What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Wish #259: covert *and* witchy
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
This wish has to do with a very old pattern that comes in different variations and generally involves the following elements: 1) I don’t know where to start, 2) I make a list of All The Things, 3) I get completely overwhelmed thinking about All The Things, 4) I panic and go back to bed.
I want a way to see the next thing without losing track of all the things, but also without having to look at all the things.
You might remember that last week, I came up with Mission Cards which were helpful.
And six weeks ago I talked about CWUs aka complete willingness units or tiny first steps, which I am currently pretending stands for Covert Witchy Undergarments.
Covert and witchy at the same time. How great is that.
This is a wish about that, and it is also a bigger wish.
It has to do with ONE THING AT A TIME, and with letting this solve everything.
What do I know about this wish so far?
It has to do with trust.
I really, truly have to trust that doing one thing leads to the next thing, and that each one thing is a fractal flower, supporting the entirety of the garden.
What is an example of ONE THING AT A TIME?
That is, as opposed to ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE…
Okay, so, for example, one of my ops in progress is a Sail of Emptying for the Playground, emptying out the things that we don’t use or no longer need.
I have been thinking, for months, of setting aside a day for this.
And I don’t do it, because:
- I already have a million trillion Monster-number of things that need my attention.
- Too many parts and pieces to think about!
- It requires putting pricing stickers on all the things, and this stresses me out.
- Blah, reasons.
- Being around people? For a day? I don’t know….
So then it doesn’t happen.
What if it doesn’t have to happen all at once though?
What if once a week, here or at the Frolicsome Bar (our Facebook page), I announced ONE THING that is for sale?
It might take months (monsters say: forever!), but you know what? It is already taking that long. So maybe tiny step followed by tiny step is — for me, right now, as an experiment — more effective than working on the op as a Thing That May Possibly Happen Eventually.
What else do I know?
This wish is part of a long line of recent wishes.
I have made wishes about emptying, about letting go, about closing the doors, about release, about clarity and getting clear, being willing to see what is. Eliminating as part of illuminating.
So this is the next indicated step.
Anything else?
I like the sound of covert and witchy. I like the combination.
Covert like spies, Bond girl, special ops, secret agent code. Witchy like magic, play, light-heartedness, the east wind, the wonders of anagrams.
And underthings is for glamour and awe and wildly confident and trusting in pleasure, and the secret holiness of all of these things.
I like the idea that this process of choosing little steps instead of trying to do the big thing could be covert and witchy and glamorous…
I like imagining that everything I do is coated with a layer of witchy-covert-glamorous, spills over into witchy, covert and glamorous. Yes. YES. I like this a lot.
Where do I want to start?
With the qualities. Rest. Permission. Legitimacy. Amnesty.
The compass of treasure from last time is still working for me:
Peacefulness. Safety. Ease. Shelter. Freedom. Release. Glow. Wild.
How does this relate to Releasing?
That’s the superpower in the Fluent Self calendar, June is the month of Releasing.
All Past Pain Is Transformed Into Jewels.
Letting go. So, letting go of the need to do everything at once, letting go of the fantasy that one day I will do all the things, letting go of the painful stories about how I don’t do enough. Letting go of the deep hurt I am carrying.
Talking to Incoming Me about this…
Me: My head hurts. I feel overwhelmed. Too many mysterious projects, still.
Slightly wiser me: My love, of course you feel overwhelmed. Look at all the crazy shit going on. You are okay. This is a natural and normal response to stressful external situations. You need time to take care of yourself. In the meantime, let’s take a few steps backwards and recalibrate our seeing. Nothing Is Wrong. None of this is real. Take care of your body, and the rest will work out.
Me: ????
Slightly wiser me: Pause. Breathe. Two minutes on the floor, three minutes, eyes closed, breathing. I told you last time: Nothing else is as important or meaningful as these moments of quiet. Treasure yourself. Treasure the home that is your body. Let that be the starting point.
Anything else? Starting points?
Keep connecting to Incoming me. Skip stones as often as possible. Writing and Righting. The sweetest ship. Dance. Intensity. Unapologetically red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
What else do I want?
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I have the best time dancing in my ballroom.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii. Possibly Hawaii is not in Hawaii. Ohmygod I think I might know where it is!
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
- Ops: Open Sesame, Friday Nights, Siltonian, This Is The Ship, Sip Hint Learn.
Clues?
Chandler discovered that an anagram for her name is REALLY ANCHORED!
Incredible. I spend my time with anagrams and never looked inside of my name. Highly entertaining:
Bolshevik Labor! Lovable Brisk Ho! Lo Verbal Kibosh! Silk Verbal Hobo! Brave Books Hill. Kibosh Lover Lab.
What I am taking from this is: PLAY. BOOKS. LOVER LAB. SILK. VERBAL. A really great hobo bag. And not sure what to do with bolshevik labor other than to laugh and let it be secret code for something.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka closing doors in order to open other ones…
This was a great one, and I actually finished all six ops:
- Operation K Has A Crown.
- Operation Flippity-Wah!
- Mission of the One Wish.
- Operation Solve for N.
- Operation Jazz Hands!
- Mission: Emptying To Let In The Light.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I wish to whisper a whisper about the Monster Manual! It comes paired with the world’s best coloring book, which does so much monster-dissolving magic that even if you wait to try the techniques, you’ll still feel better about everything.
Self-fluency is hard enough, we need ways to to interact with the thoughts-fear-worry-criticism that shuts down creative exploring. And when people get the manual, I am able to me spend more time writing here. So if you don’t need help with monsters, get one for a friend. Or plant a wish that someone gets it for you! And bring people you like to hang out here. The more of us working on our stuff, the better for all of us. ♡
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw things in the pot! And: Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #308: Finicky Card, Eh?
It is Friday Saturday and we are here.
Or maybe it is Sunday if you are in Europe, or Australia/New Zealand where it has been Sunday for a while, and yes, we are here.
{a breath for for being here right now}
All the stuff I’ve been through lately landed all at once, and I’ve been in bed for the last couple days, so there’s that. Let’s Chicken. It’s a Finicky Card, eh? More about that in a second…
What worked this week?
The east wind.
The magical east wind that blows everything apart so that it can reconfigure into something new.
This was a helpful concept for me in all things this week, especially when it came to knocking things down. Also useful in perceived moments of falling apart.
It was also fun to work with in the form of anagrams. I have always loved anagrams, but this is the first time I realized they are essentially the east wind in action. Destruction can be playful. Reconfiguration can be joyful.
This was a big help after Rally (Rally!), when I always feel the need to do a ton of Congruencing, or, in anagram form: the Unconcern Gig.
And it was great for things I was avoiding:
- Changing Sheets became Change The Signs
- Fold Laundry became Lady Lord Fun. Or: Fa Drolly Dun. Ooh, a really good one: Odd Rally Fun!
- Hand Wash Clothes became Slow Chanted Hash or Lash The Cowhands or Hatches And Howls or Who Handles Chats!
- Friday Chicken became Archfiend Icky, Yack Inched Fir, Dear Finch Icky, Ready Fin Chick, Fad Cynic Hiker, Chef Nick Diary, Chick Fairy Den, If A Nerdy Chick, Cafe Cry Hid Ink, Chef Dinky Car I. So many choices. All perfectly good fake bands. My personal favorite of the moment: Finicky Card, Eh? That basically sums up how I feel about everything.
Next time I might…
Remind myself about process.
This week was devoted to a giant writing project, and my monsters had lots of “feedback”, not (oddly enough) about the perceived quality of the writing, about other things.
So I’d spend the first half of each day in the resistance, in the not-wanting, and then around 3pm, magic: I’d have three gorgeous hours of uninterrupted writing where I had all the right words.
Next time I’d like to spend the Resistance Hours celebrating the resistance. Look at me, clearing space for later. Look at me, having as many naps as I’d like. Look at me, trusting the process. Look at me, finding out about all the rules I have about writing.
I’m going to Join The Resistance! It’s kind of a proxy, and kind of an inside joke, and it’s working for me. In the meantime, trust trust trust trust and more trust.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Wiped out. I knew this was coming, with the trip to Detroit and the discovery about the Spy, and various other things, and now it’s here. A breath for deep healing.
- I’ve never had a relationship end badly before. That sounds kind of crazy, and I wouldn’t have agreed with that statement a month ago: I’ve had plenty of endings that came with awful amounts of sadness. Just never, I don’t know, I’ve never wanted to erase all traces of something before. This is new. A breath for letting this all go.
- Waiting. A breath for comfort.
- Wanting things that are not here. A breath and a candle.
- Some useful and uncomfortable insights, like holes in the wall of a cabin, letting light in. It’s time for the cabin to come down, and I need to get used to this. A breath for release.
- This was not a great dance week for me, though there were some sweet moments. A breath for the thing I am passionate about.
- Too many projects. A breath for passage.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- My wonderful housemate who listens without judging, makes me smoothies, reads my writing, wants all the good things for me. A breath for true friendship.
- The miracle of this body. I said this last week, and it is still true. I am not liking having a cold, and at the same time, I have legs that walk, ears that hear, fingers that type. A breath for deep appreciation.
- WALTZ BRUNCH! My favorite dance in Portland, and one I have missed for several months due to traveling. It is just as much fun as I remembered. Plus I got to practice leading! A breath for pleasure and delight.
- Audrey was in Portland for twenty four hours! Which, while not nearly enough Audrey, is so much better than the usual thing of no-Audrey! And: she came to Waltz Brunch so she could see me! And she brought Baden and this was good. A breath for friendship, play and delight.
- Wednesday night dance, still my favorite night of the week. I got to dance with someone I hardly ever get to see, play with friends, be silly, try things, experiment, do some new moves. A breath for happiness and knowing what I want more of.
- Twitter. I have not really been hanging out at the Twitter bar this year, and suddenly it was fun again. A breath for unexpected happy surprises.
- My scary writing project turned out beautifully. I finished all the parts I needed to finish, and they are all amazing! A breath for the secret gifts of Rally (Rally!), and the wonderful thing that is the creative process.
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Rally Q was full of Queenliness and Quiet, and worked a deep magic. Joining the Resistance was fun. Flurrying is good. A giant fun package of monster-covered notebooks and mysterious popsicle erasers arrived from Australia: THANK YOU. Walking in the park makes everything better. So does taking it to the bath. Luke was right: it’s really all about panache. I am okay, and I am going to be okay, and I trust that every aspect of these hard learning is useful. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I am a Wham Boom rockstar this week, which is hilarious because my monster crew is like, “you are the worst and you got nothing done and everything is late and everyone hates you”.
Except, let’s actually look at this. I got 184 pages of editing done in TWO DAYS, fastest YEARbook edits ever! And the feedback on the book is amazing. And then I wrote another ebook at Rally, to be edited soon. So, yeah. Operation Xs and Ys is done, Operation Sip Hint Learn the First is done, many other things are done. Wham Boom.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of having the right words at the right time.
Superpowers I want.
The powers of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Peaceful, Trusting in the Moment, Choosing Pleasure.
Salve. The Salve of a Hug In A Box.
Here is a Reusable Hug Box.
It is a tiny box with a heart on it and inside is a beautiful piece of paper that says HUG.
It is a message wrapped like a gift. It is a moment of remembering that you are loved, still loved, more loved, as if all the love from all the different sources, no matter how forgotten, can suddenly land. In pure form, without expectations, rules or desires, just love.
This salve is like opening a hug box. It soothes and eases, softens and releases.
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 band is from the anagram generator and it’s called Yack Inched Fir, which is secretly the Friday Chicken, they’re first album is called Turn Down Fir What, I know, it’s hilarous, and they look like a Seattle grunge band but they’re actually from Tennessee, and as it turns out, it is just one guy.
ANNOUNCEMENT.
So I love Dear Kate underthings because they are magic, and they turn the least glamorous part of my month into a reasonably-glamorous and much less stressful experience. And now they are making workout pants, which is going to make all of my life better. Support their Go Commando kickstarter before it ends.
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. Including the skill of gracefully accepting thanks.
It is related to my mission of Coming Out Of All The Closets and sharing about my personal experiences with not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.
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. ♡
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.
Everything is new again.
Funny story. I started this post several weeks ago, and then put it aside but I wasn’t sure why. Then last week I wrote a wish about a new remembering, and then I remembered that I had been in the middle of a post about how everything is new again, and now I am ready for this.
Everything is new again.
Everything is new again.
The new Bell and the Nu bell.
So my middle name is Bell, and I am a new Bell, in the sense that being a bell is new to me, and in the sense that I am constantly working at being a better bell for the qualities I want to ring.
My father has a bell in his car. It’s called a nu bell, and people generally remark that it looks like an old bell, which it does. The purpose of the bell is to ring when you hit a small bump, to say nu, and remind you to pay attention.
Nu? This is Yiddish for many things but mainly: “So? What’s happening?”
And: “Are you paying attention?”
The Nu Bell (and the New bell) are about presence, awareness, curiosity: This moment is new. I should pay attention.
Solving for N.
N is the mystery letter.
Solve for N.
N is for newness. N is for nu-ness. Asking: am I here?
I want to be right here, right now. Paying attention, lovingly. Meeting this moment with curiosity and compassion.
I want to be here now.
Like I said in this week’s wish:
“Clarity, getting clear, being willing to see what is. Eliminating as part of illuminating. Also, trusting that seeing can’t hurt me.”
I want to be here now, and see.
Being N is new again.
A few weeks ago at Rally N, I was Agent N, but I went by the name of Nell. Nell Nielsen of the Nome Nielsens. It was a cover.
Obviously.
I love having a cover.
I was solving for N, but I said I was there to remember to learn how to rollerskate. And I did. Or, at least, I remembered how much I used to love rollerskating once upon a time. I solved for N.
N is a noble letter, and there are so many N words to play with, we are in the richest part of the alphabet, so instead of naming all the N words, I will share my compass of N.
It starts with North. N is for North. And north is for newness, because everything is new again.
North: Newness.
Everything ends, and everything is new again.
Everything ends, dies, dissolves, reconfigures. And sometimes it hurts, a lot.
Then you get to build whatever you want and need from the pieces, if you’re paying attention. Your choice.
Reconfiguring is a beautiful thing.
I am ready to let things be new.
Northeast: No.
I spent most of my life trying to avoid saying no and hearing no.
It has only recently started to land for me that NO is a gift. There is treasure in NO. Each red light is treasure. Treasuring myself: saying no to everything that does not support me.
There might not be anything I admire more than glowingly beautiful, healthy loving boundaries, established with a warm smile.
I used to think that all NOs had to be shouted, and I didn’t want to shout. There is a time and a place for shouting NO, and I believe in practicing. And I am also learning that there are many, many situations in which I can say NO with love, sweetness and permission.
This requires practice too.
This NO of northeast is the no of “my love, I need to take some time for myself now…”
It is the no of setting up more peacefulness in my life. It is the no that allows for deep quiet, another form of treasure.
East: Now.
Now is presence.
Now is grace.
Now is the moment of pausing.
Southeast: Naming.
Naming things is part of what makes them new.
Anagrams are like the east wind that blows in newness. Proof that everything reconfigures to something new.
That’s how Operation Kaleidoscope became Operation Cloak Episode! Do you see?
Naming brings ease, play and magic. When it isn’t working, rename it.
This is why I name my missions.
South: Nests.
Nests are safety, nests are shelter, nests are sanctuary.
I once wrote an entire post about nests, called Things I didn’t know that I knew about nests. And then I forgot about it.
Nested is what it feels like to be inside a canopy of peace.
Nests are homes, and everything is a home, there are tiny homes inside of other homes.
Nests are safe rooms, you can conjure them up just by thinking of them, that is the magic of interior design, it is interior: inside of you.
Southwest: Next.
Next!
This is the superpower of knowing that everything is new again.
Onward. This moment is its own thing. Now is not then. I want to be here now. Next!
West: Nimble.
This has to do with my favorite qualities and superpowers: Agility and Adaptability.
This is also why I can’t stop watching clips from American Ninja Warrior, because watching people be nimble is one of the most exciting things in the world for me.
Nimble means it doesn’t matter how much something changes, I can work with it. Oh, we’re over here now? Got it. I am NIMBLE.
This is what I want.
Northwest: Nothing.
For a long time I thought that Nothing was the scary emptiness, the darkest depression, the thing that would take over if I let it.
It turns out that Nothing is the void, and the void is the sweet place where I can rest and breathe when something ends, to wait and see what beautiful new thing is going to emerge, it is where I wait for direction. What is indicated? If I sit with the void, I will find out.
I used to avoid the void, but now the void and I have hot dates. I make time for the void. A warm mug and a blanket, me and the void. I smile at it and breathe-breathe-breathe.
Hello, beautiful space where once there was something. Hello, ashes: this is the moment when I get to watch the phoenix do its cool thing.
And the moments when there is nothing, that nothing means something. It is a sexy, dramatic pause.
The nothing can’t hurt me. The nothing is the pause before the newness.
Now for other N words.
Nearness: close and closer, also: connection.
Nouns and collective nouns. Noticing. Nurturing. Non-violence (NVC!), which is really compassion, which is also the study of Needs.
Noting. Nuance. Necessity. Numinosity. Neverending. Nonsensical. Nooks, they’re even better than crannies.
Nectarine. That one is for Nick.
Nestled. Neatly. Neck. Norway. Nova Scotia. Nailed it. Nonetheless.
I have to thank Lira (I think), who nudged me over to this noteworthy gathering of N words: Nainsook! Narthex! Nasicornous! That whole page is treasure.
Everything is new.
Everything is new again. Again and again and again.
Right now. Look, it just happened again!
May it be so! And come play with me.
Thank you, letter N.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with N, go for it.
If you want to share in any of the qualities and magical words I named here, you can.
They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
Whispering loving spells that begin with N, for myself, and for anyone who wants…
Wish #258: Closing doors in order to open other, better ones.
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
There are a lot of post-it notes in my life right now. Not literally, though also.
A lot of things that are reminders and placeholders, so many that I don’t feel like looking at any of them.
These are all doors. I want to either close them or pass through them, so that I can move forward to new and better adventures.
What do I know about this wish so far?
This has to do with clarity, getting clear, being willing to see what is. Eliminating as part of illuminating. Also, trusting that seeing can’t hurt me.
Trusting that seeing can’t hurt me.
Anything else?
This wish is related to ordering all the ops. Looking at my projects, and allowing all the parts and pieces to reconfigure into a new order.
And this wish has to do with letting things go, and saying thank you. Thank you for having been. Thank you for leaving. Thank you in advance, new things coming in. Thank you for this moment of goodbye.
What else do I know about this?
A year ago I was saying lots and lots of goodbyes.
Right now I am saying one goodbye, but it is a goodbye not just to a person/relationship, it is a goodbye to a whole way of being. It is a goodbye to agreeing not to see things that are uncomfortable.
Where do I want to start?
I was at the Playground this morning, getting things ready for Rally (Rally!) this week, and found these awesome colorful thin foam sheets in the arts & crafts section.
There is enough room on each for one big post-it and one small one.
I took six of these and turned them into Mission Cards.
Each mission has to do with closing a door, and opening up new possibilities.
Each card has a big post-it with the name of the Mission or Op. And a small post-it with a list of Cornish Witching Undergarments aka tiny first steps. And then on top of that is a second small one with one tiny step, the only thing I have to do for now.
I am going to use these six missions as my practice this week.
Here they are:
- Operation K Has A Crown.
- Operation Flippity-Wah!
- Mission of the One Wish.
- Operation Solve for N.
- Operation Jazz Hands!
- Mission: Emptying To Let In The Light.
Here’s how I’m playing.
Through setting clear intentions. And doing this with Playfulness.
Like how when little kids set up the world they’re playing in. “Let’s say the kingdom ends here! Let’s say people can fly! But only over the part where the ground is lava!”
Let’s say….
- Each mission is a door and a passage.
- Each door I close activates a new opening that brings good into my life.
- These missions are fractal flowers: working on each piece helps all the other pieces, and also has a positive impact on all the other projects and missions not represented here.
-
These missions can be fun. I can smile. Everything in my life supports this.
What else do I need? What will help?
Playmates, of course.
I can play with this on the Floop in the Deguiltified Chicken Board. I can text Agent Em Dee and ask her to partner with me. I can use the Frolicsome Bar (our FB page) to play. I’m really noticing how much I want company with this today.
How does this relate to Releasing?
That’s the superpower in the Fluent Self calendar, June is the month of Releasing.
All Past Pain Is Transformed Into Jewels.
Closing doors: definitely a form of release and letting go, as is writing about this as the rain pounds the roof.
Letting the light in through new openings is going to help reveal the jewels. Closing and opening is part of this process of things transforming.
And, I hope, working with these six missions will shed some light on the bigger mission: learning how to treasure myself, being more of a resonant bell, taking exquisite care of myself, being a source of peacefulness in the world.
What do I want to happen next?
Light the candles. Dance the songs. Share things. Undo old stories. Remember that no one caused me pain in this breakup: someone decided I would be a good way to cause pain for himself. I can make this about me when it’s not about me, and generate more pain. Or I can breathe peacefulness into the world. Option B is better.
Talking to Incoming Me about this…
Me: I am feeling pretty overwhelmed. So many mysterious projects, ops and missions, so many steps!
Slightly wiser me: You are a genius, my love. You are the Bun Vet Assassin (anagram for business savant)! You are so much fun. None of these things is against you. Each of these things is for you. You can’t screw this up, because Nothing Is Wrong and All Timing Is Right Timing. Remember, everything is an illusion, even the projects. They are just filters to show you what your stuff is. So you can do this with play, curiosity and delight. Or you can do this with dread. Jump in and out. Learn. It is all okay.
Me: How do I remember this?
Slightly wiser me: Take conducting breaks. Ten minutes on the floor, eyes closed, breathing. Feel the floor. Smile. This is the most important thing you could be doing write now: feeling the floor and letting breath move through you. Nothing else is as meaningful as that. Stop pretending it’s the other things that are more important. One day this will become natural, in the meantime we are practicing. I love you.
Let’s use last week’s compass of treasure:
Peacefulness. Safety. Ease. Shelter. Freedom. Release. Glow. Wild.
Anything else? Starting points?
Keep connecting to Incoming me. Skip stones as often as possible. Writing and Righting. The sweetest ship. Dance. Fiery red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
What else do I want?
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I have the best time dancing in my ballroom.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii. Possibly Hawaii is not in Hawaii. Ohmygod I think I might know where it is!
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
- This week’s ops: Solve For N, K has a crown, This Is The Ship, Queue it Up.
Clues?
“You always feel it but you don’t have to fear it.”
A line from Sherlock, about pain.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka A New Remembering…
I am feeling much better this week. The new passcode to the phone is in my head. I edited all 184 pages of the Book of Xs and Ys, it’s ready to go out! Operation Koi Fish was a success, as was the Cornish Witchery Upholsteries of San Miguel IV.
Also, I remembered something Briana said once, some book she had read, I can’t remember, someone had said that everyone you meet reveals himself to you in the very first encounter.
For example, you go on a date with someone and he says, “I really love my mother.” And then later you find out that no, he really, really loves his mother, and will side with her on everything always. Your new boss says, “Punctuality means a lot to me”, and later you realize it means more to her than anything else.
The first night I met the Spy, I went to put his number in my phone, and as I was keying in the passcode, he said, “I won’t look”. I thought, that’s an odd and unnecessary thing to say. There it was.
None of that matters now. What matters now is that I made the right wish last week: a new remembering. It is working in ways I hadn’t expected, and this is good. It’s all part of my bigger wish to take better care of myself, to delight in caring for myself.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I wish to whisper a whisper about the Monster Manual! It comes paired with the world’s best coloring book, which does so much monster-dissolving magic that even if you wait to try the techniques, you’ll still feel better about everything.
Self-fluency is hard enough, we need ways to to interact with the thoughts-fear-worry-criticism that shuts down creative exploring. And when people get the manual, I am able to me spend more time writing here. So if you don’t need help with monsters, get one for a friend. Or plant a wish that someone gets it for you! And bring people you like to hang out here. The more of us working on our stuff, the better for all of us. ♡
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw things in the pot! And: Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #307: “We are all a little bad at seeing clearly when we have the loves.”
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday, and for being here right now}
What worked this week?
Treating all obstacles like they are “Yay, fun detour!” signs.
What if an obstacle, or a perceived obstacle, since that’s what they usually are, is actually a handy note saying, “Go this other way, please!”
This is related to the superpower of “No Big Deal, That Was Not My Bus Anyway, Which Is Clear Since I’m Not On It.”
It is the superpower of not-groaning. Looking for the redirect.
This is 100% the advanced practice, it requires first having really assimilated the practice of Meeting All Pain With Legitimacy.
Next time I might…
Light more candles.
This is both metaphorical and not.
In real life, I save candles for special occasions when in fact lighting them brings me so much joy that this is stupid.
I am also thinking about this in the sense of: allowing for more light.
I wrote in the latest YEARbook that I am afraid of the healing that comes from seeing.
This week has shown me many patterns of my own that involve not wanting to see something that was clearly happening, choosing not to see it. There is a healing that comes from seeing. I am going to light more candles, as a way of reminding myself that more light will help me stop avoiding the corners.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Travel takes so much out of me, for so long. Still recovering. A breath for process.
- I could not have been more wrong about someone I loved and trusted completely. A breath for losing my sense of the ground, and for moving through shock.
- Rattled and reeling. A breath for comfort.
- Not-knowing. Various things up in the air. Waiting for intel. It’s probably good for me and I’m not liking it. A breath and a candle.
- Really seeing how much I have not been letting myself see. A breath for blinking and watching things reconfigure.
- The dance communities I like best and the dances I like best are not the same. A breath for being wildly passionate about something and waiting for the right people to play with.
- Heart aches. And I still cannot believe all the signs I ignored. “We are all a little bad at seeing clearly when we have the loves.” This is what Nomi said, and she is right. A breath for passage, and for forgiveness, and for crossing over and through.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- The beautiful softening I received from that sentence: “We are all a little bad at seeing clearly when we have the loves.” A breath for clarity, friends, comfort, resolution and the incredibly liberating moment when you realize you no longer need to take part in something. Next time I have the loves, it will be a different kind.
- The miracle of this body. I have toes that can wiggle, lungs that breathe for me, legs that take me where I need to go. A breath for deep appreciation, and being able to dance my way through all kinds of moments.
- Dance is healing, for me. Also crazy fun! And a worthy distraction, the good kind of distraction, where you are so deeply focused on something pleasurable that the process of releasing pain happens in the background and suddenly you have new perspective. A breath for how important that is, and joy at having discovered dance. Thank you, person who is out of my life, for being the stone in the river and helping me reunite with dance.
- Two beautiful intense days of studying waltz-tango fusion with Richard Powers, someone I intensely admire. I got to lead! I love leading! Going to Secret Society for the Libertine Belles show, dancing swing and lindy with Casey and Henry. My wonderful uncle Svevo and my cousin Noah coming by to play. A fantastic west coast swing class with Chris, where, in addition to learning cool stuff, for the first time ever, he didn’t have a hundred corrections for me. Progress! A breath for learning and true companionship, two of my favorite things.
- Danielle and I had a Fake Beach Day together (oh man, I miss real Beach Day so much) on a Monday, just like we used to, and we had our toenails painted and I chose this wild electric fluorescent orange, which was so unlike me, and so wonderful. I got to learn about twenty different ridiculous internal rules I have that I had no idea existed (“that’s a color for fun people, not for you”) and release them. It was a seemingly small thing that turned out to be a big thing because all week I have felt wild, sexy, adventurous and unpredictable, all of which were super fun and useful things to experience. A breath for how play changes things, and for expanding comfort zones so that things that previously didn’t feel safe suddenly are.
- The best Wednesday night dance ever. Turns out the me who is okay with fluorescent orange nails is also okay with asking everyone to dance and not sitting out at all. It also turns out that Wildly Confident me is a better dancer. Or maybe that’s just the tango-waltz fusion kicking in. Either way, I had a wonderful night of dancing. Usually at that dance I have one or two good dances, a handful of okay ones and a bunch where I didn’t dance as well as I’d like. Wednesday I had pretty much all good dances. This is new and exciting, and I am giving credit to the nail color. Well, you know what I mean. To the passage I went through by letting myself try on a new aspect of myself. A breath for unexpected delight.
- I am okay, and I am going to be okay, and I trust that every aspect of these hard learning is useful. A breath for glowing my way through this.
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. Strawberries in the garden. Someone I love to dance with is in town. The Blakely Chronicles continue. Friends are amazing. Every single person I shared with was even more appalled and horrified than I was about [incident], and had so much love and warmth for me. I know what I want next, and I am ready to celebrate. So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I finished Operation Xs and Ys! 184 pages, and I’m editing like crazy. Also done: Mission San Miguel Take IV. I made a decision about Cape Egrets. I made changes in my bedroom. I closed lots of doors. Surprisingly productive for a week of jetlag and heartbreak, take that! Wham Boom.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of finding the good and saying thank you.
Superpowers I want.
The power of not caring what other people think about me, and letting them be as wrong about me as they want or need to be. This is also the superpower of gloriously strong boundaries.
Salve. The Salve of Triumphant Closure.
Ohmigosh I can’t even. Triumphant Closure: the concept amazes me. This is not mine, someone on the Floop (my hidden online community) came up with it, and just knowing that this could exist is a salve, in addition to the salve itself.
The salve of Triumphant Closure is both soothing and invigorating. It is related to last week’s salve of Delighting in Letting Go, which allows endings be peaceful and even joyful. This is like a stronger, more immediate version of that. It is a HELL YES THIS IS DONE.
It is the feeling of knocking out a task that has been bugging you. It is the feeling of writing the final paragraph and thinking, oh yeah this is good. It is finishing. It is waving delightedly as your ship moves away from shore, knowing that this is the perfect way and time to leave on your next adventure.
When you rub this salve into your skin, you start to grin. Everything that needs to leave is exiting. Everything that needs to come in now has room. Let’s do this.
It is a salve that reminds you of your own power. It wakes things up that need awakening. A breeze carrying passion. A secret smile, and maybe you don’t know why yet, and it doesn’t even matter…
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 band is from Richard and it’s called Kerning Catastrophe, and they are a Scottish band that plays ragtime, but with bagpipes and actually it turns out that the whole band is somehow 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. Including the skill of gracefully accepting thanks.
It is related to my mission of Coming Out Of All The Closets and sharing about my personal experiences with not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.
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. ♡
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.