In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Oh man, Friday.
Friday Friday Friday, how are you already here.
What even happened in this blur of a week? Let’s find out.
The hard stuff
Recovering from the Terrible Piece Of News.
This was the theme of the week.
Ignoring it, being with it, hiding from it, investigating it, reacting to it, not reacting to it, being in relationship with it, crying about it, wondering about it, poking it, holding its hand.
Me. And this piece of news.
The relationship between me and this piece of news. The relationship between me and my relationship with this piece of news.
That was most of this week.
Right. That’s why I’ve been avoiding chickening. Who wants to think about all the not-thinking about the thing you’re either not-thinking-about or over-thinking or remembering to get quiet with.
Not me, apparently.
Vulnerabilty.
Vulnerability, trust, tenderness and softness were the words of the week.
These are NOT THINGS HAVI FEELS COMFORTABLE WITH.
But these were what showed up.
Too much to do. Too little time to do it in. Not enough help.
I could go into way more detail but that basically sums it up.
Frustration and pain about all of that.
Tough decisions.
I do not like the tough decisions!
For the record…
Holy crap it’s almost SEPTEMBER!!!
I was so excited about having a month to not-teach and find out what I am like when not-teaching, but honestly, it has flown by so quickly that it’s barely registered.
Not knowing to react in specific situations.
Feeling a little jangly and unsure.
Not knowing what I want.
This is frustrating.
Still waiting on that miracle…
Havis are not good at waiting.
Having trouble remembering the thing about how Now Is Not Then.
A lot of reminders of Then this week.
The good stuff
The weekend!
Every single minute of it.
I spent my weekend in a delirious state of play. PLAY!
Playmate! Words! Playing with the words! Loving all the words!
And I also danced up a storm and I couldn’t stop smiling. I smiled so hard that my face hurt. I radiated happiness.
Oh, and I met delightful people on the bus and took pictures of the most marvelous signs and laughed and laughed and laughed.
This weekend wins the medal for Best Weekend Of The Year. At least.
Smiling.
I recommend it!
Sometimes, lots of times, I do not feel like it. This week I couldn’t stop.
Dance dance dance dance dance.
It solves all the problems!
For me, yes? Of course the People Vary rule applies, as it always does, this is just information about how Havi works.
Conducting.
When dance can’t solve all the problems, getting on the ground and breathing will do it too.
I learned new things about trust this week.
For example, that PLEASURE is important for trust, and not just the other way around.
If this sounds cryptic, that’s because it is. This was a piece of information from Incoming Me, and I have not fully unpacked it yet.
Honesty.
It’s hard stuff. But it was useful this week.
That moment when you have to find out.
There is this point when you become friends with someone when you begin to learn about all their complicated stuff. If you are a perceptive person, you begin to learn from the first interaction. But at some point, you become aware of the bigger story arc.
This week was time to learn about the stuff that belongs to someone I care about, and I had been kind of dreading this but it turned out to be all fine. It’s things I can handle. Nothing that is hard for me. This is new and tremendously reassuring.
Speaking of reassuring…
Lots of things were reassuring this week.
Vulnerability.
Remember when I said that vulnerability, trust, tenderness and softness were the words of the week?
I learned a lot of new things about these qualities, about aspects of me that have been hidden for a very long time.
It was painful at times, but it was also impossibly sweet and love-filled. It tasted like redemption and recovery and rediscovering lost pieces.
So I am feeling grateful for that.
Beach day.
It wasn’t what I expected.
But what I got was very good.
Also: amazing shiva nata on the beach that did wild things to my brain.
Support.
Danielle and Marisa and Wally and Jenny and my playmate, all being incredibly helpful and sweet when I needed it most.
[Silent Retreat!]
Not ready to talk about this yet so I’ll take a silent retreat.
Finally had time to do some damn laundry.
It’s the small things. It really is.
Good things coming…
Looking forward to all of them.
BOUT NIGHT! TONIGHT!
Watching Rose City wipe the floor with Minnesota should go a long way to improving my mood.
GOD I LOVE DERBY. Have I said that a hundred times already every day for the past five years?
You know what? I think I liked this week a lot more than I’d realized.
Thank you, Chicken-ritual.
That is a lovely thing to discover.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band sounds like what they sound like. That is: their name and the thing they do are related.
This band makes me think of Nick.
Self-Contained Tetrachords.
Though, of course, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
My very favorite, of all the things-for-sale I have ever made, is the one I never link to here because I need to rewrite the copy.
It worked for me four or five years ago when I first wrote the page. But now it needs to be rewritten. Desperately!
But. This is the thing that I use constantly. This is what kept me from having seventeen hundred panic attacks all week. And a lot of very-very famous-on-the-internet people use it for the same reason but they probably aren’t going to tell you about that, for obvious reasons.
Anyway, the page may need a rewrite but the material is absolutely terrific. Life-saver. It’s the How To Calm The Hell Down Immediately package. It’s that good. Better, even.
And I’ll be doing some more in-depth teaching on this over the coming year — these skill-sets will be the place we’ll need to start from. Okay! That’s my heads-up for now.
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
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Hello, Friday! Hello, Chicken!
This week’s hard:
– Piles and piles of stuff to do. Still have not figured out how to clone myself.
– Stoopid self-checkout joke of thing at the hardware store and the watchman guy who stood there and did nothing other than glare at me when it wouldn’t work correctly really harshed my mellow and put me in a grumpass mood for a whole afternoon. (Note for Book of Me: “Never use the self-checkout at the hardware store ever again. Even if the line for the real person is a million zillion people long.”)
– I have done very well on my secret mission so far, but this week has been full of temptations, and I’ve not been able to resist as much as I would have liked to.
This week’s good:
– FANTASTIC arty workshop today. I am completely obsessed with this new thing and the teacher was amazing and the other students were fun. There’s another related class tomorrow that I signed up for just to hang out with these cool people and play again.
– Even though this was a crazy busy week, I was able to compartmentalize and keep the crazy confined to work hours and still enjoy some downtime: a fun girls’ day with my sister on Monday and a delightful visit with Darcy yesterday, plus some time puttering in the studio to gather stuff for this workshop.
– Light at the end of the tunnel.
– Sustained progress on my mission even though I haven’t toed the line 100% of the time. Small progress is still progress.
– The beauty of “not everything requires a response.” One of the best and most useful things I’ve learned here out of a lot of excellent and useful things.
Happy weekend, Chickeneers!
Hello, Friday night. How very odd to meet you here. I would have sworn it wasn’t quite time yet. But looking back, I suppose its been coming 😉
So, this week:
Progress is being made, on all sorts of things. However, there are all sorts of things, which mean I’m constantly feeling torn in where my attention should be. Should I be plotting new and crazy twists? Planning for the TRN clinic? Writing copy for the new uni office? Napping?
I did redo my almanac, and I’ve been touching base with that more often. Structure and spaciousness. Mmm.
I’ve been writing more, which is always happymaking – lots of world building for the new novel, posts on the blog, and even a few guest posts. Still feeling a little shy on time for Borneo and the fanfiction project… but – bit by bit, step by step.
And most wonderful of all, I have a foster home lined up for a litter of kittens, and an adult male!! This may make no sense to anyone outside of rescue… but just trust me – it makes all the crazy hours and juggling worth while!
Sparklepoints to everyone!!
Why can I not seem to remember anything about this week? Anything at all? Come on, there must be something!
Hard:
–Riding the ragged edge, finance-wise.
–Feeling myself to be stuck in a writer’s block. It makes me think of Han Solo trapped in the carbonite.
–Too much coughing. Is this some kind of seasonal allergy, or is something else going on?
Good:
–Getting enough sleep! This is huge!
–Feeling beautiful. All week long. It’s been slightly weird, and extremely cool: I’d hear someone somewhere saying something disparaging about overweight people, and I’d take a look in the mirror, and think, “What are they talking about? I look great.”
–Accomplishing things! Lots of things! And even when I don’t, I think I have more perspective about it than I have had in the past. Things are shifting. I can feel it!
Kathleen–I’ve been writing about block all week & that Han Solo image keeps making an appearance with me too! (The other image is . . . Spanx, lord help us.)
This is a partial chicken.
Metaphysical Denny’s: is there something between throwing a shoe and silent retreat? Called Grrrr? I’m frustrated & sort of in shock at the worst of it, but i know it isn’t about me. The easy non-triangulated bits I needed set up are set up, thankful for that. Tough to not be worth enough of someone’s time to do Nvc, then my other option looks something like ball buster top bitch, which I did not do, so mostly I was wobbly, uncomfortable, and massively unrecognized and misunderstood. Yet, minus respect, I got most of what I need.
Better boundaries & loads more space with (silent retreat) & delightful solutions are being found without my direct involvement. Yay!!! Rally made this possible for me, I’d been struggling for years with this stuff before. Room for compassion on my end and solutions on theirs happens when I don’t get in their sovereign space to overwork for them.
Oh… wow. Is it Friday, already? Ahem.
The Hard
-Waiting. I wanted to leave NM so badly and the waiting was very hard. By Monday afternoon, I was sitting in my loaded car, in the driveway, watching the garbage can and waiting for the garbage men to show up so I could put the can away and leave.
-Wyoming. No, really. Driving across Wyoming was challenging. And looooooong. And I spent much of the time having to use a restroom and waiting 30+ miles to find one.
-Road time. Time passes differently on the road. I feel like I lost a whole week… but I did travel 1,000 miles so that kind of explains it.
-Not-from-now consistent anxiety about whether my car was going to have problems or not. I think I can be confident that the problem it was having was fixed by the last part we replaced, but I’m just nervous all the time now… especially on highways with no shoulders in the middle of nowhere.
-Questions. I don’t want to answer questions about what’s next after Idaho.
-Money. It is being depleted. This project will pay… something… but I need it to pay at the higher end of what is possible. And then I need to figure out where monies are coming from after this. And mostly I need to remember that a lot of this is not from now, the backup plans are still the same as they ever were, and I have lots of things that are just starting to come into existence.
The Good
-IDAHO!!! There is a lake and grass and things that are green, and it is lovely.
-Unlost HQ – being at my friend’s lake cabin, affectionately known as Walden Pond. It feels good to be here. We laugh a lot and support each other in various ways. It’s only the end of the first day, but I think this is going to be really good.
-My “type” – I had a call with a friend who is doing a productivity coaching thing, which sounds like it wouldn’t be very good, but it helped me recognize lots of useful things about myself and she gave me some really fun non-trigger-y things I can do to have more fun with one of my projects… she also was totally able to live with me in the space where fun = productivity.
-The writing! It’s back! I keep finding myself writing… I have ideas… things are flowing. And proof that environment really does affect everything for me…
-CORIE! I got to meet Corie and she’s awesome. She gave me an amazing business idea, but more importantly it was just nice to talk to someone who gets it and who is just wonderful and lovely and smart and… yeah. It was good. And I get to see her again and RALLY! Oh, and we had drinking chocolate and then went to a museum that has a whole wing of TOYS. omg.
-Flamenco shoes! They came in! I can make loud noises with my feet. This is just way too much fun…
-Friends in Denver – so nice to stay with such a fun awesome laid back family. Also, turns out I’m really good at ladder golf. Who knew?
Considering I spent 20 hours of the week in the car, that feels like a lot…
So you know how every Friday, I’m like: “How is it already Friday?” This week I was completely astonished in an even deeper way. I honestly thought it was some combination of Thursday and Saturday. I would have believed Wednesday.
But it’s Friday! Hello, Friday.
Hard:
– So the other week I had surgery (proxy). And I am very much still recovering. Or possibly I’m preparing for surgery? Or something. The point is: huge fricken wound, lots of TLC needed. Except I forgot that for most of the week so nothing made sense because I was missing the most important piece of context.
– Monies, Stuff about.
– Continuing to question “where is the space for Rhiannon” in many contexts that involve -gasp- other people, and often not coming up with much of an answer.
– Saying a thing and having everyone in the world get in their stuff about the thing. Seriously, world. It’s your stuff!
– I want to be done with these patterns! I want to have my surgery and frickin recover already. But no. It’s like wearing clothes that don’t fit.
– By the way? None of my clothes fit. And then the purple shirt I got that was fabulous got a stain that won’t come out and I want to cry and scream.
– And then there is the workshop. That I’m at right now. For reasons. And bleh. Hard learnings.
– Having 3 hours to pack to leave town. And discovering during that time that we had completely forgotten (?) to remove two giant pieces of furniture from our old apartment when we moved and so there I was, 7 months pregnant, lifting dressers. That was not good.
– All the comments about my baby/belly/weight/size/pregnancy process that I didn’t manage to deflect. I was able to just hear the essence of the first 50 and let them go, but the last 10 really stuck. So now I’m mad.
Good!
– But I let go of the first 50! Which made life a much more positive experience than it usually is, since it seems people will comment no matter what I do.
– Epic amounts of courage. I am astonished at myself. The things I am willing to try in the name of realness and wholeness and not-loneliness. Thanks, Me of this last week. A for effort. I see you.
– Some small steps towards this whole surgery/recovery thing.
– I am ballsy. Who knew? Also: superpower of bringing my belonging with me. Also: sovereignty, bitches. There might be twenty three of you wearing white but I will show up in a bright red shirt. Because that’s allowed. By me.
– So ridiculously grateful for all the Rallies I’ve gone to and how much they’ve taught me about the aforementioned belonging and sovereignty, and how much easier it is to interact with people now than it used to be. Some small portion of their stuff just doesn’t stick to me. And that’s amazing.
– Wrote something I wanted to write! Always a yay!
– The Floop and its awesome powers of helping you remember who and what you are! Yay, Floop, for reminding me that I was having surgery! And not simply crazy. Perfect clew at the perfect time.
– Wiggling! The answer is almost always to wiggle.
<3 Double ice cream cones to all.
Hello Saturday!
The # of your Friday Chicken rang a bell with me… I recently read a great little book. Before I recommend it you should know I am in no way connected with the author, I just happen to like the attitude behind some if his writings. So for a little empowerment about #212 a fun little convergence would be to go see http://www.givemore.com/brand/212-the-extra-degree/.
I have just started with Shiva Nata and my 4 yr old daughter has started joining me when I practice. I love it.
Thank you and blessings your way.
Lee
The hard:
Emotional exhaustion is a thing.
Hard and painful conversations. People lashing out from their pain, me being in mine. Ouch all round.
A group of ulcers at the back of my mouth, which in a long convuluted tale, resulted in me having several nights of very broken sleep. No fun!
Was meant to be going to a thing this afternoon, but it’s coming down in stairrods rights now, so quite possibly not going. Also tired (see number one and three).
Having an epic moment of ‘Nothing in my life is working!’
Frustrating situation is frustrating.
The good
Finding my friend the most adorable engagement card (featuring kitties) and her loving it.
Spending time with my friend yesterday, talking over tea. And then the weather staying good long enough for us to walk around town and for me to sit outside a cafe and eat something.
Seeing another friend I haven’t seen in a year! Who I used to see several time a week.
Epic stock taking.
Something that was disappointing last week turns out to possibly possibly have a silver lining.
Some very good books.
Being able to be kind to myself when it felt like nothing was working.
Shamanism FTW!
Kitties!
Ahhh…good wishes to everyone for the week ahead.
Hello, weekend. I have been looking forward to you for so long, and yet I am not quite ready…
Hard or sad:
* fresh scars
* perplexing bumps and aches
* timing of new project
* timing of other projects I would have really loved working on
* stuff on back burner = “people are thinking you don’t care” monsters
* feeling nauseous after too much coffee and soda + not enough sleep
* need for sleep = skipping festival + sightseeing
* not feeling at ease enough in current hotel room to sleep with the light off
Good:
* it’s just one night
* the hotel room before this one was plenty nice
* having a pool all to myself
* the audiobook of The Hours was so incredibly the right thing for the first leg of this trip, and so was the weather
* perfect weather for horseback riding, too. And the guide provided the right balance of chatty + quiet.
* I don’t have cable at home. Which makes vegging out with Food Network as much a vacation thing as going out would have been.
* As is noshing on leftover enchilada tapatias at 4:30 a.m. while sitting on a clean-enough bed in a dress that fits me perfectly (that I happened to buy at the Goodwill next door to yesterday’s hotel)
* I had the time and energy to visit the things I’d most wanted to see, and they did not disappoint. History Geek Me and New Things to Write About Me both very happy now.
* Problem-solving and getting paid for it!
Wishing y’all the just-right amounts of sweetness and support for your things. Shalom u’vracha!
Hi chickeneers! Rhiannon, I want your superpower of bringing belonging with me! Mmmm.
Last weekend was super-amazing and wonder-ful and camping! It is the best.
This week was generally hormone-spacey book-lost avoiding-what?! So… That’s a hard.
But there was progresses, not to be forgotten (although apparently I’m trying pretty hard to do so).
Oh my goodness, what a sweet wee chicken! <3
Cluck cluck
Hards
– tired, anxious when drinking coffee, depressive when not. Sensitive in the everything-hurts-and-seems-out-to-get-me way. Lots of shame-swamp and fail-fog around even though the cause of it resolved a week ago. It awakened the old, habitual, emotional mess. Still putting it away.
– babies. As soon as you’ve got them figured out they grow and change and you have to start figuring out what the new way of working with them is. The learning curve and the unending sense of Not Quite Competent.
– combined I’ve been prey to lots of judgey thoughts about things like productivity and To Do lists and What A Shit Job I’m Doing At [insert any/every thing here]. I know they don’t speak the truth. I wish they weren’t there in the first place.
– Little Lad got another ear infection that ruptured and has goop running out his ear. Gross. But worse, the audiologist suggested that his eardrums may well have thickened after so many ruptures and of course I’ve caught onto that remark and catastrophised it to Doom Doom Doom.
– feeling helpless, daunted and entirely inadequate to be the parent that Little Lad needs.
– freaking out about starting school next year, where he’ll go from ratio of 1 teacher to 7 kids, to 1 to 21 kids. He’s so guileless and innocent, and afraid to be assertive (or inappropriately assertive), and he’s attracted to mischief-makers. I’m being assaulted by visions of all the terrible things they’ll do to him and make him do. The trailer for “Bully” didn’t help matters.
– speaking of which, every time I looked up and into the world this week I was left shaking my head and wondering where all the smart people were. Our alternative prime minister (who is probably going to win, dear god), got his arse kicked on national television and did you notice that he mentioned the carbon tax and refugees on boats and carbon tax and boats and boats and carbon tax. And boats. And also, Mitt Romney would like you to notice that he is white and was born in a hospital around here. And also women’s bodies know if they’ve been, like, ACTUALLY raped not just PRETEND raped, (sooo many pretenders out ther) and our bodies will refuse to be the sacred vessel of some BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT WHY DID I LOOK OUT OF MY SAFE PLACES FOR CHIRSTS SAKE THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT AND THEY’RE IN CHARGE OF THINGS WTF WTF WTF??????????!!!!??
– did I mention I was tired and cantankerous? And the usual symptoms of I-Have-No-Words and people wanting me to say stuff, or tell them what’s going on, or tell them what they can do to help and I just want to run away and hide because I DON’T KNOW. For fucks sake I am seven years old!!!! I don’t KNOW what to do, I want someone to take CARE of me. 🙁
Good stuff
+ Wonderbaby is a bloody marvel. She is nearly six months old now, huge and fat and adorable, rolling over, practicing sitting by herself, reaching deliberately for things she wants, trialling a few foods, smiling and hardly crying. She has also learned how to stay awake in the evenings but I’m hoping that’s just temporary…….
+ wakeful baby meant that I got into bed at my target early time and it’s probably just as well, given the rest of the crappy feelings going on, even less sleep would not have worked out well I imagine.
+ there is a back-up school that would probably suit Little Lad if the one he’s enrolled in for 2013 doesn’t work out. It’s expensive. But so’s trauma. Good to know it’s there.
+ I keep being told that Little Lad has made heaps of progress this year. He got undressed and put his pyjamas on all by himself tonight. After I lost my temper outrageously. Still. He CAN do it. It’s a start.
*weeps* he’s such a good boy……..
+ hard pattern of last week resolved without the usual denouement which is bad for me. Returning expectations, returning expectations, eventually they’ll pick them up and own their shit, if you just keep returning expectations. Your shit is YOURS. Take care of it.
+ movements towards reconnection. We do get along very well when not in the hard pattern.
Time to sleep.
xxoo
Chicken amnesty! (Shh, it’s actually Saturday…)
The Hard:
– People I love going through tough stuff that triggers my stuff, and being in that uncomfortable place of wanting to help and seeing ALL the ways things are not working, but keeping myself in check because it’s not my stuff and not everything requires a response.
– A sneak attack of homesickness. Well, more like a “childhood-nostalgia-it’s almost September-this reminds me of then” feeling, quickly followed by grief.
– Huge download of information that resulted from my 24-hr emergency vacation. Helpful, but oh-so overwhelming at the same time. Monsters telling me I must fix it all right now, or the world will end and I’ll end up alone and unloved.
– I was apparently incapable of saying “no” this week, and (surprise!) that resulted in me feeling obligated to do a million things for people that, actually, I didn’t really have time to do. Hmm.
– Puppy and the “terrible-twos” stage of doghood.
The Good:
– Emergency Vacation! HSP-introvert me had a blissful 26 hrs of not talking to anyone! And trees and tents and sitting on rocks watching the water. I feel so much better.
– Setting up my boundaries and defending them fiercely exactly when I needed to! And this big ick cloud of doom stuff that I’ve been dealing with for four months suddenly felt a little less doom-like as a result. Huzzah.
– Puppy snuggling, and playing in the wading pool.
– The download of stuff has proved immensely useful already, and I’ve rapidly gained clarity on so many things that felt cloudy and stuck.
– Massive forward progress on two of four projects! Whee!
– Finding two items of clothing that are just right and I am so excited to wear.
– A really successful second interview for the job that I want. Regardless of the outcome of “we’ll call you next week,” I’m proud of how I pulled that one off.
– A thing that I was really anxious about turned out to be a perfectly simple solution in itself.
Happy weekend all!
The hard:
A kind of intense work schedule, and then the pattern of not doing anything after work except vegging. But not in a good eating-my-vegetables sort of way.
That P word. The opposite of productivity. Um…procrastination. That is the word.
Lots of minor injuries, like hitting my elbow and dropping things on my toes. Knowing there is something at work here larger than clumsiness, but not sure what the deeper issue is. Related to that, staining my clothes a lot. Related to that, my gentleman friend not believing me when I tell him that being clutzy about body parts or my things is a message from my unconscious.
The good:
Went to my first class of the school year and feeling inspired to write and ready for the school year.
Writing! Working on my novel. Finally getting some difficult character development out of the way. Also having so many good book ideas that I started to worry I don’t have enough years in my lifetime to write all the books for all the ideas.
Remembering a book on creativity that was exactly what I needed to be reading right now. It is like a manifesto for writing and creativity.
Despite the usual procrastination and other not-so-great habits, still feeling hopeful and inspired about life and that my life is/will be a success and that I am getting better at this existence thing.
Being excited for Rally (Rally!) in just two weeks!
Remembering intentional entering (“enter as you wish to be in it…”). I write little reminders and words of wisdom to myself, and one day I drew the card “Entering with intention” and felt it was just the right card for the day and spent the day entering with intention. That night I decided to draw a new card, and drew the same one again, so I knew it was what I needed to be focusing on.
Also, just grateful for my wonderful gentleman friend and the time we get to spend together.
Invoking amnesty.
The Hard:
– Packing up and moving. So much stuff from the Escape Hatch Incident. I know, now is not then, and I know a lot of people do this without their Flowering Plants, but younger-me kept thinking “where are my plants? where are my plants?” It was difficult.
– Being turned down for a course I was looking forward to taking the entire year. The pain of wanting and not getting.
– Not feeling safe enough/worthy enough to want anything to start with. The year after graduation looks like a big blurry vortex, like I won’t even live past then. And lots of monsters yelling stuff, and me not being able to figure out what I want for myself, or what Future Me would like.
– Then, thinking “If I just stop wanting anything, then whatever happens will be good enough” which really isn’t the way I want to live my life.
– Noticing a pattern of fear and the “You Don’t Have the Skills and Will Fail Miserably and Everyone Will Laugh and Finally Know What a Phony You Are”-narrative when I think of doing something that, logically, I would want (but don’t really anymore, even though, really, I do).
– Noticing The Great Wall of Me being put up whenever I’m talking to people, keeping them out and keeping Hurt and Shame in. Not fun.
– Feeling The Great Wall come up even while I was with H.
– Having the shittiest workout ever. Which meant the depressiveness didn’t really go away.
– Still needing so much rest (and not being able to tell the difference between rest and checking-out).
– Having that day of constant food consumption.
The Good:
– The depressiveness has gotten a tiny bit better. I can sleep 8 hours and wake up in time for work. And coffee consumption has gone down to a cup a day. And I am functioning, some days better than others, but still.
– Food stuff has been regulated.
– Pack and moving! And having the bestest friends ever, who gave me furniture for free, hired the moving van and helped me move. My new room is quite nice too.
– Got the tiniest bit of extra cash, which made up for a tiny bit of the horribly off-budget spending I did this month.
– Made a genogram with H, which was quite fun.
– Gave myself the space and time to rest. Graciously declined invitations for it.
Thank you for this space, Chickeners. Love.
Sneaking in a Sunday Night Chicken.
The Hard and The Good were sort of mushed together this week.
Massive guilt and anxiety over something that involves someone else, a work thing. And trying to figure out what is mine to carry and what is not. This was Thursday night, and I think I actually performed therapy on myself and got it to a manageable level. and the Friday morning when I got the news, the other person had grabbed the crown of sovereignty and put on the sovereignty boots and all was so good. Both because I fixed my insides and he had fixed his insides. This was the hardest hard and the goodest good.
Wondering if I let go of something too quickly, and if something else will come along.
Writing! This is a good thing. At first writing because I said “I will write” and then after 5 days it was “I must write!” which I knew would happen.
So much leg and hip pain after my triathlon last weekend and then driving home. Every night working at it for a half hour, stretching everything. And this morning I woke up and everything was back to normal. Yay.
A good beach day today, eeking out one last sunburn, just a little one to remind me that its still summer.
Lots of projects finishing up at work, with the Monsters of Doom getting nervous, and remembering this has happened 937 times before and we’ve been ok. People need us, and want our help.
And to end on a good: a wonderful peaceful home and a good book to go to bed with.
Yay!! I have a Monday Chicken because
BIG WEDDING THING
Actually, it was a small wedding, but I was Bride, so I had to be okay to be center of attention and director of events and being photographed and everything.
ALSO WINE.
We have so many good leftovers.
And now I can go back to blog writing and twittering and website building and regular reiki practice and daily meditation, which I stopped so I wouldn’t have to make my family uncomfortable (What?)
LOVE.
This is good.
This is the rest of my chicken:
Hard:
Metaphysical Denny’s blah.
Good: It’s now called “Fantasy Island” which is just cracking me up every single time & giving me distance from the whole thing. Perfect metaphor
Hard:
Scary deadline, need support, don’t know where to get it or how to afford it.
Good:
Had idea about trading a week with Mrs N, this might work, plus it involves and airplane sun and amazing food
Hard:
Re: Fantasy Island, someone who has always protected me somehow couldn’t, it was so icky & just shocking and unsovreign ouch, the shock waves lasted days, I had a day long headache which NEVER HAPPENS to me
Good:
I am realizing that the lack of protection on Fantasy Island is this deep fundamental flaw–like deep, bad deal, insultingly, delusionally crap percentages, total lack of recognition, out of alignment, gotta go thing–underneath the whole situation that makes my protector powerless
Hard:
Out of sorts STILL from Fantasy Island. Mrs. R even noticed and asked if I was ok, days later. Had a total furious angry fest of nastiness on Sunday to process this, it was ICKY but necessary. Note to self: do not wear Spanx when in a very angry mood, it makes it so much worse 🙂 (why was I wearing spanx anyway? argh)
Good:
Went to my studio where everything is better. Fantasy Island as a metaphor means that very soon I get to get on da plane.
Hard:
Resources of all sorts low & I need the mobility they allow when not low
Good:
Now that the anger passed through me and I got the realization about the unbelievably off-kilter (like really if we think back to any given episode of Fantasy Island . . . ) base of things, I woke up today with a lovely, feisty, this situation is ending NOW, how do I do it? feeling. Which is really all I need, I can figure out resources if I’m not on the edge of PTSD
Big late chicken amnesty hugs xoxoxo
Hi Havi,
Sounds like a challenging time. I read your last few blog posts in my RSS reader and was inspired to send you LOVE.
A big wave of love and supportive hugs are coming your way. You’re not alone.
Lighting a candle of good wishes for you, from a garden in England full of raspberries, runner beans and warm summer evening breezes.
oxoxo