It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Being honest about what I wanted.
My god, it’s hard though.
It is endlessly fascinating to me, still, how much I will twist myself into a pretzel to avoid doing this.
There’s this whole cycle I go through where I recognize that I don’t want to do something but then try to distract and cover up this information, even from myself.
I immediately set to work trying to convince myself to do the thing I don’t want.
And then all my monsters jump in and say things like, “Come on, you should try new things, you should stretch yourself, you should be adventurous, you could make this work if you just stop being selfish, no one wants to be with someone who ruins their fun, wouldn’t you rather just stick it out than have [person] resent you for ruining the fun? Come on, maybe you’ll like it this time!”
It takes me a while to recognize that this is just my Survival At Any Cost people-pleasing defense-mechanism tendencies.
And even once I realize that I can’t do the thing I don’t want to do even if I try to force it, I still go into over-explaining mode instead of just saying, “That’s not what I want. I’d rather do this other thing instead”.
But you know what? I did it. I said what I wanted.
Despite going into all my usual contortionist patterns, I still was able to say what I wanted. And the world didn’t end. And not only did I get to avoid Vegas, I have more proof that next time I can just skip the endless prevarication process. Yay.
Next time I might…
Interrupt this pattern sooner, if I can.
I have so many good clues.
Over-explaining and giving lots of reasons in defense of what I know I need is a clue that I’m not saying what I want and need.
Trying to figure out what the other person really wants is a clue that I’m not saying what I want and need.
There are so many sweet, loving ways I can interrupt this pattern. Just taking a breath and saying hi, pattern! That counts too.
I want to speed up the process of recognizing that I’m in this, and then give myself a hundred billion sparklepoints because this is the hardest.
And: Compassion, compassion, compassion for small me who mistakenly learned that it is dangerous to speak up for herself.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- My body misses yoga and dance and long walks. A breath for this.
- Everything takes so much longer than I think it will, and I fight this, over and over again. The thing is, it takes as long as it takes. A blog post takes me two and a half hours to write? That is the birthing process for that piece of writing. It somehow takes three hours to get ready to leave a place because I get triggered and have to take care of myself? Great, three hours is the right amount of time for that. This is so hard for me to remember, and I go through so much frustration and self-recrimination about things being the way they are. A breath for things being the way they are in this moment.
- So much releasing and undoing. This is not easy stuff. In the past I’d hit burnout and then take some time to myself and bounce back. I’m older now, and it’s been ten years of having this business, and that’s not how it works anymore. I’ve been on the road for 37 days, and it feels like only a taste of the kind of emptying I need. My body is giving me very clear information that it’s done working, and needs real time for deep replenishing on an entirely new level. I am listening, and at the same time I’m not really sure how this can work in practice. A breath for receptivity to good news, perfect simple solutions, surprise miracles.
- Ugh the internet. Ugh my addiction to being connected to things that don’t even provide connection. A breath for a much-needed reconfiguring.
- I can see where the thing that is working right now is not going to be working in the future. A breath for grieving what is to come, and for trusting.
- Forgetting truth-love, forgetting to nourish myself first, forgetting to tend to body first, forgetting that this is my real job and only job. A breath for remembering, and for trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
- I am seriously allergic to dissonance. It’s getting worse. This week I got a splitting headache just from sitting next to someone who was not saying what they wanted. Later someone else told an un-truth and my leg started twitching. Just what I need, for my already-intense sensitivities to intensify. A breath for what is.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- I had THREE AND A HALF WHOLE DAYS without being in my mid-life crisis/easing, and without feeling worried about anything at all. And then even though there were bits and spurts of worry, there was also a surprising amount of ease. May there be more of this please. A breath for freedom.
- Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic: now on Day 37. This experience has given me so much clarity, so much spaciousness to look at my life with new eyes. A breath for receiving this.
- Seeing twelve antelope run in front of me. A breath for thank you.
- I got to do bouncy things in Reno, and my body loved it.
- Finally, a plan is coming together! A breath for lightness and openings.
- The beautiful boy: “For 3500 miles I’ve been thinking about you, touching you, feeling sweet on you.” I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling, so let’s just have a breath for these deep, intense, effervescent moments of bubbling and softening, filling up on this full-body experience of joy.
- Sparks, in various forms. Flickering recognition. Moments of yes, this is right. The antelopes were a moment. Also arriving in Silver City, Nevada and feeling a familiar pull to something good. That smile. A breath for signs.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. This was actually a really great week, I can’t point exactly to why but I feel better than I have in a long time. Oh, and in addition to the antelope, I saw jackrabbits and a herd of wild horses and was glared at balefully by some bored longhorn. Wise beautiful desert, steady mountains. This trip with this boy. Hearing what I need to hear. Releasing and more releasing. Heart full of love. Tiny miracles everywhere. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Finalized the 2015 calendar (the Year of More!), did some more Sip Hint magic, and the plan that wasn’t coming together is coming together, thanks to the fractal flowers. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
This post called Something to believe in.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I had the power of finding the right words to express myself in a way that the other person could hear and not feel hurt.
Superpowers I want.
Sticking with this one: The superpower of Joyful Full-Hearted Adventuring While Treasuring Myself. And trusting my instincts.
The Salve of Receptive to Good Surprises.
This salve contains, among other magical ingredients:
Trust. Presence. Wonder. Secret Smiles. Serendipity. Sparks. Illuminating. Receiving.
As I massage this salve into my skin, I feel the tingly warmth of anticipation.
This salve has secret ingredients that soothe my nervous system, and suddenly I’m seeing wonderful things that were always there but I didn’t know about them.
This salve makes me aware of the good surprises I haven’t been noticing, as well as the ones that are on their way to me right now.
This is a salve that sweetens my thank-you heart, it sharpens my senses, it warms me through and through.
When I wear this salve, I also become the deliverer of good surprises to others, and this fills me with extra delight.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes from Molly, and they’re called The Internal Design Singalong, they are playing at the 333 club this week in honor of our special chicken, and yes, it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am still recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, since they are keeping things good around here for me.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re feeling quiet. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. We’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way. Feel free to leave pebbles (or petals!), hearts, warmth, sweetness. Those always work.
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
All the hard this week, and most of it seems to be left over from the past. Guilt and shame from fifteen years ago (the awfulness of being awful because one is unhappy, the futility of trying to stop the clocks, and trying to stop other people’s clocks, which feels unpardonable) and why is it coming up now that I’ve apologised? (Because I’ve apologised, of course; because there was no way I could carry it when I was fifteen, and it’s only escaping now I’ve got something approaching the tools to deal with it.) Trying to find out how to be kind to myself without pretending it didn’t happen. Bittersweet hopeless wistfulness left over from last year. And some worry coming in from something that won’t happen until three months from now, too.
Other people’s hard. Tiredness and insecurity all over the place. People not being able to do their thing because of things getting in the way.
The dark.
The good:
Even though my people are struggling and unhappy, we are here. This not-aloneness is a great blessing. I have such excellent people in my life.
Bedroom lightbulb was replaced while I was away, and now we can see in there twice as well as before.
When the sun is out, everything is unbelievably beautiful.
Wow. Seriously, wow. I used to be one of the beloved lurkers, read Fluent Self for years, then go away for at least a year, come back and BAM! The first post is something that contains some AHA! moments for me.
So thank you, Havi, for still being out there and saying stuff that still applies so, so much to me and my own monsters and hard stuff. I totally do the same avoidance pretzeling when I am not very good at asking for what I need.
Sending you some love, and also baby ducks. Because, baby ducks. 🙂
I was delaying my Chicken because I wanted more news but I guess the waiting is part of the chicken.
The Glorious:
Finally, at the 18th doctor’s visit finding one who instead of giving me drugs, laid me on a table the crunched and cracked and smooshed. The fire down my arm vanished. “Did you just cure me?” “I hope so.” A breath for hands on medicine and for not giving up on myself.
Stretching my intercostal muscles for the first time in months. A breath for breathing.
Took a big grown up step and didn’t quit even when it started to get scary and the shame monster started to creep up.
The Hard:
Waiting to hear back on things and all the delays and misfires. A breath for sitting in the hallway when I want to be able to run through a door.
This was a week of not sleeping. I am planting permission to let go of not sleeping and am noticing fear of finding out why I haven’t slept.
Maybe that fear is just fear, and will pass?
Maybe. I’ll find out.
A breath for not functioning because no sleep.
A breath of sympathy for not sleeping; wishing you rest even when you don’t sleep.
Chicken!
Hard Stuff:
– Travel, and eating all the wrong things, and my body hurting, and exhaustion, and looking in the mirror and seeing someone so much older looking back at me.
– I thought that I was somehow exempt from things that other people experience when they go through [life change], and yet there are some things that smartness and superficial understanding cannot get you out of. Many things, in fact. So I’m here and I didn’t want to be here or to admit I am here, but I’m here.
– A sudden desperate need for space to myself, one that is only being met in a very limited way.
– Many stressful emails to write, and then even more to respond to.
– The very few meals that are cheap and healthy and easy to cook are exacerbating the general fit my body is throwing, so I’m at even more of a loss of what to eat than usual. No gluten, no sugar, no dairy, very little meat… Sure. But no spices? No curry? What does that even leave? Everything I cook starts with onions and cayenne pepper.
– Feeling judged for my certain aspects of my process.
Good Stuff:
– The night of 12 hours of sleep.
– We went to Ashland, and it was so perfect and inspiring and exactly what we needed, which was unexpected.
– There is now the *most* hippy healing apparatus in my house and also a bunch of jungle plants and this has totally changed everything for the better. So much that I can’t quite take it in yet. I did not expect this to be one of the more powerful experiences of my life, nor for it to just be hanging out in my loft, available for use whenever.
– Despite feeling awful physically in the most triggering ways for me (nausea, vomiting, gut pain, low back pain, dizziness), I’ve kept a calm center. That’s new. Astonishing, even. Maybe someday I could even be pregnant again without going crazy. This gives me hope.
– This week I’ve stuck very closely to the line between overworking and underworking. I was still in action and process even when I was in a bad mood or anxious, and yet I let myself rest when that was indicated. I want to get better at this, as it seems to be the key to everything.
– MASSAGE. Love those.
– I love getting to spend time with my little person.
– Being in a place where it’s warm and dry enough to be outside. And being outside all the time!
– Visiting a house that reminded me of dreams I’d forgotten for my house, then getting to go home and invite that experience to live with me.
Oh, wee eek! You’re ending and I’ve only just gotten started! I’m not ready for it to be Friday!
I was sleeping better than usual last week, until something disrupted my sleep pattern and since then, it’s been all over the place. A breath for needing sleep and not getting it; a breath for the effects of sleeplessness. A breath for things I didn’t get to do because I needed to get a little sleep. Another breath for the things that were harder than they should have been because of lack of sleep. A breath for how much sleeplessness impacts my life!
I started a new thing, setting an scheduled time for creative work and making it *ironclad* — more days than not, I’ve had other things that kept me from sticking to my own schedule and I’ve made time for creative work later in the day. It takes time to establish new patterns. Giving myself that time.
Work begets work, dammit. There is no “do it and then it’s done”. A breath for resentment.
Pain, and a sympathetic PA who told me that I can trust the messages from my body.
Next week we’re supposed to be going somewhere, and my excitement about that is dampened by the mountain of things that remain to be done from this week, that I don’t want to leave undone and come back to in a week.
Hard, frustrating, etc.:
1. Feeling built-up angst and anger toward several people who don’t share my values re acknowledging presents with thank you messages. I don’t need or want gushing, I want reassurance that what I sent/brought reached its intended! And I want not to feel like I’m being forced to choose between stewing in silence and coming across as tacky/awkward/demanding in following up on what was, after all, a gift that I don’t wish to attach strings to.
2. Waking up early to make a card — and then delivering it to the wrong house, and not realizing it until a day later. *mega-facepalm*
3. Having to pay for expedited shipping to meet a donation deadline. Seeing a third-party deal on shipping after my order already processed.
4. Traffic.
5. Dodgy documentation.
6. Re-entry into yoga. I didn’t have the core or arm strength for those poses even before the lung crud.
7. Wrong call on a higher-end lip gloss. Ick.
Excellent, uplifting, etc.
1. A colleague’s delight on realizing that we belong to the same congregation.
2. Getting to rehearsal on time.
3. Shopping for a 48DD bra was an education.
4. My work praised as “magnificent.”
5. I may have time to write for myself this weekend!
6. High five from a senior colleague. (My second in as many weeks!)
7. Listening to a lot of zouk during a less-demanding project.
8. Being able to draw on all the tools, resources, and experience I have.
Warm wishes to all y’all.
This week! Wow.
breaths for mysterious challenge squiggles.
+A breath for the Hose of Heteronormativity. I see you. I hear you. Good for you.
+A breath for the Sauna With No Off Switch. Okay.
+A breath for the Poorly Timed Face Lift. A breath for Agent Marinara who went There and not Here. A breath for Agent Pomodoro who stays There and won’t come Here, either. Permission to giggle at their Sauciness.
+A breath for feeling lonely. In. Out. Feeling.
+A breath for the perennial Chariot Conundrum. Noticing how much better it is when it’s a Conundrum instead of a [old name redacted]. Conundrum conundrum conundrum. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
+A breath for all the places I hold tension in my body. All the breaths. All the acceptance. All the release. All the relief.
+A breath for experiments in the Cauldron that “failed”. Permission to experience this as failure. Permission to just let that be what it is. Hello to the Failure is Not An Option monster. Hello to the Live With The Consequences monster. Hello to the Learning Experiences Build Character Hee Hee Hee Haw Haw Haw monster. Yep. Hi!
+A breath for the Surface. And a breath for the Greenery. A breath for the ways they are connected and another for the ways they are disconnected.
+A breath for The Whale. Oh, The Whale! You are frustrating and hard! Yes you are!
breaths for yummy cinnamon buns.
+A breath for the Phaerie Queene and their Phaerie Cottage and their Phaerie Garden and their Phaerie Magics.
+A breath for Trans Anthems By Trans Musicians!!!!!! http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/music/2014/12/11/37-alternative-trans-anthems-trans-musicians
+A breath for the Pastability of [going back to Boston] for Peppermint Weekend
+A breath for Project Syrup. PROJECT SYRUP!!!!!!!! And Project Ice Cream Sundae, too, of course. Of course!
+A breath for colors and stripes and softness and twirling.
+A breath for M’ship adventures. This is good? We are going good places? Yay.
+A breath for opening the Mayim Door. Hello hello hello hello hello!!!
+A breath for Noodle Nights. Noodle Nights are good.
Superpowers of this week
Superpower of Syrup! Superpower of Coloring In! Superpower of I Receive What I Need! Superpower of Spaaaaaaaaaace!
invoking Superpowers for the now
Superpower of Splashing In The Pool! Superpower of [Cake Songs]! Superpower of Adventure Mapping! Superpower of Plenty of Time! Superpower of Back Bone! Superpower of Boca! Superpower of Breakfast!
And let’s hear it for the Fake Band of the Week: The Moxibusters!
This salve is most welcome, and I am also helping myself to Doing Everything in a Grand Fashion. Like a Fairground Stripper! I can never really have too much of that, apparently.
Hard: busy busy.
Good: happy busy.
What worked: finding the spaces.
Next time: create more spaces.
I now invoke the superpower of Glorious Grounding. <3
I’ve been a lurker for a while now (thanks for Beloving us), and this seems like a good time to thank you. I’m currently going through a major transitional period as I extricate myself from two emotionally sticky, soul-smothering environments: a sub-minimum-wage nanny job in an unsanitary, troubled and troubling home, and a house with a chaotic, chronically co-dependent housemate. I cannot even name all the ways that your writing has helped me recognize the It’s-Good-Enough-For-The-Likes-Of-Us monsters and Desperate-Times-Call-For-Depressing-Measures and Stop-Being-So-Sensitive-It’s-Fine Monsters that got me into these situations, and to handle this transition in a way that rewrites patterns and rewires neural networks. Sparkles to you during your trip, your listening, your planning, and everything you’ve go going on.
Ai such week! Cluck.
What worked: evidently it was a week to do not much because there was so much to do that not much was still plenty. also better sleep.
hards:
-my husband’s chronic pain and all the dysfunction that flows therefrom
-my kids being whiny and ugh
-cold
-when it gets warm out and i cant get out in it, and then it gets cold again, see: Today
-why does my 8year old argue with every fucking thing??
-i have settled in at 145 pound and no that is not okay with me. grr
-perceived lack of movement in any direction
-not journaling. feeling uninspired when i go to jourbnal
-did i mention no progress and ugh
but so much gteat stuff happened also:
-giftmas shopping is almost done, i am not enraged or disgusted with the process
-we are all on board with heat&serve xmas
-i got a raise and a bonus this week! the raise was substantial, like kicking me well past an income milestone i never thought i’d hit. holy shit. it is long over due and incredily welcome, and shows an appreciation for me that i needed to see. all around cool.
-Pantheacon. it’s gonna happen! the hsuband is full support.
-the SuperAwesome porject is the only thing experiencing progress, but sinc e it is arguably thr most importany current op, i think this is just fine. I’m so close to done, like tomorrow if i can push.
-i have wonderfyl holiday things to look forward to
-despite my lament about a lack of progress there is progress that i am not seeing and discounting when i do. Frex: i can do 10 pushups. when i began AM pushups i could do 3. it was not that long ago. that’s progress.
-i made it to Tango class! omg i cant beleive it! after months/yeaers of thinking about it, i did it. it was humbling and hard, holy shit it;s like chinese algebra it’s so hard. But it was in my fave old neighborhood, i did it. there is something there i need to get at. will be back in january
-i also joined an Ecstatic Dance meetup because yea!
–