I am not very good at goals.
Mostly because I do not like them.
Navigating and mapping and adventuring are more my style, not surprisingly, because those are things that pirates like.
And I’m mostly okay with wishes as long as I pretend that they’re Very Personal Ads.
Anyway, I needed a word.
For the thing that is not a goal and not a wish.
And not a dream and not a mission. And not a project.
It’s a gwish.
Because it’s fun to say. Gwish gwish gwish gwish.
And because it isn’t as scary to talk about a gwish as it is to share a tiny, sweet thing that is vulnerable and in need of protection.
Gwishes make it through the cracks.
When you tell someone your goal, they might come up with all the reasons it could be a disastrous disaster to end all disasters.
Because they worry about you, just like your fuzzball monsters.
But they don’t worry about your gwishes because no one worries about gwishes.
Gwishes are buoyant and sparkly. They sneak past fear because fear forgets to take them too seriously.
It feels good to have a gwish.
It feels even better to get excited about someone else’s gwish.
At our day of pattern-mapping and destuckifying in Sacramento, we shared all kinds of gwishes.
But we made them up. Silly, beautiful, unlikely, made-up gwishes.
We experienced what it feels like to share a gwish and have that gwish be met with unconditional love and acceptance.
We practiced radiating joy for other people’s gwishes, and saying whee! and right on!
We created a tiny, awesome culture of welcoming and belonging for the gwishes to hang out in.
Some of the gwishes we admired:
- To hear the trees and know what they want.
-
To build a giant tree fort where you can sing songs — with a bathroom in the tree!
- To create a cat circus.
- To find a home for all who need one.
- To be a ballerina.
- To cure epidemics of belly button lint.
- To be a fairy in a red crystal ball.
- To live in a haunted house at Disneyland (with a singing graveyard, of course).
Some noticings about giving people room to have their geishas.*
* Edit! That was supposed to be “gwishes”, not geishas. But a typo that fabulous must stay.
It changes the room. The quality of the air is different. More spaciousness.
It’s easy to get excited about someone else’s gwish, even when it’s something ridiculous or impossible. That kind of creative, expansive joy is contagious.
Listening to someone talk about their gwish… my whole body is engaged. I am animated. I want to celebrate it and be a part of it and make it happen.
It is so much easier to be filled with loving-kindness over someone else’s gwish.
I can’t always do that with my own.
With someone else’s gwish, that hesitance and reticence is gone.
I see all the reasons for yes. Why it could work instead of why it couldn’t.
As if all your spine fluid essence was pure creativity. The life force as undiluted creative play. Yes.
It’s good for you.
Not just cultivating gwishes of your own, but actively letting other people have theirs.
Without trying to change the gwishes. Not needing to fix them or do anything with them.
Just giving them legitimacy. Room to exist.
What do my gwishes need to feel safe and supported?
Play and playfulness!
Time and space to emerge in whatever form they want.
Friends (like Hiro and Cairene and Michelle) to clap delightedly with me.
They want to be welcomed and rejoiced over.
They want their birth to be the most happy thing that ever was.
They want flowers and flowers and flowers, and a secret garden just for them.
They want more room than it seems like they’re going to need. And to know that they are loved.
What can I do to help my gwishes feel welcome?
I can listen to them.
And ask them what they want.
I can make destinations and landing spots. I can write signs and give them names.
And safe rooms! Places to live so that even when I’m not with them or giving them attention, they feel comfortable and at home.
Dance. Movement. Trust. Walk the patterns. Map the patterns. Interact with the patterns. Untangle the patterns.
But mainly to say it:
YOU ARE WELCOME. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO BE HERE.
Play with me! It is fun to make gwishes and to have them.
If you would like to play, you are welcome to.
- To invent silly gwishes and get to know what it’s like to have them be welcomed and respected.
- To share a real gwish, if you like and if it feels safe.
- To ask any of the questions that I did, and see what comes up.
- To welcome other people’s gwishes.
As always, we all have our stuff, and we’re all working on our stuff. We let other people have their stuff and their experience, because that’s part of this too.
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Unintended beauty: “Some noticings about giving people room to have their geishas.”
Thanks! *W.
Havi, this is SO BEAUTIFUL!
To pat every dog in the world 🙂
I love the idea of gwishes. It even works in German as Zwunsch as a mix of Ziel (goal) and Wunsch (wish).
I will experiment with my Zwunschs, they feel much much lighter than goals and wishes. And they sparkle!!!
Havi, What a great typo “Some noticings about giving people room to have their geishas.”
I could get into having (being) my own geisha (minus the subservient part) and everyone having their own: someone dedicated to unconditional acceptance, to comfort and entertainment. That there is a gwish.
@Havi, @judy — Geishas! I suspect that Stu’s spellchecking brother has been up to his tricks, but I agree that it’s a happy accident. Geisha is one of the secret ways that I imagine myself to be — not so much in the sense of serving others (though that can be included when I choose), but in the literal definition of geisha as art person: someone dedicated to practicing the arts. I privately refer to the Artist’s Way things I practice as geido — the Way of the Artist.
I’ll be back later to share a gwish or two (or more)!
I gwish for silk pajamas in all the colors of the chakras.
This is such a wonderful post, I’d like to keep popping back to it all day long, and adding new gwishes. I gwish for that to be okay — oh, right! amnesty! yay! thank you, thank you!
I gwish to have a home theater — not a fancy television and blu-ray or any of that, a live home theater, where I would host performances regularly. We could start by doing impromptu dramatic readings, and build from there.
Gwishes = genius! Thank you so much, Havi.
To bring painting and dancing and singing back into our schools. ALL of the schools. Gwish, gwish.
To hire The Boss to deliver a singing telegram to my sister. Gwish.
To teleport myself to The Playground whenever I want to. Gwishy gwish.
@Kathleen: Do it in your house! No need for a theatre, my friends and I do readthroughs all the time and I’d absolutely recommend it 🙂
I love Kathleen’s Home Theater Gwish. That one’s GREAT.
I guess my gwish is sorta like a geisha. I want to be an all around entertainer. I want to play instruments, sing, juggle, fly in the air, all of it. But mostly I want to DANCE. To invent narratives with my body. Yeah. That’s a biggie.
My current major gwish is to get another source of income. Preferably in the writing biz, my other passion. By the Power of Gwish, I will get a writing gig, dammit!
I gwish, I gwish, I gwishhhhhhh!
I gwant to finish a tiny piece of theatre, a playlet very soon and record if with my friends!
I gwant to finish another tiny piece of film that i am writing and show it to a few peeps too!
I gwish like Kaleena to make some short films using myself.
I gwish to complete some of the gwishes above soon – they need to be let out to playyyyyy!
I gwish, i gwish, i gwish
i can i can i cannnn.
Good luck my fellow gwishers – such wonderful gwishing and gwishers.
weeeeeeeeeee!
Gwish!
Sounds like pink rain boots in the middle of Portland winter, one puddle at a time.
Yay.
I gwish for sweetness and sun and a treehouse like a tardis and peoples and connections and hugs.
I get scared of goals. Because of that, I majorly avoid them. But gwishes, on the other hand? I imagine them to have a silent g, which reminds me of gnomes, and I can’t be scared of something wearing a pointy red hat, you know?
I love all the wishes for performance/play/drama! I, too, have a slightly related one. I gwish for an opportunity to sing with/for/near other friendly people sometime soon.
I gwish for magic for everybody’s gwishes.
I gwish for a tree house in Vermont with an itty-bitty cozy fireplace. And snow outside, while we’re at it.
ok from now on, “Gwish you were here.” is going on ALL postcards.
Havi,
This is BRILLIANT!!!
I gwish I could come visit the Playground…
@Kaleena — “to invent narratives with my body” — that’s beautiful. I love that.
I’m loving all the treehouses, too. I used to want to live in one, and I still think it would be great!
I gwish for a secret time-travel/teleportation device that would let me go to a Magic Nap Room any time I liked, nap for as long as I wanted, and then return with no time lost. The Nap Room would have a huge, soft bed and a bathtub filled with rose-vanilla scented bubbles.
This is fabulous and I love it.
And I am so happy to see everyone’s gwishes so far.
And I dig Kathleen’s home theatre gwish, too.
And I have to second Kylie, too – I gwish for magic for everybody’s gwishes.
gwish gwish gwish gwish
The sound just makes me gwish for galoshes…
Clapping delightedly with you!
oxo C
I *love* having goals, I think I have farrrr to many! But they are stressful things, goals, and often weigh a lot on my mind. So gwishes sound awesome!
Mine:
~ a new dual monitor desktop computer system (to replace my two creaky cranky laptops)
~ an Archos 101 tablet
~ and oh yeah, a Toyota FJ40. Blue.
<3
::::kbs
@Kylie! “But gwishes, on the other hand? I imagine them to have a silent g, which reminds me of gnomes, and I can’t be scared of something wearing a pointy red hat, you know?” Genius!
Gwishes sound like they could use much swirling of sparkly wands while they are being voiced.
Ooh, gwishes! What a lovely, sillifying-without-demeaning word! Thank you for that small but big gift!
I mostofall SO mostofall gwish that my beloved puppy (my 13-yr-old puppy) lives in her current state of bouncy, dancing, delighted health for as long as I am physically able to take her for walks and ball-chasing. I’ve already told her she can’t die until she’s 20; I gwish for longer.
I gwish for my novel to be done in the next 3 months!
I gwish for a brand new, happy immune system to be installed.
I gwish for a place to live that is also a growth-sustaining jungle-partment.
I gwish for house-elves to help me clean.
I gwish for safe midnight barefoot dances in my park!
I gwish to learn how to fly wyverns.
And finally, I gwish for fast magic for everyone for their VPAs 🙂
Singing, “When you gwiiish upon a bar…”
My gwish? Oh, OH! I want a chupacabra for Christmas! And maybe that awesome wall tentacle I’ve been obsessing over on Twitter. Gwisssssssssssssssssssssh!
And I gwish that the chupacabra has his own geisha.
And more, oh so much more. Like shhh… that secret gnomes come in the night and clean this house, and decorate it too. And leave me a winning lottery ticket. And a pony.
GWISH!
I gwish for more magical friends, here, now.
And I gwish for plenty of time to enjoy christmas lights and my tree.
Tee hee. Geisha. Totally unintentional, though now I have to wonder. That *does* sound like Stu. And yet, Stu did not help me write this. Huh.
@Barbara – ohmygod I LOVE YOU. Zwunsch! Ich zwünschte du wärst hier … zwunsch zwunsch zwunsch! Awesome. I can’t believe it works so perfectly.
@Kyeli- pointy red hats! pointy red hats!
@Kat – Hooray for magical nap rooms! And for amnesty! And for all of it. Yay.
These gwishes are perfect and beautiful, floating up and finding their way. Gwish gwish gwish.
Ooooh!
I gwish I could send postcards to everyone in the world. Postcards that would arrive with the smell of lilacs and a dose of whatever quality they’re most in need of. (Plus a dash of delight and hope and magic thrown in for good measure).
I gwish I could hear the whispers of the winds and the call of the ocean – and whisper/call back.
I gwish I lived in a treehouse (except it would have to have an elevator for my puppy – maybe a dumbwaiter inside the trunk).
I also gwish that my home was a happy creative playground where others felt safe and at home enough to write or paint or play.
I gwish to remember to smile every time a glisten or gleam of something sparkly catches my eye.
After all, it’s sparkle season: there’s icicles (sometimes melting in sunlight, dripping momentary diamonds) and snowflakes (twisting and turning and landing in ways that give random light reflections to snow-covered surfaces) and tinsel (and other shiny decorations) and they can all catch the light in unexpected ways. And then there are the unexpected shiny things: the gleam off of a passing car; shiny flatware in the drawer; a sparkle of light off a freshly-cleaned bathtub yearning to be filled with bubbles; oh yeah, and BUBBLES! Dishwashing bubbles, as well as bathing bubbles!
It’s all so beautiful, SO beautiful, I think this gwish is going to be easy! But I still gwish it, because I really truly desire to make it happen, because smiling is awesome and I need more smiles!
Gwish, gwish, gwish!! I see tiny little feet and fuzzy round puffball bodies with antennaes. That’s my gwish, the purple one!
My gwish is (and always has been) to read every book ever written.
Gwish. I have a lot of goals, but a lot of them are motivated out of fear: must have, or else whole world collapses. Gwishes seem nicer. (And, since they remind me of knish, tastier.)
I gwish to get the plots blueprinted for my Angel series and my Devil series.
I gwish the ghostwriting projects were done already!
On an unrelated note, my son watched the Schmoppet video, and he’s taken to saying “Schmoppet! SCHMOPPET!” all over the house. 🙂
Kathleen! Your are on a role with the home theatre and Magic Nap Room! Yes Please!
I gwish for the novel to be finished by the end of January!
I gwish for an agent for Career Women of the Bible!
I gwish for a way to make my own rules and change the whole game when it comes to women being equal in all regards to men within Christianity because I’m not playing by the boy’s rules anymore, which they have fixed so they always win.
I gwish for minions! Lots and lots of minions! To type in what I write out by hand, to clean my house, to run my errands, so I can just write and create!
I gwish myself into a Geisha to remember how important practicing the arts is and how important it is to have sex with My Totally Sexy Hubby as well as be his companion.
gwishgwishgwishgwishgwishgwish
Gwishing for space and flowiness and safety for people I care about. Which is pretty much everyone.
I gwish for project amnesty for everyone who wants to take the rest of the year off. This is a good time to take time off, and it’s so totally ok to do it if you need to.
And I gwish for the means to help make that kind of space for other people. I have ways, so it’s time for means.
Havi, I love the gwishiness going on here! 😉 And what a GREAT word – so very fun and playful. I also loved the geisha mis-spelling. 😉
I gwish for a home on the ocean, with plenty of hills and creeks to explore around it, and warm, sunny days all year round… 🙂
I gwish and zwünsch for being a person full of calmness, energy, sovereignty and focus during the mad weeks and months coming up at work.
@ Shawna:
“I gwish for a way to make my own rules and change the whole game when it comes to women being equal in all regards to men within Christianity because I’m not playing by the boy’s rules anymore, which they have fixed so they always win.”
Right on, sister! Gwish, gwish, gwish. I gwish for more women in the Church to catch this gwish. I gwish for more *people* in the church to come to the brilliant realization that Love is big enough for the womenfolk and the not-straight-folk and the non-gender-binary-conforming folk as well as the menfolk.
On a more personal note…
I gwish for a perpetual, hypoallergenic kitten.
I gwish for brilliant, possibly shivanautical, epiphanies about how best to help and teach my students.
I gwish for unstressed holiday gifting.
I’ve started writing my gwishes on little pieces of paper. Then I fold up the paper and write TOP SECRET on it, and tuck it away.
That way we feel safe.
gwish gwish gwish – its even fun to type! gwishgwishgwish – even more fun to run them together.
i gwish for an end to world hunger.
i gwish families everywhere loved each other and communicated so that everyone is happpy
i gwish everyone in the world to be happy
i gwish all animals have homes that love them
i gwish that every day is the perfect weather for every person no matter where they are
i gwish that money was no object for everyone and that everything was free
i gwish that all health problems were solved completely and everyone in the world is happy healthy and pain free for the rest of their lives
i gwish that when the end of life happens it is painless simple and a blessing for everyone involved.
i gwish that every person feels completely respected, appreciated, believed and loved by every other person on their own terms.
i gwish that all wars were ended everywhere from now through forever and forever more and that everyone on earth gets along and respects each others views.
wow, that felt good. and that’s just for starters. the rest is going in my journal.
thanks havi.
When I was a little girl I used to want to travel around the world in a gypsy caravan with brightly painted, carved wooden walls, and red checkered curtains in the windows, and a teeny tiny pot bellied stove and a itty-bitty chimney, and a big old brown Clydesdale horse with white socks and a white and pink nose.
And to just wander slowly around all the country back roads picking apples off trees and spitting out the seeds down the road so more apple trees would grow.
So I gwish for that.
Three gwishes:
* A heated room with ceiling-to-floor mirrors. One where a middle-aged klutz might privately practice dance moves.
* Someone to name a harpsichord concerto or horticultural discovery in my honor. 😉
* A hatful of “Benefit of the Doubt” glitter, and little silk box-kites from which to dispense it wherever the need catches my eye or ear
Swish, I gwish…
I gwish for my nephew to have a safe and consistent environment to nurture him as he grows into the wonderful grown-up he will be.
I gwish for my plum and lime office to become reality. Soon please, so I can create and gwish in a sparkly, bright and energizing space.
I gwish for restful, relaxing and restorative holidays for everyone.
I gwish …
– for an endless supply of hot chocolate and mini marshmallows
– to dance every day
– for a treehouse in my back yard, big enough for a grown-up
– for a really cool swing set
– to learn how to use a pottery wheel and make really cool pottery
– for a better world in 2011
Happy gwishing!
Yay for all the tree houses, all the love, and all the magic!
Yay for all the creativity; I gwish you all get your gwishes, so I can read your books, watch your films and see your performances!
@Havi @Barbara – It works in Danish too, only the word has a different ring to it: Mønske! Goal=mål and wish=ønske. But I like the word, mønske, sounds kind of like a tiny round-bellied pony with a big fuzzy mane and tufts of hair coming out it’s ears…
I also like the tiny red hats. Maybe the Mønske-pony weras a tiny red hat as well.
@Kim – My gwishes/zwünschen/mønsker feel much safer (and so much cooler, Mission Impossible-style) with the wrds TOP SECRET written on them, thank you!
But it’s time to share my ginormous gwish (deep breaths now):
I gwish to be an adventurer, who travels the world and writes exciting books about faraway places and challenging expeditions.
And I gwish to have a small cottage somewhere that is all mine, where I can come and feel safe and at home and shut out the world for a while, until I’m ready to go on the next big adventure.
Gwishgwishgwishgwish *puf*
I gwish to roll down grassy banks with my boy. I gwish to sing. I gwish to run. I gwish to sit quietly and hear the sea and feel the wind on my cheeks with my babby in the circle of my arms. I gwish to swing
Oh how I love this post and all of the comments – I gwish I could hug each and aver one of you, and sprinkle you with Fairy Dust. Please consider it done virtually 🙂
I gwish I had the words to explain how big and full of love my heart feels right now
I gwish I can unleash my creativity as openly and unafraidly as you do Havi
I gwish to fly fearlessly
I gwish that my apartment neighbor had a cat, and that there was a little cat door between our apartments and that his cat would come and visit me and walk on my back and keep me company but then go back through the cat door when he wanted to eat or poop. Maybe 2 cats.
Gwishing! *gwish gwish* Like Christmas tinsel and fall-colored leaves all in one go! *gwish gwish*
I gwish to run a Shiva Nata and impro institute in my home town. Or a chain, all over the country. Where we’d do Shiva Nata and then do impro theater and musical impro and dance impro and then do some more Shiva Nata. And say “gwish” a lot.
I gwish I had a fluffy room with bouncy beanbag chairs made of memory foam (you know, like the pillows) where I could work on any and all studies-and-work-related writing stuff by drawing on the walls, and then by pressing a button the wall drawings would get saved on a hard drive and hey presto, blank walls again. (And when you’d push on the walls, they’d make a little *gwish* sound).
This whole gwishing thing is making me so happy! Thank you!
Gwish, gwish, gwish – it seems to need to come in threes.
I gwish to let the people I love know that I love them.
I gwish to do more modelling, for myself or for other people, making beautiful photographs.
I gwish for the company of trees.
Gwish! Sounds like when you are starting to learn english when you are a spanish speaking native. the w become guo and th becomes d. happy word even for begginers in a new language!!
i gwish:
-my singing voice went (and stayed) in tune and sounds sexy but vulnerable, femenine and tough, and can sing in a band!
-a teleportation device…every time, i always gwish that existed
-the vision of a partner i have came real and tangible and he gwished to be with me and have a family and travel and be creative, surprising, loving, respectful and have a little prominency or the right contacts to do more for the causes we believe in, and the privacy to live a simple but fun life
i gwish all our gwishes made magic just by existing and by how much play and fun and love is going on here
Hooray for all your gwishes! I think the atmosphere you’re creating *is* magic. Amazing.
I gwish for everyone to learn what they need to help them do things, and give themselves everything they need.
I gwish for everyone to forgive themselves for the things they haven’t done, and be happy with the things they have.
I gwish for everyone to know when to stop doing.
I gwish for everyone to know the peace of doing nothing, and the joy of doing something just for fun.
I gwish for everyone to be free to do the things that are right for them, and let go of the things that aren’t.
I gwish for everyone to be free to use their talents.
I gwish for everyone to be free to chase their dreams.
I gwish for everyone to be free to be who they were born to be, and live the life they were born to live.
And I gwish to help with all of that in any way I can!
gwish! these are all things I’m coming to terms with saying out loud:
i gwish for a safe safe pregnancy for my sister in law, who recently found out she is having triplets, and while that is SO FRIGGIN’ AWESOME it is also risky, and i worry.
i gwish for a new job. a job that makes me want to be a programmer forever and ever, instead of making me want to squish peoples’ heads. like today.
i gwish for an easy transition from unhealthy me to healthy me. i gwish that the right ways to do things suddenly *feel* right and i gwish that suddenly i would feel silly doing it any other way.
i gwish for my tiny sweet thing to get some friggin’ momentum already. you know, that one client who actually refers you and gets you the million *right* clients you need.
I just realized something.
Gwish is the perfect word for one of my annual Winter Solstice rituals. At this time of year, I make a wish for the year to come. One might think of it as a New Year’s Resolution if one were so inclined, but it’s not something I’m working on yet, not quite yet, because it’s so important to me to rest at this time of year, as much as I possibly can. So, no pressure. It isn’t a resolution yet, and it isn’t quite a goal, not just yet. A pre-goal, perhaps. A dream in the dark, waiting to be shaped as the light returns and grows. A Yuletide wish. A gwish. Yes!