A request for a Resilient Heart
Yesterday before first tête-à-tête aka twelve minutes communing with Incoming Me, I requested a resilient heart.
I often ask a question or name an intention before we sit together, but this formal request situation surprised me.
And usually even if I do have something in the category of a request, my preference is to frame that in the form of asking for clues; a felt sense to guide me, an insight of wild clarity, a next indicated step.
This time I just submitted a request. Wrote it on my notepad:
A Request for a Resilient Heart
The answer that came almost immediately, not from Slightly Wiser Me, but from my heart itself was that I already have one, a Resilient Heart is mine. And I said, ok sure except I don’t perceive the resilience.
The response was that it doesn’t matter because I’m still asking for something I already have and embody even if I don’t experience it that way.
What else am I longing for that I already possess? What requests am I submitting that are already taken care of?!
Weekend Check-in (Chicken!), we made it.
Reviewing the week aka check-in (CHICKEN! It’s fun to say!) is not only a reassuring ritual for me, it is another form of remembering, turning inward, paying attention, attentiveness to self.
We can name what was difficult and we can name what worked, I find naming to be therapeutic. What am I experiencing and how am I experiencing it? It’s all useful intel.
But also we are here to just take a breath for having made it here. High fives all around and admiration and hand-to-heart appreciation.
And if I neglect to name something big in the world this week, could be ADHD, but more likely: my break from news after spiraling hard in December.
Breathing for what was hard, challenging, uncomfortable, not fun…
THING ZERO is still the pandemic, the dissonance, the different worlds we seem to be navigating, the lack of consensus reality or even a shared context. Sometimes this fills me with fury and sometimes with despair, and a lot of the time I just can’t cope with it at all, and so I seclude even deeper, for better and for worse.
What else was not my favorite this week?
Related to Thing Zero, I have been trying to mail a letter for about a month, and every time I go to the post office to get a stamp, half the people have masks beneath their nose, including the staff, so I make it just inside and then panic and run away.
I know it’s possible to buy stamps online but I don’t have a mailing address most of the time, and I don’t know where I will be when because of The Ongoing Situation aka The Mysteries Of Place.
Related to the Mysteries of Place, I thought I was hiding out here at the casita until 10 February, but it turns out I exit Monday. Do I have a plan? I do not. Do I have any indication of where next? Can’t wait to find out.
Related to The Mystery of What Happens Monday, my internal criticism monsters have a lot to say about how I am unprepared for life in general, and bad at adulthood, and unequipped for life’s inconsistencies and vicissitudes.
Related to the Mysteries of Heart, some painful and uncomfortable realizations about past and present, and I’m still pellet-pushing in hopes of the tiniest crumbs of affection and sweetness.
Other than that, just tired. This full moon is a doozy. Anyone else feeling it?
If I were going to sum up my mood with music, I am somewhere in between Love Is A Bitch by Two Feet, and Unsaid with Norah Jones, with a splash of Straight Up by Paula Abdul.
Breathing for what was good, reassuring, joyful, sweet
- I have to say that I am feeling remarkably calm and grounded about the many great unknowns, including What Happens Monday and the surprising reappearance of love story from then. Is this related to phone off and an amount of yoga that could be described as alarming? WHO CAN SAY. But yeah, probably, that could be it.
- Gently and firmly reminding the internal self criticism monster chorus that literally no one could have predicted the way this last year unfolded in general never mind for me specifically. This is uncharted territory. And I’m an agile bobcat, I land on my feet, I can move through this with steady grace, and I plan to.
- Beautiful striking clues from the cards.
- Keeping my phone in airplane mode which I call AIR mode (AIR = Access Internal Resonance), and wow, does that ever do wonders for both my focus and my emotional well being. The other day I didn’t even open it until evening, who am I and what is happening?
- Clues have been showing up when I need them.
- My meditations have been about loving myself so deeply that there’s nothing else, gain strength through detaching from outcome. A lot of tears, but a lot of good tears.
- My heart is guarded, but my heart is also resilient.
- Made pistachio fudge, and it was life-ruiningly good, all previous desserts are rebuked, canceled, and banished, because this is the holy truth of life itself.
- Wrote ten thousand words on the essay I started back in May that was the most stuck. Not sure what I want to do with all these words or if this is the right venue for them, but they exist and the creative process was fulfilling, and how often can you say that? Maybe a lot, but I haven’t in quite a long time. Felt so good to be in intimate flow with myself again. A breath of for this grace.
- Hot Girl Tu B’shvat! Yesterday was Tu B’shvat, the birthday of the trees; you eat fruit and nuts, and feel joyful and appreciative about trees. As holidays go, it’s a good one.
- Morning rituals are working, in news that is shocking to no one, but I remain astonished. A breath of wonder.
Play with me in the comments! You know the drill…
I love company! You can always use a made-up name in the comments whether in service of safety or playfulness.
We are all going through what we are going through. So we make this a sanctuary by not care-taking or problem—solving for other people, we can leave each other warmth or hearts of love or pebbles of witnessing. I still have not figured out how to get emoji to work in the comments, sorry!!
How are we holding up? Anything hard and/or good in your week that you want to name here? Sometimes naming helps. I have found for me that taking breaths while I name things helps a lot.
And if that’s not your thing, you can say hi or name something you’d like more of for the coming week.
Love ya,
Havi
Follow
Post Office is always improbably difficult anyway. Not sure why.
Alarming amounts of yoga/ walking/ napping/ whatever makes it better seems like the right amount just now.
re “uncharted territory”- Someone else I like said this week her refrain is “You’ve never done this before. So, you’re just practicing!” it’s ok not to have seen … this… coming. (*waves hands at This*) Here we are, and here we go.
I also do not know What Will Happen Monday, and yet I look forward to finding out.
Ahhh I love Just Practicing, yes I am in into it and feeling it. Very excited to find out what Monday brings, I’m sure it will be a fun surprise haha or at least an interesting one. And yes to the right amount being a shock to the system because it’s the right amount? Superpower of So Much More Than I Think!
Love is all around. You may or may not notice.
Sending more love.
Cluck!
The Hard:
– So many projects, so many conversations, have been delayed, deferred, or disrupted by various aspects of the pandemic
– Out of yogurt, again
The Good:
– Sometimes I get clarity about a project, or make progress on one.
– It will be cold this weekend, maybe with snow, and I have a warm house. And I still have some egg nog ice cream.
– The days are getting longer.
Blessings, Havi, for Tu B’shvat!
Yes to clarity and egg nog ice cream!!! <3
Pistachio fudge sounds amazing. Mmm.
The hard:
– January depression, ugh. It’s easier to deal with this year because I’m working from home and don’t have to get out of bed so horribly early, but it’s harder to deal with this year because I’m working from home and so am working on days that in a normal year would be a sick day
– the pandemic numbers are so huge, I can’t get my head round them and I don’t actually want to
The good:
– snowdrops and crocuses
– the pianist playing one of Satie’s Gymnopedies after the morning service, so cool and peaceful
– sparkling fountain pen ink!
What’s working:
– Worcestershire sauce
– reading what I feel like reading
– writing about not writing
<3 Satie
Oh yeah the impossible to grasp numbers combined with winter misery, I feel this. Excited about what’s working, writing about not writing is one of the forms of writing I do most often and find very helpful. And excited for your fountain pen ink!!!!
Ah, Tu B’shvat. Perhaps that is the source of the energy I felt this week: the giant firs and cedars around me are celebrating! Or it was the full moon, or both. Whatever, I’ll take it.
The hard:
-not being able to direct the energy towards getting outside; letting the rain and cold deter me when I am well aware that those same forces could be invigorating if I would let them
-opening up the box of monsters under the bed (aka old journals–how had I not realized that there were actual monsters under my bed??) and reading about All The Stuff
The good:
-last week’s practice of “remembered goodness” enabled me to see things I have learned from All The Stuff, so instead of sinking into the despair of the past, I could not only hold Past Me close to my heart, but also see all the pain as a source of goodness and wisdom. (that makes more sense in my head than when I try to write it)
-taking almost a whole day to do “visioning” for Imbolc-Lent-Ostara-Passover-Easter
-sitting by the fire and tossing pages of journal #1 into it (after gleaning the goodness); realizing these were just thoughts (in words) and I don’t need to carry them any more
-starting a new batch of sprouts and microgreens
-yellow tips on the earliest-blooming daffodils!!!!
May the gentle shifting of light bring new life to everyone’s week!
Whoa to actual monsters under the bed, what a huge realization and how courageous to go through and revisit, and hold Past Selves in love, that’s so beautiful and inspiring, here’s to all that releasing & shifting, newness.
o o o <3 o o o
<3 gratitude <3
“What else am I longing for that I already possess?”
That’s a beautiful question/stone. It reminds me of something that someone who loves me has said to me many times before: “You *are* the woman you want to be.” (I initially mistyped that as “you *ate* the woman you want to be; leave it alone, monsters; sometimes a typo is just a typo!!! I am laughing at this.)
One hard thing from last week: the thoughts and feelings and fears that are too often swirling in my head. I do believe that naming helps, so I shall call them Slime. (Oh, and that just reminded me of the imaginary punk band that I was in as a teenager, The Benevolent Slime. I haven’t thought of that in years. Is it a clue?) Anyway, to quote Ghostbusters, I’ve been slimed.
One good thing from last week: Reading aloud to *everyone* in my household. I love reading aloud, and I do it well, and it gives me good energy. Also, I have recently discovered the writing of T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon), and I highly recommend her if you like fantasy novels seasons with witty, subversive humor.
What worked? Small steps. This week, I will try to take more of them, and will seek ways of making them lighter. Even lighter than that. *Lighter*. (And also fluid, says my inner wordplayer. Lighter, fluid. Why not?)
(*seasoned, not seasons)
T. Kingfisher has been a wonderful light in the darkness for me! YAY for discovering new wonderful reads.
It’s almost Friday again so of course it is absolutely the right time to do this.
The hard:
thing zero, of course of course, always there –
told spouse the other day that there is a spot of resigned sorrow/despair over {gestures widely} that is cradled between my lower ribs, just under my solar plexus. No matter how joyful I might feel in any particular moment, this spot just stays there holding the deep sadness of now, and of all the terrible thens (that are still nows) that built up to the current now. It’s just there.
The hard that is also a thing that is working:
took REALLY GIANT STEPS in taking care of me this week that were far more terrifying that I realized/acknowledged when I put on my giant walking boots and after I took the REALLY GIANT STEPS I basically collapsed into shaking and quaking
and WOW oh WOW how amazing it feels to have taken these big steps, even if the new territory the steps took me to are unfamiliar
what is also working:
big insight from magic time: Trust Your Trajectory
sweetnesses:
happy almost-adult children chatting about the mysteries of physics
first snowdrops
snow (more please)
more light every day
sunsets
Congratulations on the REALLY GIANT STEPS! I am envisioning beautiful new and perfect walking boots that welcome more steps.