Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
I wrote in the Chicken about the Salve of the Slow Motion Montage.
Right now, in my life in general and in dance in particular, it feels like I’m in the beginning of an intense training sequence.
Sometimes I get frustrated with my progress (or perceived lack of process), because I forget that I’m in the montage part.
I want to remember that what seems like waiting is actually part of the training. This is the new frame.
I think I don’t know how to wait, but actually it’s an entirely new kind of waiting. This waiting is about trying things. Testing hypotheses. Being wrong. Taking notes. Trying the next thing. Wiping out. Starting over.
This new kind of waiting means a new relationship with the qualities: patience, perspective, perseverance and play.
What else do I know about this?
Okay, so my dance training montage also has four words that start with P: pitch, poise, position and practice.
These are good for my relationship with dance and my relationship with waiting.
What else do I know about this?
I took an amazing class with Robert Royston in June, and this is the line that stuck in my head:
The difference between an amateur and a pro is that an amateur practices a move until he gets it right, a pro practices until he can’t get it wrong.
This also makes me think about Brandi Tobias and how she talks about dedicating your practice to meticulousness. She says this is what allows you to really play.
Dedication, devotion, meticulousness, repetition.
These are the things I’m learning about while I appear to be waiting.
It’s not like I’m waiting around doing nothing, hoping things will move. This is a waiting of actively practicing.
What else do I know about this?
Sometimes the training sequence involves icing my ankle, sometimes it involves making the same mistake a thousand times, sometimes it involves crying in the bath, and all of these things are okay, because they are part of getting ready, becoming stronger, getting closer.
Just like how the labyrinth repeatedly appears to take me farther away from the thing I am heading towards, and that is part of arriving.
Another interesting thing about the labyrinth: I always think the most important moment will be at the center, only to be surprised (every single time) at all the moments of treasure waiting for me at various points along the way there and back.
This process is important. This waiting — this new sense of what it means to be in a transition state — has treasure for me.
What else do I know about this?
How I wait is more important than anything else about the waiting, just like how in west coast swing it doesn’t matter so much where my feet go as how they get there.
How is about process.
In this new kind of waiting, I am involved. I am playing. I am receptive to elegant solutions and unexpected doors. I remember to look up.
Mainly, I commit to enjoying the process of getting there. This means finding the pleasurable parts, saying hello to the flowers at the edge of the path, pausing for picnics, releasing the ridiculous idea that the only important thing about the mountain is being at the top of it.
I want to remember: everything happening now is useful. I am finding clues, I am learning and exploring, I am in process.
What do I want from this new kind of waiting
The thrill of almost.
The pleasure of anticipation.
Quiet steady focus.
In any moment I can leave a secret message for incoming me, uncover a secret message from past me.
I want to say no more often, with less apologizing. To wait for the whole-hearted yes.
To do things differently than I might usually, just to see what happens.
What will help with this?
More intention-setting during other moments of waiting.
I can trace the labyrinth at the bus stop. I can write qualities on the palms of my hands. I can take deeper breaths, getting quieter and quieter until I hear what is true.
Where do I want to start?
Bright colors. Passion. Costume changes. Skip stones with incoming me.
Dance. Intensity. Writing. Red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote.
Use the compass: eight breaths, one in each direction.
Pleasure. Desire. Ease. Bask. Emerge. Receive. Glow. Wild.
Say thank you in advance.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: This really is an entirely new kind of waiting. It’s almost like we didn’t understand waiting before. This will change things. Let it change things. And you are so right about bright colors. Let the color into your life. Let things get saturated. See what happens. It’s a symbolic thing but it goes deep. This might also come with some scary moments, and it won’t make sense because come on, it’s just color. No, it’s big. This is about identity and about committing to desire, and a willingness to be seen! There’s a reason this requires a waiting period or montage time. Big growth. Let it take as long as it needs to take. Learning to wait like this is worth it.
The superpower of coming into your superpowers.
August is Emerging in the Fluent Self calendar.
The superpower of coming into your superpowers.
This new kind of waiting is emerging. It’s changing how I want to emerge. I am ready to come into my superpowers, including the superpowers of knowing that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, I Am Okay With Being Seen, receiving gifts that are winging their way to me. Let’s do it.
Oh wow, what beautiful wishes.
Oh, wow. What beautiful wishes.
What else do I want?
- 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.
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
- The superpower of Everything Enhances My Superpowers.
- Ops: Real Seeing. The Protocols. Sip Hint Learn. The Panache Brigade!
Clues?
The word UNREPENTANT to describe a flower. Wow.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Operation Grants Pass…
Best wish ever! I learned a lot about my fear, and I tried out for the Splash Choir. More importantly, I realized that even if the people who run the splash choir don’t like anything about how I splash, it doesn’t matter at all.
The only thing that mattered is that I allowed my desire to turn into action. I shared things that were vulnerable and scary to admit, I let myself splash.
And, like with so many intimidating experiences, thinking about doing it and almost-doing it were way harder than the thing itself.
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
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Havi wrote: “And you are so right about bright colors. Let the color into your life. Let things get saturated. See what happens. It’s a symbolic thing but it goes deep. This might also come with some scary moments, and it won’t make sense because come on, it’s just color. No, it’s big.”
I have emotion-color synesthesia, which means (in my case) that my moods & emotional states correlate to colors in my environment. I’d always known I liked wearing colors that “matched my mood” (although I didn’t know that’s quite what was happening), but my moods can be changed involuntarily if I’m in an environment with colors that “clash” with how I’m feeling. A long-winded way of saying, “just color” might be key for non-obvious reasons.
When I need a pick-me-up, I wear (or add to my environment) yellow-green and pink. Maybe red, or red lipstick work similarly for you.
I have a secret Rally-at-home project this week, and I’m really excited about it. I am planting the wish that it all unfolds in wonderful ways!
Future Me says: You can do this. You have *got* this. The time is ripe.
I’m also throwing a few more things into the pot:
–Ketchup. (And relish!)
–Anyone want to garden for me?
–Kind and clear connection.
–Wheels within wheels.
–Play and rest and play and rest! (The play’s the thing; the rest is silence.)
Sending love to everyone’s beautiful wishes…
St Havi the Apt, thank you, yes, most apt and accurate, again.
A new kind of waiting. A waiting I am opening to, agreeing to, finding the treasure in, feeling my way through instead of intellectually strategising my way out of…
A vision of the top of the mountain that I *know* is about qualities rather than form, even though so much of me is attaching to the specific form that we are exploring with, and possibly going to experience mountain top with. So form is beautiful, but the wish within the wish is about *qualities*, so I’m waiting and feeling my way through and not attaching to this beautiful form, holding onto the thin red thread that connects me to the possibility of many beautiful ways of experiencing the mountain top. Mans this is new and I am happy to be here because learning to wait like this is important.
Although, this form I am playing with, wow, my god, I think it is *stunning* and it is very understandable that the possibility of mountain top through this form would be exciting and tingly-hope-possibility-vulnerable-wanting-tender-please-work-out-because-that-would-be-awesome-and-beautiful-and-happy-making-wishy…. *swoony-sigh*
(Inner cynic nearly sprained her eyeballs they rolled so hard at reading that last sentence….. Hush, haters!)
So, let me too learn about waiting, and patience, perseverance, presence and play. And faith, and self treasuring, and unconditionality, and vital, juicy, surging, pulsating, radiant aliveness and everything that supports me in experiencing that.
Because really, that’s what I want, and *wow* that is a beautiful butterfly wish. Oh my yes.
What do I want?
To go back to Y.
Y is a somewhat metaphorical and somewhat literal place I’ve been avoiding, and Y is also a verb I’d like to be verbing.
Is that what I really want?
No. Not quite. Because the reason I’m not at Y or Y-ing is because I wasn’t there in alignment with the qualities I’m wanting in my life. My way of being with Y was anathema to how I want to be/the me I am moving towards being.
So no, I do not want to go back to Y.
And yet I do want, say, X, in my life. Where X=f(Y) and the function is Rhiannon living her life in a way that works well with her Rhiannon-ness.
This means it’s not a going back but a going forward, and the real trick is avoiding my tendency to find a way I’ve done this in the past or another way I’ve done this in the past. I need a new way to do this. Almost any new way will do, because it’s practicing newness, which is more important than “achieving the result Y should achieve,” which hasn’t been happening for months now anyway.
…Cue me realizing all of the above applies to everything I’m working on right now, and not just the one thing I had in mind.
Sometimes fractal flowers and proxies are cool and sometimes they’re still cool but I’m almost embarrassed by the everywhereness of them.
Anywho, I suppose my new mission is to X like I’ve never Y-ed before! Which is kind of exciting.
X like I’ve never Y-ed before!
What does Future Me say?
This is so great! I’m so happy for you, because it is exactly this that will make all the difference. This is when you lay the foundation for all the things to come, and this is your first time of really enjoying it as it happens.
What will help?
X-ing like you’ve never Y-ed before! Try things because they’re new. Not Y-ing was new, and even though you ultimately want more than anything to be X-ing, which looks so much like Y-ing, it turns out stopping Y-ing was exactly the right thing.
Getting deeper and thicker in your own story so that other stories can slide off and you can smile as they go by.
The garden. Your spray bottle of healthy boundaries and forgiveness. Paint. Visioning.
Tell me more about the function. What are its qualities?
Clarity. Harmony. Ease. Good-naturedness.
What is the first step?
Sleep,
Ooh, labyrinth. I have a labyrinth at home. I have a labyrinth stamp, too. I could stamp the labyrinth on the back of my hand to get into the club.
Today I am at the seaside, with a stinking cold. I don’t even seem to have the energy to be cross about that. So I just want to be here. I want to enjoy being looked after. I want to rest and recover; I want to sleep and look out at the sea (oh: I could paddle. That’s an improvement on an hour ago, when going to the beach seemed utterly pointless). I’d quite like to amble around town and look for treasure. I want to wrap myself in a duvet and sit on the balcony and watch the stars.
I want to go for another Picnic In The Coral Haven. And I want to talk to Me Who’s Done This. Also to Me Who’s Given Up Drinking, and find out how much drinking she’s given up, because this is all rather sudden.
Mmmm this is beautiful and I want to take a bath in it.
Seeking…
* the right new building for my husband’s shop
* safety and sanity for all
Making space within my heart and head for the bringing up/about of these things, as well the cultivation and caring of.
Warm wishes to all y’all.
I’ve discovered that I am in a slow-motion montage of learning how to do something that I didn’t expect to have to learn; I thought it would be easy, that others would have already worked the kinks out. I don’t want it to be this way, I want it to be easy, but if it can’t be, then I’ll just rub on the salve of the slow-motion montage and feel the glow as it infuses me with patience and perseverance (which it appears I will need a lot of) and, best of all, play
This week what was supposed to be a vacation turned into a stay-cation, and that’s okay. I am using the time for a private Rally, my own Rally V, where V is for Vicki. Rallying some back-burnered projects, doing things for myself. Learning. Adding to the Book of Me.
I am learning about the power of Basking. And about the need to recognize it when the response doesn’t take the form I expect.
Speaking of Basking, I just remembered Belinda the Benevolent Basilisk, who sits atop my force field as protector. I haven’t thought about her for a while — she’s very welcome. I think I want a basilisk figurine or a tee shirt with a basilisk image…
I want to shout “Silent retreat!” and run away. A wish for ease, spaciousness, and grounding, in new ways that make complete sense. Or old ways made new, perhaps. While wearing orange.
Timely and perfect again!
I discovered proxies at exactly the right time (isn’t it always exactly the right time!) and have been throwing them at all of the things I fear. I love the power of anagrams. For instance, my Grand Ambition (which I’ve talked about so much that my monsters don’t believe I’ll ever do it) got anagrammed into “A, Establish Luminosity”. Isn’t that grand?
I *do* want to establish luminosity, and to Establish Luminosity. What else is like luminosity? Lightness. I could use lightness–step lightly (dancing! choreography!); touch lightly (no harm).
lightly leads to gently and gentleness is paramount.
Oooh Silent Retreat! That’s also gentleness! I need to think about this some more.
(Watched Adjustment Bureau yesterday with my frubble and it was about writing your own destiny (among other things) and it strikes me that that’s what we’re doing here. That’s what the training montage is about. We’re writing our own destiny, but nobody else can see the book right now (and maybe we don’t see the book either) so it feels like just waiting. But it’s So Much More.)
I needed this today. <3
Also, this: "Learning to wait like this is worth it."