Dessert First (story hour)
I had no motivation for anything at all this week, and Incoming Me keeps saying DESSERT FIRST, and I thought she meant in a more literal sense like bribing myself with sweetness.
But eventually my incoming selves got tired of me not getting it, and explained to me again in no uncertain terms that I can’t fight reality; I have to work with what is. And at the most basic level of [what is] rests the simple truth that I am motivated by Pleasure, Vengeance & Rebellion, but mostly pleasure.
Vengeance will work, and Rebellion, aka being told I can’t do something, will absolutely get me to do anything, but Pleasure is the most reliable door back to myself.
And back to myself is where I want to be before starting any task or setting off on any adventure.
This means, they said, that if I’m feeling grumpy and resentful (haha, which I very much was), it’s because I’m not living by Dessert First as a way of being, and I need to shower myself in pleasure before attempting anything at all.
Anyway, that’s why the check-in didn’t happen until Tuesday evening, because I had to re-learn this and acquire ginger cardamom chocolate, and take a delicious hot shower with a bath bomb. Most importantly, I had make the choice to ignore my long list and play hooky until I had wants again.
Weekend Check-in, we made it.
Reviewing the week aka Chicken/Check-in is not only a reassuring ritual and fun to say, but another form of remembering, turning inward with attentiveness.
We can name what was difficult and name what worked, I find naming therapeutic. What am I experiencing and how am I experiencing it? All intel is useful.
Mainly we’re here to take a breath for having made it here. High fives all around and hand-to-heart appreciation.
If I neglect to name something big in the world, could be ADHD, but also I’m on an extended break from news after spiraling hard in December.
Breathing for what was hard, challenging, uncomfortable, not fun…
THING ZERO and THING ONE remain the one two punch of the pandemic and the dissonance, the lack of an agreed upon reality or even a shared context, re the coronavirus and also in the political.
Related to this, and also in a more general sense, I just keep finding myself thinking about how trauma processing is just a full time unpaid job that is exhausting, on the personal and in the collective.
I am also thinking a lot about how, in addition to the everything of everything, we are not recovering from the Trump acquittal. In fact, it is continuing to be very…stirring up lots of other stuff about how the bad people thrive and are rewarded, if that makes sense. As if we are all extra walking around in our trauma. We knew the country wasn’t safe but it’s more known-known now, it was openly acknowledged that nothing fucking matters, and that wasn’t just an aspect of the last four years, that is how it works.
Even as someone who is really not even marginally patriotic, I still experienced the attack on the capitol as a kind of home invasion. We watched an attack on our home, and then, as always, there are no consequences for the people who do us harm.
I moved again, and again. I am in the tenth place I have lived just in February, and there is still one more place before March. A few more days were lost to trauma and processing and recovering.
There was pounding on the door while I was doing yoga. Was that this week? What is time. I understand nothing.
I cried at the eye doctor because I didn’t have an emergency contact to fill in. I had to look up the number of someone who is barely speaking to me because I couldn’t think of anyone.
I also cried because I didn’t know how to answer any of the questions. What is my occupation. Do I use a computer for work? When did I last visit an eye doctor, what address should they send a reminder postcard to in a year, who knows, how could a person know any of these things. Not me.
And I also cried because it’s been a month since I’ve been able to do laundry or cook. Basically there was a lot of crying this week, because I forgot how my cycle works, even though the Designated Sobbing Days (DSD, there’s a Fake Band of the Week!) arrive at the exact same time every month and have done so since the first Gulf War, but can I remember that? I cannot.
Other than that, I am just deeply involved in the ongoing question: how do I shower myself in adoration and affection to such an extent that any from anyone else is just a fun bonus, not a top-off and definitely not a drug I crave and become beholden to? Well, that’s a mystery, isn’t it. I am working on it.
Breathing for what was good, reassuring, joyful, sweet
Delicious things are delicious: the sun, the light on the mountains, the long beautiful drive to a favorite secret spot that I do on my in-between days when I have to check out of one place and cannot yet land at the new one.
Sleep is delicious. I love climbing into bed, ready to become one with the weighted blanket.
Morning bobcat time (yoga, movement, breathing, stretching) is delicious, and so are my sun salutations that put me into a stupor-trance of focus and wonder. They don’t tire me these days, they invigorate me, and that too is some sort of plateau passed.
Morning epiphanies and insights are delicious too, my wise selves talk to me in meditation, in journaling, in the shower, when I step outside to greet the sun.
My rituals are delicious.
The month of Adar is here (my birthday month, in the Hebrew calendar) and the month of Adar is for joy, and I feel it like a door. Victorious. Joyful. We made it. Good job. I am going to be forty four, which feels magical and impossible, against all odds, who would have thought, but here I am, alive and glad for this life.
This week held love, affection, warmth, insight, inspiration, hope, tenderness, sharing, kindness, smiling and surprise soup. As hard as the hard things were (and they were), I feel tremendously thankful for the treasure revealed, and hopeful for a new week. And sure, it’s Tuesday but also what is time.
And while I am sad about not having access to an oven, that is a solvable mystery and I am welcoming safe simple solutions that hold me in high regard, and trying to focus on how great it is that I want to bake again.
Imagine whispering to November Me who couldn’t get out of bed that February Havi is absolutely craving spending an afternoon baking bread. Things shift and move and get better. It’s not easy to trust that, but hey guess what, it happens anyway.
Thank you so much to everyone who sent me surprise Appreciation Money this week via Barrington’s Discretionary, it covered the terrible place I had to cancel on which was an alarming expense. What treasure, thank you! It is always welcome and if I can land in a place, I can share more writing here, that’s my preferred way to fill time; writing and hopeful thoughts.
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
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Processing trauma *is* full-time work, oh my goodness, yes, it’s no wonder that there is so much exhaustion everywhere.
I want so much to go to the ocean. I’m trying to get there daily in my imagination, at least.
Let’s see, a few good things…
I bought a new blue dress, grey-blue, soft and soothing.
My current notebook cover has an adorable drawing of a cat sleeping on a bookshelf filled with witty titles.
Oh, and I did a thing recently: I posted a recording of my daughter and me, singing a song together. The song is from Hadestown (she’s singing as Eurydice, and I’m singing as Persephone), and I like the way it came out:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10224879659483287&id=1368709225&anchor_composer=false
I am sending love to you and all the Chickeneers. I raise my (coffee) cup to you.
Mmmm ginger cardamom chocolate sounds so good! As does surprise soup.
The hard:
– discombobulated
– change is in the air, and I find myself wanting to dig my heels in and resist it. Why am I jumping straight to fear?
The good:
– a walk across the fen to the nearest village, and my legs happy and willing to go twice as far if I’d wanted to
– I keep hearing of more and more people getting vaccinated, and beginning to think maybe maybe maybe [summer things] might happen
– clipper Saturday: now my head is all fuzzly
– fannishness! it’s such fun talking about things I like with other people who like those things
– it has got much easier to get up for my morning walk, and spring is in the air when I do
– Elizabeth Goudge
What’s working:
– grand opera, musicals, theatre, big music, big emotions
– twenty minutes at a time
Cluck cluck!
(Sharing my song in another way, as an alternative to the Facebook link above, for anyone who would like to hear it… <3 )
https://youtu.be/g2yNLg3HrcA
*hand on heart* Sooo much resonance… and aching for those of us who know this [*gestures at The Suffering*] far too well. The dissonance is so well-named, not just for Trumpocalypse, but also for the pressure to Be Other than that which we are in a given moment/life. Trauma-processing feels like a Forever Job, y
Surprise soup! Tantalising…!
The Hard
~ bone-breaking, mind-crushing fatigue; the perfect accompaniment to all All that is Way Too Hard for Too Long
~ no resolution in sight for that which is breaking beyond repair or [circular failure]
~ fighting the ceaseless war of cruelty that seems to be (in)Humanity
The Good
~ finding pockets of emotional support that feel mutual, genuine, and a Good Fit
~ even if still grieving the lack of such for So Long
~ Making a (tiny) Difference
What Works
~ Listening to Elves
~ sunshine (the one thing that truly Calms my body without relying on another)
~ walking (though I’m still learning to overcome to obstacles)
The (clumsily articulated) Wish
~ to have another (others?) invest in me/my needs so tis not just me, [circular failure], and the Accumulation of Too Much/Too Hard/Too Long
Gentle wishes and Needs Met to all chickeneers (*laughs at Chicken Ears*) x
Kathleen- this song made my day.
@bluetree — Thank you!
Oh, Hadestown!!! Love it so much, and got to see it pre-New York. It brought me joy to hear you and Nina sing. . .thanks for sharing!
@Little Hummingbird — * <3 * <3 *
A million sparklepoints for the desire to bake bread! And even more for recognizing that it is the desire that is crucial. I have a hard time remembering that.
Since the reality is “what is time”, I will chicken for where I am right now and not even try to remember what happened which week!
The hard:
-putting my comment in the right place on this board, apparently
-the General Air of Grumpiness (me, but also the whole world)
-wanting a spiritual community but finding reasons why none of them work for me
The good:
-new energy being put toward sleep routines, and the discovery that restorative yoga makes a difference. Oh, the delight of waking up one day WITHOUT a headache!
-pumpkin spice muffin recipe that is all kinds of delicious
-hellebore, crocus, daffodil
-playing piano again, even a little bit, and the DESIRE to play more.
Sending everyone who would enjoy it a pumpkin spice muffin!
I am slowly accumulating evidence that Dessert First works wonderfully for me and does not, as monsters whisper, mean I will become a Lotus-Eater wasting my life and potential and letting all my responsibilities fall to the wayside.
One case: felt not at all guilty about taking a sick day when I got a cold this week, spent a whole day in bed, and miracle of miracles, it made me actually feel better and come back renewed to tackle my work. FANCY THAT.
It is really helpful for me to remember that I am someone who likes to apply her energy to things and when the energy flags or those things be a start to feel like obligations, a break almost always results in something moving. Things change. Feeling stuck is not forever even if it wants you to think it is.
Anyway, had an epiphany about My Biggest Pattern so gonna be ruminating on that for a bit.
Yes I love this, accumulating evidence! Nothing is wrong! Time off works! It takes me so much evidence to counter the monster stories, but then pleasure really is healing and sparks all the creative juices, so weird how it happens every time but I fight it every time, haha
The clock has rolled past midnight, so it’s now Friday, and TGIF! This particular Friday is a day for jubilation, a day of liberation, a day of celebration.
At noon, we’ll be closing on a condo. It’s a nice condo, with room for the things I need room for, and not enough room for the things I don’t want to have room for — an incentive to clean out my junk drawer, my junk room, and the physical and metaphorical junk that my life has accumulated.
And I will be liberated, freed, from the responsibility of home maintenance and yard work. It’s been difficult to find someone to shovel snow, rake leaves, cut grass, and I can no longer do those things. It’s been even harder to find someone to clean the gutters and caulk the windows and so on.
At the condo, someone else will do that.
So I’m celebrating. I’ll raise a glass of sparkling water to toast the changes.
Soon I’ll be getting into the hard work of getting moved, then getting my house ready to put on the market. For a while, though, I’m going to dance and celebrate and squee excitedly (though silently).
This condo adventure has dominated my thinking for several weeks, and the excitement has added sparkles to everything else.
My force field is sparkling. A lot of crap that normally bothers me just doesn’t penetrate a sparkly force field. I feel like *I* am sparkling.
I *am* sparkling. I’m all bubbly.
Sparkliness doesn’t hold pain at bay. It doesn’t solve problems. It doesn’t do repairs. What it does is change the perspective and the experience.
So the week had some Hard things but when I look back, all I see is sparkles.
Vicki! I am so EXCITED for you and your sparkly sparkliness of sparkles and your new condo and this new freedom, vicarious joy!!!!
Oooh, pumpkin spice muffins! *swoons and shares Magic-made organic soy chai (hot or iced, as preferred) to go with Hummingbird muffins*
Ha, my comment landed in the wrong place too!
This is beautiful Kathleen — thank you so much for sharing! <3
@Rosette– thank you!
Cheers, Chickeneers!
The Hard
– Massive weather shifts (which are typical for the Front Range in CO this time of year) make my body feel janky and my energy a bit low.
The Good
– I was dog sitting this week! An adorable 10 year old terrier mix with a sweet disposition. We went on all the walks.
– Published my new website for the coaching and consulting practice I’m starting. I’m announcing it to my network even before it is totally polished or complete and I feel at ease about that (something the me of 5 years ago never would have done)
Havi, the crying over the emergency contact at the doctor is making me a little teary right now. Love to you and to all of us without an obvious emergency contact. I would like to think that the *universe* will take care of me in an emergency?
Dessert First is a revelation, I am now investigating how to receive motivation through pleasure! Such a revolutionary concept, hard to believe but easy to believe.
The Hard:
Crankiness
Winter which will last six more weeks, but will I be ready for spring in six weeks?
Not feeling grateful enough, feeling guilty for non-gratitude
The good:
A useful discussion with the Shiny People, not feeling as resentful, maybe even more compassionate and connected.
A couple of sunny days
A couple of good walks/skis
Some progress on some projects which I’m excited about
Less dread
Good thoughts to all of you out there in Chickenland!
Omg Sarah Jane thank you for fully acknowledging the extreme miserable situation of no emergency contact, and I would love to just write in THE UNIVERSE, telephone number unknown, and let it be sorted out.
Motivation through pleasure is totally a mind-altering advanced practice that is completely counter everything in our culture for sure, it’s a lot to think about, I love “hard to believe but easy to believe”!