very personal adsPersonal ads. They’re … personal! Very.

I write a Very Personal Ad each week to practice wanting, and get clarity about my desires. The point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), the point is learning about my relationship with what I want, and accessing the qualities. Wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…

What do I want?

I wanted to write about something entirely different this week, and instead I need to write about a new remembering.

This morning I changed the passcode on my phone, after discovering, astonishment and dismay, that the Spy Who Loved Me was ACTUALLY SPYING ON ME.

So much for metaphor. He observed me using the code to my phone and took advantage of my absence to break into my phone, read my texts and construct some wildly inaccurate theories based on misunderstandings of what he read (or misread) there.

Wow. I am completely in shock. I am aware that I missed a number of warning bells about jealous, controlling behavior, but I had absolutely no idea things had gone this far.

I don’t really understand how someone who was my lover, someone I trusted wholeheartedly, someone I think of as being deeply committed to spiritual practice would even consider breaking into my phone to confirm pre-existing (and false) suspicions rather than asking loving curious questions, never mind actually doing this.

I will process this elsewhere, on the Floop and in the YEARbooks. For now I need a new remembering.

What does this mean?

So many things.

At the most basic level, I would like a new remembering in the sense that I remember the new passcode. Because right now, each time my fingers enter the old one and I get the “wrong code, try again” message, I burst into tears all over again.

I would like the new code to feel like FREEDOM and SAFETY instead of oh god this person had a key to my house.

I would like moments of forgetting and putting in the old code to be okay: We are safe, we are treasured, we are loved, nothing is wrong.

I would like to remember that change is good, and sometimes things (and people) fall away because they need to fall away. What is emptied from my life needed to go. This is what I learned from the year of All The Burns Burning, and this is what I learned from the summer of Smiling At The Broken Pots.

Let things go. Let them go. And if they’re leaving, say thank you.

What else do I know about this?

In last week’s wish I wrote about how I want to be the one who can treasure myself.

I still want this.

Part of treasuring myself is having a new remembering.

I do not wish to erase the memories of sweetness and love. I also want to remember that I don’t have to put up with having controlling behavior in my life, in any form. Controlling has no part of love. I don’t have spend time with people who don’t take responsibility for their stuff when they are in their stuff. And I definitely don’t need anyone in my life who invents stories about me.

Anyone who knows me knows how intensely I value clear, beautiful, communication, undoing misunderstandings as they happen instead of letting them build into Story. What happened here is basically the opposite of that, and I am reeling. Next time I sense alarm bells, I won’t wait months to see how it plays out, I will investigate immediately.

This is my new remembering.

Hello, goodbye.

Hello, new remembering. Hello, new code and codes.

Hello, new people coming into my life that I haven’t met yet, people who will treat me with trust, respect, adoration and treasuring, and who will be committed to beautiful deep presence and clear communication.

Thank you, everything that brought me here. Goodbye, everything that won’t get me through this next crossing. Goodbye, everything that is done.

Release.

Goodbye, patterns. Goodbye, all aspects of these patterns. Goodbye, pattern of wanting to be seen and not being seen. Goodbye, pattern of letting things slide.

Goodbye, pattern of being falsely accused, followed by such genuine sweetness, love and grace that I allowed everything else to keep happening because the sweetness was so sweet and my craving for it so intense.

No more.

I am committed to treasuring myself, to learning how to do this, to allowing this pattern (and any need I may have for it) release, dissolve and exit, for my own benefit and the benefit of everyone I know.

Goodbye, pattern. Goodbye, need for this pattern.

Transform.

We are going to need some secret agent code!

From now on, the error message when I enter the wrong code (Wrong Code! Try Again!) means something else. Like:

“That person turned out to be the wrong lover for you, now you get to try again!”

Or, “What a delight, I can start over.” Or, “I am a Secret Agent who gets to play with code, and this is fun, what’s my new one?”

Jewels.

June-2014-Release How perfect that this month in the Fluent Self calendar of salves is the month of Releasing.

And even better, the salve of All Past Pain Is Transformed Into Jewels.

Let this experience reveal its jewels. Maybe part of the jewels is the new remembering. And maybe part is learning to treasure myself so completely that the old patterns don’t work anymore.

My friend A told me about how he decided to LOVE MORE, TRUST MORE after a betrayal of trust. That’s my plan too. Listen more. Listen a lot. Listen more, love more, trust more. Piece by piece.

What do I want to happen?

Swift healing. New codes. Empty the museum. Throw away things that remind me of the relationship and this old way. Ease. Sweetness in new forms. Sit with the void. Newness.

Yoga. Breathe with it and through it and breathe some more. To feel appreciative for all that is good: I have toes and I can wiggle them. I have lungs and they breathe for me. Wonder and delight in aliveness.

I got to experience a beautiful love story that had layers of toxicity woven through it and I am alive and this is part of aliveness, and none of this can hurt me and I am done and cutting all the red ribbons.

Talking to Incoming Me about this…

Me: Hurts so much.
Slightly wiser me: What do you want to feed and nurture?
Me: Peacefulness.
Slightly wiser me: Good. Then let’s notice when we are telling the story of this person who we thought was X turning out to be Y. Let’s breathe peacefulness instead.

Let’s make a compass:

Peacefulness. Safety. Ease. Shelter. Freedom. Release. Glow. Wild.

And I will continue to add the secret word TREASURE to each point.

Anything else? Starting points?

Keep connecting to Incoming me. Skip stones as often as possible. Writing and Righting. The sweetest ship. Dance. Fiery red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.

What else do I want?

Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…
  • Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
  • I have the best time dancing in my ballroom.
  • This doesn’t require my input!
  • Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
  • I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
  • Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
  • Hawaii. Possibly Hawaii is not in Hawaii. Ohmygod I think I might know where it is!
  • I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
  • This week’s ops: Operation Koi Fish, The Cornish Witchery Upholstery of San Miguel IV, This Is The Ship.

Clues?

“Having a great night of sex like you do in New Mexico…”

Sadly this is not me, but it is a great sentence, from the New York Times of all places, and I love the feeling of it.

This sentence is related to that joyous feeling of LIFE AND ALIVENESS, which is basically the opposite of the tight hurting feelings I am working through right now. So even though, despite all the Spy’s suspicions, I have not even been on a date since we split up, I can still imagine the feeling of romantic possibilities, the feeling of [ah, spring], delighting in the pleasures of enjoying life. I can remember that feeling when I need it, and it can live inside of me and be a part of my new remembering too.

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

So. Last week, aka Unconditional Treasuring…

It is just fascinating to me how each wish kind of leads to the next one.

I wanted to take better care of myself, to delight in caring for myself, and that is exactly what I’m doing right now. The treasuring has led to a new remembering, or a beginning.

I also completed Operation Crown Bridge III as well as The Book of Xs and Ys — one more round of edits to go!

Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.

Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.

I wish to whisper a whisper about the Monster Manual! It comes paired with the world’s best coloring book, which does so much monster-dissolving magic that even if you wait to try the techniques, you’ll still feel better about everything.

Self-fluency is hard enough, we need ways to to interact with the thoughts-fear-worry-criticism that shuts down creative exploring. And when people get the manual, I am able to me spend more time writing here. So if you don’t need help with monsters, get one for a friend. Or plant a wish that someone gets it for you! And bring people you like to hang out here. The more of us working on our stuff, the better for all of us. ♡

Keep me company?

Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.

Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.

Let’s throw things in the pot! And: Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.

xox

The Fluent Self