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.
Friday Chicken #305: I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time
It is SATURDAY and we are here.
Sometimes a Friday lasts a little bit longer, and sometimes a Chicken happens when it happens….
So here we are.
{a breath for Friday, and for being here right now}
What worked this week?
Setting things up in advance.
Or really, following instincts.
It was Rally O this week, and early Tuesday morning I was at the Playground taking care of something when I heard a clear instruction to get everything ready for Rally. “Why now?”, I asked. “Rally doesn’t start for eight more hours.”
But there it was, a clear instruction. So I followed it.
Then in the afternoon, I urgently needed a nap. I set a bell but I didn’t hear it because of the fan, waking up just in time to get to Rally. But I didn’t need to do anything once I got there, because Tuesday-morning me had already made a thermos of tea, filled the water jug, set out the candles, picked stone skipping stones, turned on the fairy lights and made everything pretty.
Or: Right now I am entering Operation Detwah, which takes place in Detroit of course, which means I had to get to Detroit. But there wasn’t time to get ready for it because of Rally. Tuesday-me did all the Provisioning (it’s secret code for “packing”), and then I didn’t have to worry about it.
Next time I might…
Say thank you.
This week it was easy to see the hard, and hard to see the ease.
But really, there are lots of things that are happening with grace and ease, miracles everywhere, small moments of beauty, endless reasons to say thank you, to delight in life and aliveness even when things are so hard.
Everything gets better when I say thank you. And it’s hard to remember to say thank you if I don’t pause long enough to get quiet and remember. To get quiet and hear truth. Hear truth and say thank you.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- So much W (worry) about so many different situations. So many people in the hospital, so many mysterious health emergencies, so many people I love in so many different kinds of (physical and emotional) pain. A breath for being filled with love, glowing ease, wishing everyone well.
- The Unbearable Missing, now at the three and a half week mark, still hurts. Differently, and it still hurts. A breath for believing in time: this will pass, and I will say thank you, so I might as well say it now. Thank you.
- I do not wish to add to the voices that have said things along the lines of “I get that #YesAllWomen is important but…” No. It is beyond important, and there is no BUT. I am just noticing, again and again, how hard it is for me to read the (shared) experiences of my fellow women, and live that pain again, mine and theirs, not to mention the additional pain arising with each ignorant or trollling response. It is astonishing to me how many people I know in real life felt the need to deflect, diminish and discount the vulnerable stories that are hard enough to share as it is. I actually noticed at one point that my whole body was hurting, and it gradually became clear that I’d inadvertently plugged in to the energy of this swelling of shared experiences, the energy of All Pain Of All Women, which is not only too much to bear, it is not mine to carry. I had to do a healing and then stay offline for a while. So important, so important, and: I have to be very careful and very clear so that I don’t revert to the pattern of reliving everyone else’s trauma. A breath for safe space, and for breathing love and peacefulness into the world.
- I deeply, deeply, deeply need two weeks off. Or in. Or something. And I have no idea when/how this could happen. A breath for needing an opening and not seeing the door.
- Street harassment, the usual, the fact that it is the usual. A breath for this world we live in, and for hope.
- A mission I’m not looking forward to. A breath for making peace with this, and finding the treasure.
- Feeling overwhelmed, tired, conflicted, wary. A breath for all feelings are legitimate, temporary, understandable, and also not the whole truth of life.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- After several months of working with my current theme/project/mission of What If I Could Treasure Myself, and getting to know the Incoming Me who can do this, I was able to experience an entire hour of what it is like to have the superpowers of Wildly Confident and Of Course I Treasure Myself. I am remembering eight years ago when I was working with “What if I could approve of myself, what would that be like?”, and how far off and impossible it seemed. Now it’s a given. One day this will be too. A breath for joyful forward movement.
- I was able to clearly and easily indicate during dances when people were doing things that hurt my shoulder, and no one was a jerk about it. A breath for advocating for myself.
- Remember a few months ago when I was feeling so anxious about Operation Bell View? Not only did that turn out to be the best op ever, but this week all kinds of additional treasure from that op suddenly revealed itself. A breath for past seeds, and me who seeded them, and appreciating everything that is still invisible and under the surface.
- I had an overwhelming impossible-seeming op this week that involved climbing a scary ladder, and also carrying the ladder up and down a flight of stairs. And then I didn’t have to do it because Aaron was in town and he did it for me. A breath for good fortune and right timing.
- So #YesAllWomen happened, and this is the public acknowledgment I have been waiting for my entire life, or at least, since I was a teenager and suddenly became aware that 1) harassment, vulnerability, being perceived and treated as prey, and being put in exquisitely uncomfortable situations was to be a part of my daily reality for the rest of my life, 2) no one talks about this and you don’t get to talk about it and if you do you are silenced, so keep it to whispered warnings between women and shared hugs/tears because for some inexplicable reason we aren’t allowed to share these things even though we have to live with them. Holy shit, you guys. EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE THING WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT. So many times in my life I have wondered: Okay so this happens to all of us, why are we not marching in the streets, why are we not raging and grieving in collective outrage, why is no one talking about it? And now we are. It feels like a miracle. Even though it is sad, hard, scary. Even though there is so much pushback. Even though all these people still don’t believe or understand what it is like. Even though there are still so many stories I have never shared and still do not feel comfortable sharing. Just the fact that everyone is finally talking about this awful aspect of my daily life, something that has impossibly, inexplicably been swept under the collective rugs throughout history, it is amazing. A breath for seeing something I didn’t think would ever come.
- Dancing west coast swing all weekend long! Friday night fusion! Fourth Saturday swing! Sunday night lesson and social! Also, and this is new and fun, so many people said lovely things about how much they love dancing with me. I can feel certain moves getting better. I can feel how much fun I’m having. A breath for delight in life.
- I WON THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. From a raffle I’d entered (and promptly forgotten about) during Operation Bell View, thinking there was no way it would ever happen. In fact, I had the opportunity to enter it again and didn’t even bother, because what’s the point. But I won! And now I get to go to the most amazing dance convention ever this summer because they are holding my ticket at the door!
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Nothing is wrong. Remembering this is my life work and I am doing it. Richard was gone all week and I missed his company, and now he is back! Okay, so now I’m gone again, but it was so wonderful to see him. Everything is healing. Roses everywhere. Hi, Casey. Brunch with Rosie, Riv and Marisa. Sea shanties at Rally (Rally!). So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
This was another big week for ops! I had a list of 23 missions that I whittled down to 4. Operation Cape Egrets is ready! Operation Detwah is happening! I am ready to announce the Righting Retreat. Wham Boom.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I had the superpower of trusting the process.
Superpowers I want.
The power of All The Right Openings Reveal Themselves.
Salve. The Salve of 8 Miles In A Single Step.
This is from this week’s Wish, which involved the superpower of I Walk Eight Miles In A Single Step, If I Want To, with all other implied forms of this activated as well:
Each seemingly small thing I do goes deep, covers lots of ground, brings me closer, heals old hurts.
It is a salve of fractal flowers and a salve of trust.
When you rub this salve into your skin, you begin to feel calmer, steadier, you remember that you are powerful, that actions have symbolic meaning, that clearing away one thing means more clarity. It is a salve of domino effects. Of tiny actions having big results.
A little effort, a lot of movement.
This salve is a healing for guilt and urgency, it reminds your cells of the bigger picture. All timing is right timing. Nothing is wrong. The small steps are meaningful, intentional, have bigger results than you think.
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 Casey and it’s called Who Plays Music In Houses?, and they play Irish music, in houses. They’re basically a house party jam band. It’s confusing. I bet you can’t imagine an Irish band that is just one guy, but guess what: it’s 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.
Wish #255: Ketzev 8
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
This has been an incredibly challenging week for me, as you might be able to guess from the fact that it’s Wednesday and I’m only just now getting around to writing my weekly wish.
I want ease and peacefulness, I want the magic of fractal flowers, and mainly I want a new and different way to encourage myself to do things efficiently.
What do know about what I want?
Since going quiet, I have gradually become much more skilled at — or attuned to? — hearing subtle changes in voice.
In my last relationship, I could always pinpoint the exact moment when he dropped into fear. Oh, okay, we just changed modes. He would go from being his sweet, loving self to being in his stuff, and his voice would change. A thin edge to it, an added layer, an almost-whine, and once it was there I’d have to wait for him to come back to his wise self. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t, but once the voice changed there wasn’t really anyone to talk to because he wasn’t there anymore.
I can also hear this in myself, even though I don’t talk. There is a shift in timbre in the voice in my head when there’s a monster-brigade invasion, which is really tiny me taking over, mixed with external stuff (cultural, familial) that I’ve internalized and mistakenly believe to be true.
I felt this the other day, when I heard how I was urging myself to hurry while brushing my teeth: “Come on, come on, come on, we have to go, there’s no time!”
That extra something in the voice.
What else is true?
So yes, “there’s no time” is the favorite phrase of the Persnickety Time Gremlins, who forget, regularly, that actually there is time. There is always time, even time enough to pause and to praise.
But this time, I noticed something else.
I use the phrase THERE’S NO TIME when what I really mean is: My love, I need you to be extra-aware right now and to do things quickly so that we can [make the last bus] or [be able to do X in time for Y].
So while the panicked urgency is not helpful and not the full truth of life (it’s just a favorite technique of the well-meaning monsters), there is a quality of speediness that I desire in this moment.
I say there’s no time because what I really want is more presence, more grace. However, the way I use my words does not serve this deeper wish and is actually kind of abusive: I don’t want to chastise myself, threaten, layer guilt and shame onto this situation that really does not require anything other than presence, intention and love.
What do I want to happen differently?
Well, for one thing, I want a new phrase. Something that doesn’t stress me out, doesn’t sound like HURRY UP ALREADY.
My father used to say chik-chak, which is Hebrew slang (from the 60s?) that means “speedy” or “pronto”. Do it chik-chak!
It’s cute but also stressful. What I want is something that has that peppy come-on-let’s-do-this feeling minus the anxiety.
Then I remembered ketzev shmoneh, which probably is stressful for people who were in the Israeli army, but my associations with it are fun. Ketzev Shmoneh literally means: Pace 8! And this means, walking fast enough that you cover eight kilometers in an hour.
I remember lots of late night Tel Aviv walks with Poka and Fisch, from one end of the city to another, from some bar or club towards home, and Michael would always make fun of us for taking our time: okay, guys, ketzev shmoneh, let’s go. And we would laugh and pick up the pace.
For me this is a phrase that says: come on, friends, we want to get where we are going and we can make this happen a little faster. It happens with love and with laughter, not with threats and pressure.
This is how I want to feel when I urge myself to go a little faster: a sweet, love-infused invitation to pick up the pace. To be here now.
What else do I know?
At some point this week, Will left a wonderful comment on an old post, asking for the superpower of “I walk seven miles in one stride”. This is how I want to feel! This is it!
I am asking for this too and changing it to eight miles, because it goes with ketzev shmoneh:
The superpower of I Walk Eight Miles In A Single Step, If I Want To, and all other forms of this are implied as well. Each seemingly small thing I do goes deep, covers lots of ground, brings me closer, heals old hurts.
This really needs to be a salve too. Let’s make it a salve.
Talking to Incoming Me about this…
Me: I still feel so stressed out about all the [Monsternumber] of things that need to be done!
Slightly wiser me: Drink some water please, right now. Then remember the superpowers: Wonderfully Peaceful. Wildly Confident. Nothing Is Wrong. This Moment is Right.
Breathe and rejoice in life. Soften into it. Come up here with me, where we are above the clouds and not in them, blow gold dust and watch everything clear. Open the windows and let in the light. Everybody out. This is my space and it is holy. Breathe.
Me: I’m afraid that this particular mission will take all day, so I might not even get to Operation Chicken on The 305, Operation Delta Delta Delta and Operation X/Y, never mind anything else.
She: If we allow this freakout to be the reality, then maybe. And that will be okay too. Guess what though. Scared Havi doesn’t need to be doing the missions. She needs to be in the safest of safe rooms, being adored and treasured. WE will do the missions, taking 8 miles in a single step.
Me: I feel sad, scared and lonely right now.
She: Okay, my love. Those are legitimate things to feel, you just went through the hardest breakup and X is so ill, and you haven’t heard back from Y, and there’s Stuff. Absolutely understandable. And I still want you to be able to feel what it is like to … what’s that word where you do two things with different halves of your brain. I want you to have a safe room of being treasured where all this is legitimate, and also to feel what it’s like to have Wildly Confident you (me) take one step at a time, trusting that this one step is actually an 8-mile step, taking us exactly where we needs to be.
What do I really want?
Ah, of course. Back to Delight in Life, the compass of All The Good Things, and the superpower of “Or Maybe Something Even Better Will Happen”.
Last week’s compass is still working for me:
Options. Possibilities. Ease. Pleasure. Freedom. Spaciousness. Play. Delight.
And I will add the secret word TREASURE to each point.
Anything else? Starting points?
Keep connecting to Incoming me. Skip stones as often as possible. Writing and Righting. Xs and Ys. Dance. Red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
Are you in or near Portland? Do you know people in or near Portland?
Amazing workshop at my ballroom this weekend, Saturday, May 31, from 2-4pm. Please help me spread the word!
What else do I want?
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I go out dancing at the 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. What if Hawaii is not in Hawaii.
- 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: Going In. And: More recovery.
Clues?
As Max said, this relationship is optional. And as Bryan said, if you don’t want it, don’t feed it.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Gonna gotta…
Last week’s wish was great. I feel much better about tango, took Amy’s class and had a lesson with Eric, plus Pat said he’d review with me before the Richard Powers workshop. All the other ops are in motion, and this is good.
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 #304: advocating for myself
It is SATURDAY and we are here.
Sometimes a Friday lasts a little bit longer, and sometimes a Chicken happens when it happens….
So here we are.
{a breath for being here right now}
What worked this week?
C.H.A.T.S.
It stands for Conversations Happening At Temporal Safe Houses.
This came into being because of my tendency to run conversations in my head when I am not ready to have these conversations in person.
Except I don’t want those to be the words in my head. I want my words to be reminders of what I want: PEACEFULNESS and PRESENCE. Treasuring myself. Remembering to take a breath and let go. My head space is for me, not for running dialogue.
So I made a document on my phone called C.H.A.T.S, and it is a safe house for these conversations. When I notice myself whooshing off into one of these conversations, I write down the words I may want later. Then I make a wish for peaceful, ease-filled conversation if/when it happens, and then I close the door.
When I am ready for the conversation, I can pick up the thread there instead of playing with it and batting it around in my thoughts.
Reminding myself: I want to be here now. I want to be here, now.
Next time I might…
Have my buffer phrases ready.
Steady and clear forms of saying NO, with words that work for me. This has to do with advocating for myself, a big theme right now.
Related pieces: Taking my sexy time to do whatever I’m doing. Or if I decide I need to hurry, making the speediness fun instead of trying to placate the Urgency Monsters.
And, if I go to this dance convention again, finding people in advance to walk with me in the middle of the night, people who do not think it is bizarre that I want this, which is nearly as triggering as the situation itself.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Oh wow, so many people in so many different kinds of pain. A number of people I love were in the hospital this week, going through rough things. A breath for filling up on ease and peacefulness. A breath of this for everyone who needs it.
- The Unbearable Missing, while significantly less agonizing than it was a week ago, is still a part of my daily reality. A breath for trusting the magic of time to do its healing thing.
- Super creepy and uncomfortable incident at a dance convention where the lead I was dancing with did something completely inexplicable and not okay. I went deep into paralysis, old neural pathways, couldn’t find my voice. This pattern was repeated throughout the week in various smaller ways, like when I discovered that someone I thought was a friend actually holds horrible anti-semitic opinions, which she felt comfortable voicing because she didn’t know I was Jewish. A breath for processing this pattern in all of its forms, and for change.
- Actually I was in my stuff all weekend at the convention. Comparison is the devil, or so the sufis say. I was comparing, and that never leads to good things. A crisis of confidence. A breath for allowing all the treasure in this experience to come in and land.
- Dark parking lots, and not wanting to cross them but wanting to be at the place on the other side. Not a metaphor, but yeah, that also works. This is related to: I don’t want to be in a relationship and yet I have envy related to my perception of “other people have someone to walk with them through the scary places”. A breath for finding truth, and for safety.
- Walking into my beautiful ballroom, aka the chocolate shop, seeing the ruined floor, and bursting into tears. I get that my big dream wasn’t to be. And this — how things are now — is still very much not what I want. A breath for learning from what I don’t want, may something new and beautiful come in.
- I have an impossibly busy month, and a bunch of projects that are at the point of Almost Ready To Deliver. A breath for miracles.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- A giant breakthrough. I have been working — steadily and passionately — with this theme/project/mission of What Would Happen If I Could Treasure Myself, and I am finding out, and it is awesome. A breath for trust.
- Related: My desired superpower of Wonderfully Confident suddenly kicked in this week, amazing. A breath for delight.
- The water scare ended in less than a day. A breath for moving through things and remembering that Nothing Is Wrong.
- Nothing is wrong. A breath for remembering this and for my life work about remembering this.
- I had the best time playing with Leela at the Twitter bar! A breath for playmates.
- This entire week was filled with GLORIOUS dancing, I am having the time of my life. A breath for pure delight.
- Did you know that Kermit the Frog singing the Rainbow Connection is a waltz? Of course it is. I waltzed to it last night! A breath for the sheer joy of life and aliveness.
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Writing is healing. My finger is healing. My heart is healing. Roses and strawberries in the garden. The three year old next door blowing kisses to me from the window. Dropping off bread at Dana’s. So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
This was a big week for ops! Operation Cape Egrets is ready! Operation Detwah is happening! Everything is moving. Wham Boom.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I got the superpower of Wonderfully Confident, the cousin of Extreme Sexy Fearlessness. It was amazing. More of that, please!
Superpowers I want.
The power of resting before I need to. And the power of trusting in timing.
Salve. The Salve of Taking Care of Yourself.
This salve is about trust, it is about sanctuary, it is about things coming into harmonious relationship, it is about courage, it is about rest and it is about treasure.
When you rub it in, you feel sturdier, steadier, more grounded.
Suddenly all the questions of ‘should I do x’ seem irrelevant, because of course you are going to make choices that support what you need. All other considerations become silly.
It’s like what Brian Kest says: “You don’t make decisions about what your body can do. You honor the decisions being made.”
Using this salve is the moment when that becomes obvious and true, when kindness towards your body is the only conceivable option.
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 called Clown Water, and they play punk-metal with a bit of a ska feel. They wear awesome hats. Also, autocorrect had a lot of trouble with my conversations this week about having to boil water because of the water scare, and the need for water to be clean. Anyway, great band. And yes, they’re 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.
Wish #254: Operation Gonna Gotta
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
Operation Gonna Gotta is secret agent code* for Tango Tango, which is secret agent code for Trust and Treasure, and also not code at all: I want to learn Argentine tango.
What do I know so far?
- I have enormous amounts of Stuff and Monsters about learning tango, mostly because I’m convinced I’m going to love it, and my dance obsession is expensive enough as it is. Tango requires totally different dance shoes and private lessons, among other things.
- The time to learn it is now, because Richard Powers (swoooooon!) is coming to Portland in a couple weeks and I signed up for his workshop and it includes social tango, and I don’t want to show up without having done it at least a couple times.
- This is going to require lots and lots of code.
What else am I noticing?
I have resources.
I can talk to Agent Anna. I can get a private lesson from Rachel or Eric.
There are so many places in Portland to practice.
Even with all the [Upcoming Travel], I can still fit in four or five practices before my workshop.
So really this is (as always) about my fears, perceptions, worries and doubts. My stuff. Not about the reality at hand.
This is about identity and about going through a door that kind of scares me, in part because I know that on the other side of that door are big, passionate feelings. No wonder I have been scooting past the door and pretending it wasn’t there.
What else do I know about this?
Bond Girl is 100% for this mission. Tango is a skill that all secret agents should have.
So it opens up options. I love options. Possibilities are the best, whether I use them or not.
And sometime I’m at west coast swing and I’m not into the music. So in that case I can just walk upstairs and join the alternative tango group.
[Monsters: But-but-but outsider complex!]
What do I really want?
Options. Possibilities. Ease.
All the good things.
That’s practically halfway to a compass! Let’s make a compass. It will be the Compass Of All The Good Things.
Who knows, maybe sometime when I’m feeling brave I will also seed “All The Good Things” at one of the compass points.
Options. Possibilities. Ease. Pleasure. Freedom. Spaciousness. Play. Delight.
I am feeling so good about the quality of this month from the calendar — Delight — with the superpower of “Or Maybe Something Even Better Will Happen”, so good for me right now.
What else do I know about my wish?
Nothing is wrong.
Even I don’t do anything with this wish/mission, I’ll still be fine at the workshop. The important thing is really just noticing what’s happening with my relationship with this door.
Whatever I do to engage with the door is right, whether I walk through it or not. Walking past the door and saying, “oh there’s that door I have feelings about” is a legitimate practice too.
I can leave a sticky note on the door with a heart. I can put my ear up to the door and listen.
I can give myself permission to have a complex relationship with this door and I don’t need to know why.
Dance for me is very tied up in lots of identity things. Dancer me and Writer me are twins. It makes sense that this feels vulnerable and scary. However I go about this is fine. Safety first.
Anything else? Starting points?
Keep connecting to Incoming me. Skip stones as often as possible. Writing and Righting. Xs and Ys. Dance. Red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
Are you in or near Portland? Do you know people in or near Portland?
Uwe and Colleen, two of the most amazing dance teachers I know, will be teaching a two hour workshop at my ballroom on Saturday, May 31, from 2-4pm. They never do intro workshops, and this is an amazing opportunity.
It’s social waltz which does not sound like a sexy dance, but actually it is one of the best ways ever to learn partnering and connection, which is what makes you a really good dancer.
Plus, Portland has a huge social waltz community (it’s the nicest and most welcoming of any dance community I’ve ever encountered), which means that once you’ve done this, there’s something fun you could go to every night of the week and feel at home there.
If you don’t have dance experience, this is a great way to learn. And if you do, this will make you a way better dancer at all dances. And if you are interested in teaching (dance or anything else), come just to watch how they magically make this practice accessible. They are probably the best explainers I’ve ever met.
Please help me spread the word! I want as many people as possible to benefit from their teaching, and filling the ballroom with dance is my big dream.
What else do I want?
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I go out dancing at the 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. What if Hawaii is not in Hawaii.
- 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: Going In. And: More recovery.
Clues?
Inverting the colors.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Notes and love letters…
Ohmygod, last week’s wish was so helpful! I have a much better sense of all my ops and missions.
I made big, crazy progress on a number of them. Operation Detwah is happening! Operation Sexy Waltz is happening! Operation Cape Egrets is happening! Everything is easier when I have love letters. I want to keep doing this.
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 #303: blink blink
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked this week?
Playing the game of X Things That Don’t Completely Suck.
I played this at the Floop, and it was perfect.
The game is based on a game I used to play at Thanksgiving.
But that game had a lot of lentils and on the Floop we were naming just 7 things that are not horrible. This is a good game for me to play, and a good way for me to play it, especially in the midst of Stuff.
Here were my 7 things:
Beeswax candles. This pillow Briana made me that is the best gift ever and always makes me think of her and smile. Richard is the best at bandaging hurts. Portland lindy society might be doing an event at my ballroom! Maybe emily will be in michigan when I’m in michigan, or if not we will be in the same time zone and we can text. The first two weeks of missing someone always hurt the most, so I am ALREADY HALFWAY THROUGH the hurting-est part. And: I am buying things that will help with my dancing blisters which means I can do more dancing, because dancing makes everything better.
It helped. More than I thought it would.
Next time I might…
Look at the notes!
I love Rally (Rally!), and it always makes for deeper, bigger, different realizations than I am expecting. As Agent Anna says, the first rule of Rally is expect the unexpected.
Anyway, even though I have now rallied FORTY-SOME Rallies, I forget this. And I also forget to expect the expected too:
After Rally there is this period of integration and decompressing, and it takes longer than I think it will. So I tend to think, “Okay, Rally was amazing, and now I’m going to go to aerobics and pick up the mail and do a bunch of things I didn’t get to this week because of Rally!”
And then very quickly it becomes clear that actually I am going to crawl into bed and hide for two or three days. There are lots of notes on this in the Book of Havi Bell. I want to make a point of leaving myself a reminder at Rally to not try and do anything after Rally.
It’s in the BORK (the Book of Rally Keys), because I’ve written about this a lot. But I need a reminder for me. Or maybe not. Maybe I just need to keep re-learning this one, over and over, until it lands.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Off my dance game. Or: perceiving that I am off. Having trouble dancing with people I usually have great dances with. Crisis of confidence. A breath for trusting the process.
- Letting someone out of my life was the right move, and it hurts. Unbearable levels of missing. A breath for healing.
- A consequence of this letting go: noticing how much need I have for better systems of emotional support. A breath for finding the treasure in this.
- A number of people I care about having big, scary health crises. A breath for love and for wishing.
- Forgetting that nothing is wrong, forgetting to take eight breaths, forgetting that love is not separate from me. A breath for remembering, the work of life.
- Everything changing. Seeing all the ways that I do not treasure myself. A breath for comfort.
- Some stuff happening at the chocolate shop that I find absolutely infuriating and don’t know how to resolve yet. A breath for waiting to see what the next step is.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- I made some tough decisions, and that was right, and I could feel it was right. A breath for trust.
- An epiphany about rollerskating (proxy!) helped me get so much done this week. How much done? So much done. WHAM BOOM. Everything on my scary list, including two projects that have been on the back burner for what seems like forever. A breath for sneaking around the hard.
- Friends. Richard, Emily, Naomi, Heather, Agent Em Dee, people showing up. A breath for remembering that there is love and more love and even more love.
- Nothing is wrong. A breath for remembering this and for my life work about remembering this.
- I had a marvelous time at the Spring Dance even while in my stuff about dancing. And on Wednesday I was not in my stuff about dancing, and was able to just enjoy. And then I danced with someone I always dance with who always ends the dance with the standard “thank you for the dance”. And this time he said: “Oh wow that was just wonderful!” A breath for pleasure and delight in life.
- Here’s something: I am handling things really well, considering. A breath for now is not then.
- I am on an adventure right now! On my way to southern Oregon for a dance convention. A breath for the passage and the crossing.
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Roses and strawberries in the garden. Waltz. Tortilla chips. Talking with monsters and remembering that nothing is wrong. So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I finished Operation NO, Operation Sexy Waltz, set things in motion for Operation Detwah, completed all three of the first stages of Operation Cape Egretsmade progress on Mission Case Ends Ho, edited the first draft of Mission of Xs and Ys, completed what seems like a thousand small ops. Wham Boom! Thank you, Rally.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I had the superpower of taking eight breaths when I feel feelings.
Superpowers I want.
The power of Always Remembering That Nothing Is Wrong. And the power of Wonderfully Confident, Of Course Of Course Of Course. It is a cousin of Extreme Sexy Fearlessness.
Salve. The Salve of Perspective.
As you rub this salve into your skin, your whole body begins to relax.
Things come into their right proportions. You suddenly see what is working, rather than what isn’t; what is lucky rather than what is problematic, what is right instead of what is wrong. And then, from there, even the things in the “wrong” category begin to reveal their treasure.
The big shadows turn out to be cast by small objects. Candles are lit in the corners, and you can see what is there: nothing scary after all. Cobwebs are whooshed away.
You are safe, you are held, it’s just a cut and not a gash, healing is activated — yes, love, of course it hurts and of course you can cry and this moment of pain is legitimate, and also you are okay. Another candle, and another candle. A hug and another hug. Blink. Blink. We can look at this with new eyes, with eyes that remember truth.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes by way of autocorrect, which changed “but of course!” to “but of Clyde!”. This band is called Butt of Clyde, and they are an Irish punk band. And as it turns out, they’re 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.