It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
All kinds of things.
Including making a list on my phone of Things That Are Currently Working (For Me).
Like leg warmers. They work so well. And work so hard.
They are extremely pink and they alert traffic to not run me over. They were just ridiculously cheap because I got them through a fellow dancer. They keep my legs way warmer than my stripey socks but don’t get worn out on my wooden floor because they stop at my ankles. And since Rally D is “D is for Dance”, I wore them all Rally! MILEAGE.
Other things that are working, other than the list itself:
Flannel sheets. Ginger tea. And the Internet. That was how I got red wine stains and salad dressing stains out of clothing this week. Yes, it was that kind of week.
Next time I might…
Check assumptions, and then check them again.
No matter how many times I keep learning this one, I have not learned it yet. Also, assumptions can be so hard to notice.
I want to: notice when I’m making an assumption, check in with the other person, and figure out our expectations together, with love.
A troublesome assumption I made this week was mentally defining the scope of a “late lunch” as “probably about 90 minutes”. And then not setting up a clear end time. It turned into a four hour thing, twice as much time as highly-sensitive-me is able to handle, and I couldn’t leave because we were way on the other side of town.
Seeding some pre-emptive buffer sentences to help with next time. Por exemplo: “How long do you anticipate this going?”, and “So you know, here’s the amount of time I can manage.”
New experiment: only going out in my quadrant of the city. That way I can easily run away if necessary.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
“There are no mistakes in this dance…
Only new moves that you just invented.”
I invented so many new moves this week.
Thanks, Cameron.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- The Ballroom is at that exact place where we’re busy enough to need outside help, not busy enough to afford it. On Thursday we had three different events (yay!). Right now this means we have to supervise and clean up, and not do the things that bring in money. A breath for navigating growth, in various forms.
- Do you ever wish you could make everything better for someone just by hugging them? A breath for sometimes-you-can’t. Remembering that the Making Things Better is not my job, loving them is my job.
- Scary encounter with a dog who very much wanted to bite me. A breath for adrenaline.
- Things changing through breaking down. A breath for how hard this is.
- Oh man. I got really, really angry at someone this week. Some macho mansplaining guy at my dance class got on my nerves so hard. I haven’t felt this way since going silent. A breath for how much I wanted to punch him.
- The lunch date that had no end. A breath for the perception of trapped.
- All the hard things. See also: Doing all the hard things. A breath for safety and for trust.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- I hilariously thought I could give myself a messy, sexy, layered rocker-me haircut, with a pair of nail scissors and a spare fifteen minutes. Amazingly, it turned out to be pretty much exactly what I wanted. And then Marisa cleaned it up for me and I have never been happier about how I look. A breath for play, pleasure and happy surprises. And for bravery.
- During the lunch date that had no end, I took myself on a walk around the block and visited a sweet little tea shop. This is a better strategy than faking an asthma attack or hiding in the bathroom, though I was very close to doing both. A breath for getting better at taking care of myself.
- I was successful in getting the jerk in my dance class that I was partnered with to shut up, using universally understood signs for this, without using a particular universal sign that involves the third finger. A breath for standing up for myself, and for creative communication.
- Dancing really and truly makes everything better for me.
- I wore outrageous outfits. A breath for play and pleasure.
- SO MUCH DANCING! I was talking to Nick about this, and he said: “Wow. That’s discipline.” Me: “Well, actually it’s pleasure. Hedonism, really.” Nick: “Focus is focus.” Me: “Then I guess pleasure is my discipline.” A breath for a truly beautiful sentence that has at least two wonderful meanings.
- It was Rally (Rally!) this week, and all kinds of incredible things happened at Rally, and are still happening. A breath for sweet surprises, and for having company while doing brave and scary things.
- I did so many brave and scary things this week! A breath for trust and for practicing.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Phase I of Operation G Presto is complete! Wham-boom.
I started posting at the Floop about Operation Resilience. Wham-boom.
Operation Coastpards is done. Wham-boom.
And many other missions were started. Feeling good about this.
There are lovely things happening at my Red Rose Ballroom, and I am wishing for many more to come.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The superpower of believing that the color crimson will make everything better.
The superpower of remembering not to fight with Incoming Me, and to let her lead. Also remembering that following is not passive, it’s active.
And I asked for the superpower of Setbacks Are Helping Me, and that night something happened that looked a lot like a massive setback, and I immediately asked: How is this helping me?
And it did help me!
Also, I am the PROPRIETRESS of a ballroom, and that is its own superpower.
Superpowers I want.
Total faith in the rightness of what is happening.
Breathing loving-kindness. Delight in asking.
Salve.
The salve of Support Is There For Me.
Sometimes I forget this, and that’s when I need this salve. It smooths and softens. My skin begins to remember: I am cared for, there is support even when I can’t see it.
I like to rub this into my body while reclining on the ground, feeling how I am held by the floor.
If you are not a salve person (today or in general), you can have this in tea form, pill form, as a bath, 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 by way of Nick:
Consorting With Hippies
I’d like to think that Pleasure Is My Discipline could be one of their albums.
It’s quiet, sweet, acoustic music. And yes, it is just one guy.
Attenzione!. Attention, AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at receiving in all forms, or as I’m calling it: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This involves, among other things, acquiring the skill of Gracefully Accepting Thanks.
And it is related to my mission of Coming Out Of All The Closets and sharing, particularly about my personal experiences with not-sharing-how-hard-things-are, when things were actually the hardest.
If you would like to take a part in this and support me on my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)
And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡
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 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.
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I wish I could buy the album by Consorting With Hippies and listen to the song Pleasure Is My Discipline on repeat.
“…pleasure is my discipline.”
WOW.
Okay, I want that to be my next week’s superpower!
This week’s superpower was also a good one, and was also my project for Rally-at-Home (with Facebook Floopers to play with me!): I Have No Shame. It starts with “Hey, I think I’ll go out for a milkshake after midnight in my pajamas. Why not? I have no shame!” and it just gets better from there.
A hard thing this week: I got my hair done yesterday, and am having trouble liking the color. What is working for me: remembering that I can change it in a month or so, and being determined to *rock* this color in the meantime.
A good thing this week: deliciously scented body cream that makes my hands super-soft.
Another good thing: progress on Operation Relocation.
Yet another good thing: singing, alone and with others, and getting to play with bits of the Bach Mass in B minor.
Oh, I am happy in this moment. Thank you all for being here. <3
All week, I look forward to Fridays and Sundays *because* “Havi will have new posts!”
Often, the synchronicity between What I’m Struggling With and what Havi is writing about … is kinda scary/fabulous (In A Good Way).
Havi’s way of identifying the qualities she wants & needs in her life, and then *inviting them in* continues to seem outrageous, and Pollyannish, … except that it works? So, maybe it’s *me* who needs to reconsider how to do things? I keep coming back, hoping someday your philosophy will resonate from the inside (so that I can do it for myself).
“Pleasure is my discipline” is GENIUS on about 13 different levels. That one resonated all the way down to my toenails.
I know from brave (I have PTSD), and Havi, your courage and resilience and curiosity and humor and whimsy not just inspire me, but move me. I admire you tremendously.
Cheers, Chickeneers!
This week’s hard:
– Biochemistry all outtawhack. A breath for feeling disconnected and still wishing I could eat the way I used to eat.
– So many tech issues. A breath for wanting to blame them on Mercury Retrograde even though it’s not.
– My sweet husband can hardly hear out of his left ear for a while now. A breath for misunderstandings and having to repeat myself. A lot.
– Changed my mailing address a little while ago, but not with some of the important people (like my client) and my paycheck didn’t come. A breath for daily life maintenance things that make me want to SCREAM.
– Oh, and my old gym telling me they’ve been billing me $10 a month for almost a year as a “hold fee” when I thought I actually cancelled it. A breath for more frustrating daily life maintenance things that I don’t want to have to think about! Grrrrr….
– Trying to please other people with plans for my birthday. A breath for still not having this sovereignty thing down as I turn 38.
The good of this week:
– Fantasizing about my dream birthday party with so many spring-colored balloons and journalling and glitter and intention setting and cucumber cream cheese finger sandwiches and sweet iced tea. A breath for the power of imagination.
– A generous birthday gift from someone in my family who I didn’t always have a good relationship with. A breath for forgiveness.
– A spic and span house! A breath for my husband who is so good at some things that I am not.
– Feel-good meditation. A breath for practices that nourish me and remindme what I really want to be doing.
I really like breathing with these lists. Thank you! <3
Pleasure is my discipline. Wow. That is beginning to fall into my thoughts and ripple outward. I’ll be processing it for a while. So many Monster reactions.
This week was more wrestling with the Thing and wondering why it’s so hard. I think the struggle is mostly with myself and my denial that it can be so hard, or that the difficulty is because of my shortcomings. So much to untangle. So many engrained patterns.
There was progress.
There was the realization that ignoring things isn’t working.
Glowing appreciation to all my allies, to Barrington and to Havi and to all the chickeneers!
Aaaah chicken. Hello space, hello Havi, beloved vision-keeper and space-holder, hello chickeneers, also space-holding and culture-keeping, hello self. *sigh* a breath for entry.
This week included some things that felt hard….
– the perception/sensation/distortion of my heartfriend’s proxy proximity being shut down. By her. By choice. For her own happiness etc etc also actual proximity has never changed so this is all just happening in my head and I’m unconditionally supportive of her taking care of her. Still, the imaginary proximity in my head that I loved is much reduced and I feel sad about this. And very far away, in time and space. My heart says time and space make no fucking difference whatsoever duuuh get with the program and out of the avoidthefeelingsheadspace where these things matter but maybe that can be a project for next week. A breath for love.
– car and money blah. Looks like no energy alchemy for me in January after all. (I am sadface mouse). A breath for… Ganesh?
– I grew up familiar with a very particular tone of voice and now when I hear it I can’t bear it. And get angry and fire-glowy about boundaries which is a painful and ungraceful way to honour boundaries/remedy the past/attempt to change reality/protect anything. A breath for not knowing how to deal any better. Another, if I’m honest, for not wanting to know right now. Hi monsters. I see you wish to remain on duty. Okay, for now. But we’re going to discuss this someday soon. Because it’s not the most aligned way to achieve your mission.
– drifting a bit, disconnection from knowing what I want. Or, white noise around the knowing. Anxiety about potential anxiety. (duhhh).
– my country’s political bullshit policies for dealing with ‘illegal’ refugees who arrive by boat. As opposed to the 99% of ‘illegal’ refugees who arrive by plane and never get a fucking mention because we have this bizarre obsession of epic bizarrity about naval invasions, clearly. This week, rich, white men with power said it was okay to remove a newborn baby from his refugee mother because they were ‘illegal’ and were in detention and what the fucking fuck. Also, how, in this day and age, do politicians get away with using the word ‘solution’ in the names of any policies that have to do with questions of ‘what shall we do to these human beings?’. My god – ‘the Pacific Solution’, the ‘Nauru Solution’….. honestly. I feel sick to my stomach. Have we really forgotten that other Solution?!?? So much so that we do not throw FITS over politicians using this word in such a way?? Yes. Apparently so. My country’s political reality has been totally colonised by the dominator culture – the imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. It feels like slime. Get me out of here.
Wow. Needed a few deep breaths and a lie down for all that stuff. Because my energy is limited and I can’t Save The World and have to trust that good with prevail eventually and I am part of a wave. (Come ON good!!)
*exhale*
My week also included things I really liked…. (a breath of thankyoulove for each of these!!)
+ thanks giving. Mmmmmmm. Happy heart of love.
+ the ground, the truth, clarity. ‘I got a peaceful, easy feeling. I know I won’t let me down’. A breath for stability and the capacity to orient. FINALLY. Fi-na-fucking-ly.
+ companions who ‘get it’ and threw me a tiny imaginary schpiritual bat mitzvah of the heart! <3
+ Truth Bitch. She is amazepants.
+ Fairy Godmothering myself via my willing victim. Bwahahahaaaah. She thinks I did it for her. Well, I did. But as it turned out……
+ I've got the money to deal with car and money blah. I can take care of myself. This is energy alchemy I have already mastered. This is brilliant. I'm rather proud of me.
+ creative therapy via a diaper cake, of all things. Having proven myself to be capable of being the person who does things like this I have proceeded to make Christmas wreaths that delight me. I will probably start scrapbooking next and turn out to really love it. My internal art critic is DYING of embarrassment. Yet? I don't actually give a fuck, I just like making pretty, silly, fun things. So, yay for that. Operation Off You Go Then FTW!!
+ Agent C: courage, compassion, connection, community, confidence, clarity, calm, curiosity, creativity. Ah, years of destuckification, these feel like essential and accessible part of me now. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.
Happy weekend y'all.
Big love.xoxoxo
TFS is always one of the first tabs I open in my browser every day, even when it isn’t Friday or Tuesday. Whether searching through the archives, reading a blog post or the comments that follow it, I always come away feeling inspired and astonished at the synchronicity between my life and what happens on this blog. So, thank you Havi, for doing what you do. Your work has had a tremendous influence on me over the past five years, and I am very, very grateful for you and for the community that has grown up around your business.
*flowers and sparkles for everyone*
The Hard:
+ Miscommunication! in every form imaginable.
+ Doctor’s appointment
+ Wishing very hard to be anyone but me this week. Feeling totally unprepared.
+ Stumbling over obstacles on the map
+ The wild What-If’s gnashing their teeth and roaring their terrible roars
+ More unwanted drama at 6 am.
+ Barns burning a little too close for comfort
+ It’s my least favourite 6 weeks of the year.
+ Lots of stuff around gift-giving, and wanting to give everyone “just the right thing” to demonstrate my love for them, and not having the means to do so. Deconstructing my relationship to gifts and what I assume they mean.
The Good:
+ A lovely dinner out for the first time in months.
+ Operation Otter is going splendidly.
+ Writing, writing, writing (Three blog posts in one day!)
+ Blog traffic continues to grow. Taking steps to bring things to the next level.
+ Doctor’s appointment went as well as it possibly could have.
+ Three days of sunshine!
Happy weekend everyone!
Hello, Saturday. Hello, y’all.
What worked?
More salt.
More nuts.
Throwing things out.
Preparing thoroughly for a meeting.
Next time?
Maybe less research?
Maybe more questions?
Maybe ditch the scraps right away?
Hard/challenging/unsettling:
* Telemarketer arguing back when I told her to take me off her list.
* Exhaustion.
* The FOMO monsters get really noisy at this time of year. As do their twin cousins, Miss Am-I-Acknowledging/Reciprocating-Properly and Mr. Why-Didn’t-They-Acknowledge/Reciprocate.
* Why does [N] keep crashing?
* Need more bobby pins or something for the sovereignty tiara.
Good/reassuring/glowy:
* having the chops and resources to edit French and Creole quotations and citations. Breaths for range and accuracy.
* didn’t get the haircut I had in mind, but I enjoyed the process of getting it. Enough to ponder reassessing my long-held aversion to curling irons. A breath for reinvention.
* Glorrrrrrrrrrious naps! A breath for safe spaces.
* A beautiful thank you card in today’s mail. A breath for friendship.
* The hollyhocks. I can’t help grinning at them whenever I see them — and I have them not only in my yard but in my kitchen, the library, and the study, that’s quite a bit of grinning. A breath for big-leaved magic.
Warm wishes to all y’all!
Friday! Actually, not Friday, but Sunday. Amnesty.
The hard
Cold. So cold. And I didn’t want to move house and I couldn’t work out why. Then I woke up and I remembered being fourteen, and not wanting to move, and being powerless.
What worked
This move is not that move, and these jobs are not those schools, and this marriage is not that marriage.
Being very gentle with myself.
I am allowed to spend a week’s leave reading Terry Pratchett and napping. Why not?
The good was working through the hard. I wrote a letter to Fourteen and now we are working on things together.
Everything that was going wrong this time last year is going right this year, and I didn’t even have to do anything about it.
Good people are in good places doing good things. Grateful for them.
I can ride a bike now, apparently.
And some crimson velvet boots, oh my, yes.
And Doctor Who, which was pretty much everything I have going on in my head at the moment and is so good.
Writing. This thing is actually going to be good.
Several times, until just now, I misread Consorting with Hippies as Consorting with Hippos, and since metaphorical hippos are salient in my life right now, I was starting to wonder if Havi is somehow reading my mind… 🙂
Hello and Cluck. invoking Amnesty!!
What worked this week: curiosity and experiments (third qurters is the best time for them). Rose tea & melatonin at bedtime. Adding more to the bedtime ritual and the morning ritual. deeper frugality = greater trust. brahmari.
this month’s mantra: Practice is my ally. every day this is proven correct
Pleasure is my discipline might be the most genius thing said ever. reminds me the qadesha work is still there for me, it has not gone away.
seriously,pleasure is my discipline sounds like an incredble weekend workshop.
this weeks sucks, which were many, and often involved in that whole ‘stepping up and engaging more” thing i’m trying to do:
-a couple of sharp whaps on the nose at work
-Boring existential crisis. silent retreat for now, but wow, this is crazy
-3 days of migraines. i managed to self-talk myself in to not hacving one this morning, but the past three days have SuCKeD
-all the iguanas around the kids. some of these are crucial iguanas, but that doesnt make them less scaly
-seriousl, is this blog the oNLY place on earth where i can describe a negative situation or my pain without my lsitener telling me to write down these action items…
-the worst thursday: rotten day at work, woke up thurs morning to snow and massive migraine, stayed home, discovered best friend from high school died over the weekend. Massive outpouring. so many feels. holy shit.
-there are delicious aspects to the Occultist, but there are frightening ones too. also painful thoughts on hy this happening, and how this is my old pattern yet the fuck again. hmm
-it is so freaking cold
the sparkle:
-remebering shawn put me in touch with folks from then, did soem reminiscing. it was not all bad.
-i took the day to rst (well as much as i ever do) and i got rest all weekend.
-third quarters are for experiments and other wacky maeneuvres i dint do many, but i ahd that in mind the whole time
-the best workoout ever, where i really follwoed the programas and pushed myself consciously
-such a sane and doable plan for Thursday i have concocted way me
-lots of fractal flowers doing that hooking up things again. hooray
-after months of longing sfor soemthign Mo’betta, and letting go of the friendly dogs, someting mo’btta, the perfect thing has come into my life. the answer to my Mo’Betta longings is here and it is everything i wanted and more. so grateful for this.
-in general i have so much to be thankful for. feeling thst
cluck.
[A blanket scootches up to The Blanket Fort. This message is slipped under a wall. The blanket moves away, as if someone were crawling under it, chortling.]
The Good –The old Russian River has been located. The people where she is are caring and will see that she is moved to a place that can help her even more. She has regained weight and sounds better. There is a secret concern.
My third VPA was in invisible ink, also.
Sent an Iguana to The Agency That Sells Iguanas to Deserving People, Cheaply.
Imagination is a tool to fashion reality. (Fashion = costumes!) I can combine my closet of work clothes with my closet of costumes in the future because I will be able to wear My Style most of the time.
Being made aware that the X in Rally X (chosen for logical timing reasons) also means the unknown in mathematics. One solves an equation for X by finding (researching, investigating, experimenting, playing with) the values (qualities?) for the other variables according to the principles of mathematics as developed by brilliant minds (Havi, you, my cast, self-help book authors) and document (map) the research process and the results. And I am X-ing off the days on the calendar until the Premiere.
What was hard or mysterious?
90 minutes in traffic totally took the starch from my Strut. What worked? Eating ice cream with chocolate sauce and taking a nap before dinner.
Russian River anxiety.
ProfOrg anxiety.
What worked?
Treating the Difficult Relative like a monster. She wants me to take her suggestions on running my life because she loves me and wants me to have a good life. So I listen and watch her river flow and thank her for her good suggestions.
In the family prayer before the feast, my being thankful for the Things That Don’t Totally Suck got a laugh.
Famous Fictional Detective Investigation Agency found Hecklers, fuzzbugs with megaphone mouths.
Using “Even though” statements to authenticate my feelings.
What might I want to try in the future?
Turn up the thermostat and stay warm. Not a proxy.
Release the Big Ol’ Printer.
Start preparing now for the Moon of the Big Generosity Deadline.
Have fun with The Dude.
Look for a local Shiva Nata bus.