight, and that is the practice of challenging ourselves every day to do at least one thing in the most ludicrous inefficient way possible, as a middle finger to capitalism and all oppressive systems.
We live in a culture that obsesses over productivity and elevates it above joy, but when we are Joyfully Inefficient, when we REBELLIOUSLY REVEL IN OUR INEFFICIENCY, this is not only a subversive practice that changes culture, it is a way of reclaiming joy, pleasure and our own access to creative innovative self-expression.
That’s a helluva concept so you might just want to drop it into consciousness like a pebble into water and let it do its work in its own time. In the meantime, you are welcome to play along, I’m here! Happy Gleaming Day or Gleaming Hour or Gleaming Moment, whenever it comes.
Follow
True facts: the Dori Midnight reminder just turned my “work” day around (mega monsters about “not getting things done”). The energy of this post had me doing a little dance even before you mentioned dancing.
It is truly my all-time favorite reminder like oh right I knew there was a reason some things need to happen slowly or nonsensically!!!
REPORT from one hour of Congruencing to music:
I learned that the giant mess in the kitchen was not so much dishes as it was Reminders from my ADHD self! The other day I tried putting together little daily jars of vitamins and supplements for travel, discovered that I was almost out of a bunch of things, and KNOWING that I would forget about this project entirely if I put it away, left it out as a reminder to replenish vitamins. However, my brain just interpreted the mess as stressful and ignored it, so here we are. I re-ordered supplements for pick-up, cleared the jars away, and then took care of the dishes, gleamed the sink and dealt with a pile of garments to be hand-washed. I feel remarkably better and being able to see my gleaming kitchen counter is actually calming me down more than I expected it to!
Next hour: new op!
REPORT from second hour of Congruencing to music:
Liberated several iguanas from the Box of In, which is no empty, tabs are closed, recycling is on its way out, I feel better about everything.
I am still frowning, I have been frowning all day. My forehead is furrowed and my eyes feel strained. I had a happy revelation this afternoon and yet I am back to frowning. Or maybe it’s not exactly frowning, but it is not happy smiles times, that’s for sure.
Happy congruencing to you, Havi. Maybe that’s what my face is doing, congruencing, and i am just unable to recognize it from my inner vantage point.
Face congruencing! Totally a process, I like that idea of the face working through all the feelings and getting somewhere with it.
Your writing about the mess being a reminder from your ADHD self is really sparking for me. Like. Of course!!! A mess is not [monster stories], it’s me trying to SEND A MESSAGE TO MYSELF! Wow. Thank you for this!!
It’s all messages! I remember this and forget it a hundred times a day but yes, it’s a communication attempt that gets lost, something like that, will investigate more! <3
I woke up exhausted and completely unable to do any work, and reading this post really helped with the guilt trip. Perfect timing.
Instead of working I went grocery shopping and cooked a tasty lunch and took a two hour nap and ate cake.
I also saw a gorgeous kitty in the neighborhood that I never encountered before.
CAKE!!! And new kitty. Perfection.
I woke up sad today, having dreamed about a dear deceased friend as if they were still alive… and it has clouded up my whole day even though I know lots of ways to de-cloud, or to celebrate cloudiness, or even just like you, to say ‘OK cloudiness, this is legit, don’t like it, here it is, go lean on a tree and cry it’s fine to do that’. But then I read this and laughed again, hurray!! And then thought of a ludicrous & inefficient way to hang up the laundry and that made me laugh even more and I probably will even do it now. Thank you so much for this Timely Reminder of All Things we Needed to Be Reminded of today. Much gleaming <3<3<3
I am extremely excited about your ludicrous & inefficient laundry hanging method! That really is so fun adn made me laugh to. <3
Today I somehow have 16 things on my list and that whole situation is tres overwhelming, so: gonna rename them with their related superpowers, and set a bell for one hour, eleven minutes and eleven seconds, and see what happens
Freedom
Connection
Sweetness
Preparedness
Agility
Humor
Possibility
Clearing
Gleaming
Courage
Lusciousness
Ritual
Presence
Appreciation
Provision
Protected & Cherished
7 done and was able to focus, might need to shower and think about how to be sneaky for the next part