It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
Asking what the next move is.
Over and over again.
What’s the next move, chicken?
And then I just acted on that. Sometimes I really needed to know two moves, or otherwise I wouldn’t feel motivated to make the first one. Or because I felt scared that I wouldn’t move at all once I did the first one.
But basically, all I did was ask. What’s the next move, chicken? And sometimes: What’s the move immediately after that?
If I did things that weren’t the next move, then they became the next move because Nothing Is Wrong and This Is Right. And that worked too.
What’s next, chicken? Spill tea all over yourself! DONE! Sparklepoints!
What’s next, chicken? Ask the same thing again.
Being Billie.
This week was Rally (Rally!), and it was Rally B and I decided my name should begin with B this week, and then that took over everything and being Billie became my Rally project, and also a proxy within a proxy, and it was wonderful.
Laissez les bon temps roulez!
Yup.
Next time I might…
Remember that not-doing is part of doing.
It’s not a distraction. It’s not procrastination.
It’s allowing things to percolate, and it’s a vital part of the creative process.
A thousand points for not-doing! And trust. The not-doing is helping things move along, not getting in the way.
And everything else I do that is [not the thing] helps too, because: fractal flowers.
This is an INCREDIBLY subversive concept, especially in our protestant work ethic culture, and I am only able to work with this because Rally has demonstrated, over and over and over again, that it is true. But even remembering this is going against everything I have ever been taught in life.
A thousand billion points for the bravery of even entertaining this as an idea.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Hahahaha! 4am is the worst time to be woken up by an incredibly painfully loud smoke detector announcing its battery issues. If there had been an actual fire, the damages suffered would have not have been from fire but severe hearing loss and noise trauma. A breath for waking in terror.
- Not wanting to work on the thing I thought I wanted to work on. A breath for trust.
- I want to dance all day every day, and I don’t know how to do that while being in charge of an online business and twenty six rallies and a ballroom that is also a chocolate shop. Actually, I do know how to do that, but I am worried about it. A breath for how scary it is to know what you want.
- The day (more like three days) where everything was, as Max puts it, eight degrees off. A breath for feeling off balance and tumbling.
- A surprise visit from Loneliness, and the false perception that no one wants to play with me. A breath for how sometimes Ludicrous Fear Popcorn feels so completely real.
- A dance class where it felt like I was not only not making progress, but actively getting worse. And an uncomfortable feeling with a partner. A breath for everything about this. Whoosh! Elevator shaft!
- Worried about so many things. A breath for all the things.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Saying thank you about all the good things. Playing Eleven Times Yay (exactly what it sounds like) with Oliver Danni! A breath for appreciation and delight.
- Accidentally lucked into a private WCS dance lesson with a fantastic teacher. A breath for getting the just-right thing handed to you on a platter.
- Marisa and Anna and I had a bad-mood picnic in the sun and then we went on an outing. A breath for friends.
- I did a wonderful-wackadoodle session with Max that involved Tarzan and Billy Zoom. My wish was to get something actionable, but I got something even better which is the realization that I truly am not worried about what I choose. A breath for suspicions confirmed, and playmates.
- RALLY RALLY RALLY OHMYGOD RALLY. Rally B! A breath for everything that is Rally. Also: best ever compelling spirals practice. With HIPS. We did a cha-cha’d version of a Ke$ha song. A breath for hilarity and playfulness.
- At the last Rally (Rally A), I worked on Assertiveness, which starts with an A, and dealt with a bully in the building and made all kinds of Assertive Requests. Guess what! Two of them were approved this week! A breath for the superpower of Assertiveness and the wonderful gifts it holds.
- Playing sparklepoints-for-things-undone at the Frolicsome bar! A breath for playfulness and company.
- Coming through! My whole weekend is filled with dancing. Ballroom tonight, Thrill The World tomorrow, jitterbug workshop on Sunday. I am so excited about this. I told my dance partner, “It’s like all my dreams are coming true!”. Except I wrote COMING THROUGH instead of coming true. I was right. All my dreams are coming through. Watch out, we’re coming through! A breath for pure undiluted joy.
Also! On the day where everything was eight degrees off, there was much tripping. Literally and figuratively. At one point, traipsing down some steps, I completely missed a step and tumbled. While wearing three inch heels. But then nothing happened. My body just rebalanced itself mid-tumbling, and I was fine. I am still not sure how this happened. It seems like at the very least I should have twisted an ankle and/or fallen on my face.
An extra breath of thank you for core strength and balance from fifteen years of yoga, and for inexplicable miracles. I guess all miracles are inexplicable. Or maybe they’re very explicable. But it was an amazing moment.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
This week was all about my Boring Existential Crisis, which is no longer boring, existential or a crisis, so I’m going to say: WHAM BOOM to that!
Superpowers!
A superpower I had this week…
The superpower of trusting that things that seemed like rabbit holes were actually doors to where I wanted to go! And they were.
And the superpower of Forgiveness with a Silent B. Also the superpower of realizing that a silent B is also a silent be.
Forgiveness has a silent BE.
This is truth.
And a superpower I want next week.
The superpowers of Billy Zoom. Serene, capable, smiling confidence.
Salve.
The salve of Forgiveness with a Silent B.
This salve works like a deep exhale that runs through your whole history, releasing everything that is done.
It finds all the hidden scabs that are filled with shame, and dissolves the shame in such a way that the edges heal beautifully.
This is not the kind of forgiveness that comes from a person, it’s not about that. It is heart-forgiveness, internally and externally directed, and it feels like love. Because it is. That’s the secret of the Silent Be.
You don’t need to do anything. You just are.
The best thing about this salve is you don’t even have to rub it in. I mean, you can if you want to. But this cool thing happens where you just dip your finger into the jar and then it’s almost like you are the salve.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band:
YOMBA.
They’re from Amboy, Washington, and they are an anagram, and yes, it’s just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. ANNOUNCEMENT.
You guys you guys you guys!
I wand to once again loudly (for me) recommend the monster manual and coloring book, which solved many problems for me this week.
I had so many monsters this week, so much shame, so much fear, so many internal accusations. These are the techniques and concepts that helped. Plus coloring makes everything better. It just does.
Get the Monster Manual & Coloring Book.
AND. If you know people in Portland and you can help spread the word about our Red Rose Ballroom or help do that on facebook, that would be hugely appreciated!
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us check in with a hi or a ♡, or maybe we’re on silent retreat. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. Almost three hundred weeks of this and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
Follow
I’m going to silent retreat on my chicken for now, because I’m all in my stuff right this second. (Legitimately so! Being in one’s stuff is an allowable and legitimate and permissible state to be in! Amnesty amnesty amnesty dammit! #remindingmyself)
Suffice to say that ‘forgiveness has a silent BE’ is clearly why I’m up at 4.30am: to read that, to know it, to come home to it.
Thank you.
A breath for the date that started Exactly As I’d Feared and ended Better Than I’d Hoped. (So much better.)
A breath for asking for the impossible, and receiving it. Immediately.
A breath for fear of being misunderstood.
A breath for realizing monster voices were monster voices the very first time they started speaking. And saying “oh honey,” and not having to do anything else.
A breath for a moment of stunning presence and thankfulness.
A breath for the Floop! And Fractal Flowers! And writing a book in two days by processing how I felt about writing the book. And then it was written.
A breath for Operation Comfortable List, and hope, and congruencing.
A breath for seeing just how far I’ve come. For seeing that everything really is different now.
A breath for challenging moments with the wee babers. (And a small sigh of surrender into this transition. Don’t tell the monsters, but I think it’s turning out okay.)
A breath for speaking Spanish! Again! Finally! For feeling the world slip back into its true, multilingual depth.
A breath of gratitude for Havi Bell.
This was so much my week. Also, I want to dance all the time too.
The hard:
-A breath for the hard of seeing things a different way and not understanding why other people don’t
-A breath for every time I wondered if I’m crazy
-A breath for being lonely in a group
-A breath for not getting to visit the people I need while I was located near them
-A breath for not being in Boston
-A breath for succumbing. Again.
-A breath for each time I was triggered.
-A breath for friends in pain.
-And while we’re there, a breath for parts of me in pain.
The Good:
-A breath for mandalas! I can draw things and sometimes they look pretty/interesting. This is blowing a large piece of my self-image out of the water.
-A breath for deep conversations.
-A breath for naked hottubbing in the Vermont cold every night. Water and skin and warmth. (And a bit of sadness in that breath for feeling the need to state that it was non-sexual. Oy vey.)
-A breath for using all the tools
-A breath for all the good food. And yoga-ing it up all over the place (on the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door…)
-A breath for laughter, puns, playing with words, and silly inside jokes.
-A breath for all the sparklepoints.
-A breath for new possibilities
-A breath for people who look out for me and keep sending me work and work-possibilities
-A breath for wishes on stars coming true.
-A breath for “playing attention.”
Hugs to all the chickeneers and lurkers and Facebook sparklepointers.
Cheers, Chickeneers!
It gets darker and darker in the mornings, and I find it harder and harder to wake up. But the clocks go back on Sunday! And I am getting a tax refund, and I shall spend some of it on one of those clever alarm clocks that switches a light on very gradually.
Surprise interview! Well, surprise invitation – the interview itself is next week. And this is exciting and also a little scary.
Hard: making a small but important decision, and all its big decision brothers turning up to threaten me and demanding attention, even though it is not their turn yet.
The good: hospitality. People are looking after me.
This week I have had the superpower of fantastic legs. I quite often have this superpower; I rather like it.
A breath for things being hard, and for the perception that they’ve always been hard and they will forever be hard.
And I’d appreciate a teeny tiny amount of salve, so that a small fraction of my shame gets dissolved.
Thank you.
It’s like magic how the salve of the week is always exactly the right salve.
What Worked:
Pretend Positivity Week. No fake or forced, just pretend. Like an actor playing a character who saw the silver lining in everything and always looks on the bright side of life and is curious about all the possibilities. And it worked! It might go on for one more day. And one more day after that.
Switching sides of the bed. It’s a whole new world over there.
Remembering every minute and day to start where I am with what I have.
Lots of notebook writing and scheming.
The Curiosities:
Losing out on some clients. And instead of crying, being curious and actually figuring out why and how to avoid those people in the future since I can’t help them anyway but I hate getting my hopes up and then dashed.
The Delights:
Found a last minute retreat/rally-ish thing that I can go to tomorrow and still be home in time for supper!
Met with someone today who cured my comparison-itis and switched on a light down a hallway I didn’t even know was there! Now I can stop knocking on the door where no one is answering to the place I probably don’t want to be anyway.
Oh, for not-doing! I will take a metric TON of that.
And Amboy! LOVE that word and always have. No idea why. But I think it needs to be an acronym as well as an anagram (for Yomba).
xoxox for all of this.
Oooh, I’m up late tonight. Perhaps chickening will help me relax enough to go to bed. I hope so! Meanwhile, hey there, Friday, let’s dance.
What worked: strengthening my force field when people around me were spewing their stuff. I hadn’t quite realized it, but that is exactly what I was doing: my force field is strong and gentle, and it helps.
Next time: I would like to wash more dishes — but *playfully*. Or, if I can’t manage playfully, then meditatively.
I think my hard stuff and good stuff were all tangled up together this week. Parenting: issues came up that were frustrating and saddening and draining, yet always there is so much love, and I am so incredibly grateful for that. Operation Relocation: there is forward motion, but still so much further to go. Creative expression: the things that happened were good, yet I want more more more!
This week’s superpower: grounded flow.
Next week’s superpower: more of the same, please, even more so. I am liking this.
Yes! The courage of Not-Doing. Unconditional Not-Doing.
Last day of 9 day creative Retreat for me. So much Not-Done! Delish.
Variation on ‘what’s next’: “What now?” Next seems so rarely to be any of my bizness lately.
Gratitude for the teachings-by-example here. Love!
Not-Doing — I did a lot of that this week. It’s good to have permission and encouragement and to know that I am not alone in my Not-Doing.
What worked this week: making sleep and rest a priority. Facing down the obstacles before they had time to turn into huge barriers.
A breath for having resources and using them.
A breath for family fun.
A breath for being with my beloved MrB.
A breath for the things that did get done.
A breath for things that are percolating.
Yay, dancing! Yay to all the other beautiful blossomings and bell-chimings, too!
Something that worked? Choosing sleep.
Next time? Schedule less. Pack less. Allow even more space around me to carry the unexpected.
Some hard/annoying things:
1. Fall festival down the street — I’m cool with it in principle, but some of the music feels like payback for past sins.
2. Some people I had hoped I could trust let me down.
3. Friends coping with crises and losses.
4. Having to discard assorted plans, and to punt or defer others to 2015.
5. Is there really no working red calligraphy marker in this house?
Some good things:
1. The guys handling valet parking for the hospital were so helpful and kind.
2. Some lovely, umprompted notes from exes, as well as nifty postcards and loving messages from the beloved usual suspects.
3. There’s now a video of “Playing Duets with Heisenberg’s Ghost.” Squee!
4. It’s turned cold. Which means I can discover I hadn’t put away the butter and beer without having to throw the lot out.
5. A friend just brought me a handful of grape hyacinth bulbs.
Warm wishes to all y’all!
Hello! Invoking AMnesty!!
What worked last week: Best practices and lots of sleep. Taking excellent care of the Me. My new mantra: Practice is my Ally. One more thing in the evening kept from getting too behind.
next time: White Flowers, esp PM Calyx. More mat time.
the sucks were minimal:
-so much to do, so lil time
-deep worries that I let myself down and not have an adequate Samhain. This would be Ludicrous Fear Popcorn, except Past Experience Demonstrates that an inadequate Samhain spells DOOM of many kinds. a breath for worry and distrust of myself.
-so much STUCK!! stuck on the weight, the energy, White Flowers. Stuck on art and writing blocks. Stuck and needing to Level Up. a breath for frustration and shame
-Oldest Kid and her school troubles. She works really hard and is very conscientious and responsible. But her clas work gets As & Bs and her exams on the same topics get Ds and Fs.
but so much sparkle:
-gorgeous weather all last week. intensely blue skies and warm breezes, the trees popping with color
-Dance class! so happy
-makling my costume for dance recital. i was nervous but the process of making my costume was amazing and brought up all kinds of yummy stuff.
-having a good plan for an adequate Samhain
-not feeling completely incompetent and ashamed by everything i dont get done. feeling strong and capable, and gentle when i dont execute what i’m supposed to
-i am suddenly able to blow off all kinds of constant hosuework with minimal guilt.
-it;s almost Samhain!!
-my spiritual practice is pretty solid. i’m reasdy to Level Up but I am really proud of: consistent, daily practice; deeper connection to Source and Guidance, honring my needs, making space for the kids to practice with me, and feeling ready to take on more.
So glad you mentioned Billy Zoom. Got to hang out with them once backstage at an X concert in LA because my roommate was dating the light technician. I’ve got tickets to see X play with the Blasters in Seattle in a month.
I am not the Chihuahua. He’s the star of my recent mysery series. Somehow WordPress has gotten us mixed up.