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 #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.
Wish #257: A new remembering
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
I wanted to write about something entirely different this week, and instead I need to write about a new remembering.
This morning I changed the passcode on my phone, after discovering, astonishment and dismay, that the Spy Who Loved Me was ACTUALLY SPYING ON ME.
So much for metaphor. He observed me using the code to my phone and took advantage of my absence to break into my phone, read my texts and construct some wildly inaccurate theories based on misunderstandings of what he read (or misread) there.
Wow. I am completely in shock. I am aware that I missed a number of warning bells about jealous, controlling behavior, but I had absolutely no idea things had gone this far.
I don’t really understand how someone who was my lover, someone I trusted wholeheartedly, someone I think of as being deeply committed to spiritual practice would even consider breaking into my phone to confirm pre-existing (and false) suspicions rather than asking loving curious questions, never mind actually doing this.
I will process this elsewhere, on the Floop and in the YEARbooks. For now I need a new remembering.
What does this mean?
So many things.
At the most basic level, I would like a new remembering in the sense that I remember the new passcode. Because right now, each time my fingers enter the old one and I get the “wrong code, try again” message, I burst into tears all over again.
I would like the new code to feel like FREEDOM and SAFETY instead of oh god this person had a key to my house.
I would like moments of forgetting and putting in the old code to be okay: We are safe, we are treasured, we are loved, nothing is wrong.
I would like to remember that change is good, and sometimes things (and people) fall away because they need to fall away. What is emptied from my life needed to go. This is what I learned from the year of All The Burns Burning, and this is what I learned from the summer of Smiling At The Broken Pots.
Let things go. Let them go. And if they’re leaving, say thank you.
What else do I know about this?
In last week’s wish I wrote about how I want to be the one who can treasure myself.
I still want this.
Part of treasuring myself is having a new remembering.
I do not wish to erase the memories of sweetness and love. I also want to remember that I don’t have to put up with having controlling behavior in my life, in any form. Controlling has no part of love. I don’t have spend time with people who don’t take responsibility for their stuff when they are in their stuff. And I definitely don’t need anyone in my life who invents stories about me.
Anyone who knows me knows how intensely I value clear, beautiful, communication, undoing misunderstandings as they happen instead of letting them build into Story. What happened here is basically the opposite of that, and I am reeling. Next time I sense alarm bells, I won’t wait months to see how it plays out, I will investigate immediately.
This is my new remembering.
Hello, goodbye.
Hello, new remembering. Hello, new code and codes.
Hello, new people coming into my life that I haven’t met yet, people who will treat me with trust, respect, adoration and treasuring, and who will be committed to beautiful deep presence and clear communication.
Thank you, everything that brought me here. Goodbye, everything that won’t get me through this next crossing. Goodbye, everything that is done.
Release.
Goodbye, patterns. Goodbye, all aspects of these patterns. Goodbye, pattern of wanting to be seen and not being seen. Goodbye, pattern of letting things slide.
Goodbye, pattern of being falsely accused, followed by such genuine sweetness, love and grace that I allowed everything else to keep happening because the sweetness was so sweet and my craving for it so intense.
No more.
I am committed to treasuring myself, to learning how to do this, to allowing this pattern (and any need I may have for it) release, dissolve and exit, for my own benefit and the benefit of everyone I know.
Goodbye, pattern. Goodbye, need for this pattern.
Transform.
We are going to need some secret agent code!
From now on, the error message when I enter the wrong code (Wrong Code! Try Again!) means something else. Like:
“That person turned out to be the wrong lover for you, now you get to try again!”
Or, “What a delight, I can start over.” Or, “I am a Secret Agent who gets to play with code, and this is fun, what’s my new one?”
Jewels.
How perfect that this month in the Fluent Self calendar of salves is the month of Releasing.
And even better, the salve of All Past Pain Is Transformed Into Jewels.
Let this experience reveal its jewels. Maybe part of the jewels is the new remembering. And maybe part is learning to treasure myself so completely that the old patterns don’t work anymore.
My friend A told me about how he decided to LOVE MORE, TRUST MORE after a betrayal of trust. That’s my plan too. Listen more. Listen a lot. Listen more, love more, trust more. Piece by piece.
What do I want to happen?
Swift healing. New codes. Empty the museum. Throw away things that remind me of the relationship and this old way. Ease. Sweetness in new forms. Sit with the void. Newness.
Yoga. Breathe with it and through it and breathe some more. To feel appreciative for all that is good: I have toes and I can wiggle them. I have lungs and they breathe for me. Wonder and delight in aliveness.
I got to experience a beautiful love story that had layers of toxicity woven through it and I am alive and this is part of aliveness, and none of this can hurt me and I am done and cutting all the red ribbons.
Talking to Incoming Me about this…
Me: Hurts so much.
Slightly wiser me: What do you want to feed and nurture?
Me: Peacefulness.
Slightly wiser me: Good. Then let’s notice when we are telling the story of this person who we thought was X turning out to be Y. Let’s breathe peacefulness instead.
Let’s make a compass:
Peacefulness. Safety. Ease. Shelter. Freedom. Release. Glow. Wild.
And I will continue to 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. 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: Operation Koi Fish, The Cornish Witchery Upholstery of San Miguel IV, This Is The Ship.
Clues?
“Having a great night of sex like you do in New Mexico…”
Sadly this is not me, but it is a great sentence, from the New York Times of all places, and I love the feeling of it.
This sentence is related to that joyous feeling of LIFE AND ALIVENESS, which is basically the opposite of the tight hurting feelings I am working through right now. So even though, despite all the Spy’s suspicions, I have not even been on a date since we split up, I can still imagine the feeling of romantic possibilities, the feeling of [ah, spring], delighting in the pleasures of enjoying life. I can remember that feeling when I need it, and it can live inside of me and be a part of my new remembering too.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Unconditional Treasuring…
It is just fascinating to me how each wish kind of leads to the next one.
I wanted to take better care of myself, to delight in caring for myself, and that is exactly what I’m doing right now. The treasuring has led to a new remembering, or a beginning.
I also completed Operation Crown Bridge III as well as The Book of Xs and Ys — one more round of edits to go!
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 #306: not a cowboy
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday, and for being here right now}
What worked this week?
Sharing, oddly enough.
I used facebook, a forum I do not generally like for anything other than keeping up with dance events.
And I was able to share some of what I was going through, and to ask for help and support in ways that worked for me.
Next time I might…
Consult past experience.
There were a lot of moments this week of “I’ve made a huge mistake”, Arrested Development style.
I already had the intel that made it clear what I needed to do in order to avoid that, I just wasn’t doing it.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Travel. It is so hard on me. A breath for being a highly sensitive person, who needs what feels like outrageous amounts of recovery time.
- The worst jetlag since my disastrous last trip to Berlin several years ago. I was sleeping okay but could not focus to save my life. It was 48 hours of crawling through fog. Chunks of time went missing: I wasn’t daydreaming, I just wasn’t there. Scary and frustrating. A breath for moving through.
- I had been counting on dropping in and out of workshops at the dance convention as a way of easing my way into Operation Detwah, my difficult adventures in Michigan. But what actually happened thanks to jetlag was that I stayed in bed and cried. I hardly did any dancing at all. A breath for comfort.
- I said this last week and it’s still true: 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 for being able to see the door.
- Operation Detwah took top priority this week, which meant that zero progress was made on the rest of the ops. Frustration. A breath for trusting the process, and the flowers.
- Wishing I could wave a magic wand and help my mother get better. A breath for loving people who are in enormous pain.
- Missing my home and yoga and routine and projects. A breath for passage.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- It’s been a month, and the Unbearable Missing is over. A breath for clean, clear forward movement.
- While the 48 hours of zombie jetlag were pretty hellish, the moment when it cleared was beautiful. A breath for relief.
- The Mystery of Aisle 32. This marvelous and unexpected adventure involved invisibility, resonant energy transfer (it’s a thing!), the elusive Mr. Blakely if he does in fact exist, his nefarious scheme — or is it actually not nefarious at all?, a cowboy who is not a cowboy, wildly extravagant hats, henchmen in equally extravagant hats, brunch at the Fleetwood, a giant epiphany about panache, and at least one spectacular musical number with jazz hands! A breath for the truly miraculous healing thing that is PLAY.
- Sleeping through all the dancing actually meant that I had the great fortune of attending a Robert Royston dance workshop at ridiculous-o’clock in the morning, a completely extraordinary jaw-dropping hour of intense learning which completely changed how I think about dance. A breath for good fortune and right timing.
- Companionship, in a wide variety of forms. A breath for being held.
- Setting clean clear expectations. A breath for wearing the crown.
- Bonus miracle! A breath for the unexpectedly wonderful.
- Appreciation and thankfulness. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. Delicious food with my brother. Marisa, Richard, Luke and Casey cheering me up (and cheering me on) from afar. We can do this. I made it. Dance this weekend. American Ninja Warrior clips are the best. So many things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Operation Detwah took over everything this week, though I did get 4 hours done on Operation Xs and Ys on the plane. Wham Boom.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I had the superpower of my feet know where to go even when I don’t.
Superpowers I want.
The power of Graceful Easy Transitions, and the power of Delighting in Releasing, Releasing Into Delight.
Salve. The Salve of Delighting In Releasing.
I have had lots and lots of experiences in which letting go was almost unbearably painful, until the moment I could finally do it, and sometimes even after.
And I’ve had experiences where the letting go was relief: Don’t let the door hit you too hard on the way out! The goodbyes of Good Riddance.
This is not like that. This letting go is sweet, effortlessly sweet. It is delicious. It fills you with delight. Goodbye, and thank you. Goodbye, and I am glad I can let this go. Goodbye, and it is the right time. Goodbye, with love. Goodbye, and may peacefulness prevail.
When you rub this salve into your skin, this flavor of releasing eases into your body and your entire world. It becomes a real option instead of a theoretical concept. Things that are done begin to sweetly exit, without drama, without friction.
It is a salve of ease, of pleasure, of possibility and trust. It is both calming and revitalizing, something vetiver-like. It makes the skin glow quietly. It is a healing for you and for everyone who encounters you.
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 Darcy and it’s called Pneumatic Underground Hamster Tunnel To Portland, and they are a cello group who is actually 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 #256: unconditional treasuring
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
I want two things actually, and both of them have to do with taking better care of myself, both as a form of self-treasuring, and also because it’s the right thing to do.
Taking care of myself because I treasure myself. Treasuring myself through caring for myself.
I found myself making a wish last night that went something along the lines of:
“All I want is for someone to take me on a holiday for two weeks where I just sleep the whole time, sleep and stretch and cry and take baths, and for this same someone or a different someone to stroke my hair and make me tea and whisper reassuring things.”
And then it hit me, of course, that this someone should be me, and that I want to be the person who does this for myself.
What do know about what I want?
- It is difficult (for me, right now) to maintain the truth of my world that makes sense to me while submerged in another world full of untruths, or things that don’t resonate for me.
- It is difficult to be a bell (for me, right now) when everything else is out of tune.
- The only way through or across (for me, right now, that I can see) is to treasure more.
- I am in Detroit this week as part of Operation Crown Bridge III, and a bridge is a crossing. This bridge, more specifically, is a crossing into a more pleasurable relationship with sovereignty.
- This crossing demands exquisite care, treasuring myself, giving myself the optimal conditions that I can provide, to be my most rested, most creative, most capable, most playful, most bell-like. It requires it.
What is true?
I don’t know many people who can do this, treasure themselves, take wonderfully good care of themselves, make choices based on treasuring, not based on guilt or obligation. In my entire life, I have met two people who can do this, something I hugely admire and also find to be completely extraordinary.
And, truth be told, both of these people also have pretty big blind spots, areas where the self-treasuring rules don’t apply.
So I’m kind of in unexplored territory here, I’m testing it out, there aren’t maps. It isn’t so much “here be monsters” (though yes, of course monsters!), it’s more like, “This is an interesting adventure and I have never seen trees and flowers that look like this before….”
What else is true?
I can do this.
Even though it is new and unfamiliar. Even though I don’t have someone modeling it for me.
I can do it because the other option (not doing it) isn’t working for me.
And because I believe that it is in everybody’s best interest to have a fully-functional Havi Bell in the world. Also because I hope that more people will follow me across the bridge, more of us treasuring ourselves, more of us choosing things that support our peacefulness.
What do I want to happen?
My father said something yesterday about his priorities. First priority: taking care of my mom. Second priority: more taking care of mom. Third and fourth priorities were work stuff and fifth priority was taking care of himself.
I not-very-secretly dream of living in a world in which everyone’s first priority is “how can I best take care of myself so that I can most effectively handle all the other priorities?”.
Reality: this probably isn’t going to happen anytime soon. My visions of the world and my approach to living in it are wildly different than what I was raised with, not just in terms of my family but the entire culture. Learning how to treasure myself as a way of being in the world is like being in an aquarium of cool, clear, beautiful truth floating in a sea of distortion. I need to make my way to the sea of sovereignty, the ocean of openings.
So I have some shadow work to do.
I need to do the thing we did (remember?) with the hackers, and with the piggy.
If I was raised in this broader culture where most people think that not taking care of yourself in order to do good and contribute is valuable, meaningful and important…and that taking care of yourself first is selfish…
When is it useful to be selfish?
I sat with this for several minutes, not knowing the answer, because that, my friends, is a very, very loaded word.
But then I knew. I felt it! When you’re on a plane and they tell you to adjust your own oxygen mask before assisting others. Being selfless and trying to help [your helpless vulnerable child that you love] is how you end up passing out and not being able to help anyone. On the surface, it’s the cheesiest example, and yet, it is true.
In emergencies, taking-care-of-me-first is critical.
Except the way into states of emergency often is also a result of — or compounded by — neglecting to care for myself. And the thing that helps me have enough discernment to recognize an impending possible-emergency is also taking care of myself.
There’s more work to do here, because the word still bothers me, but basically I’m on a mission to be blissfully assertive about my oxygen mask, even when asked to delay putting it on.
What do I want to happen?
It’s June, which means it is time to turn the page in the Fluent Self calendar of salves: this month is for Releasing.
This is fortunate, because release is exactly what I want and need right now.
I want to release (easily, sweetly) all the rules, internal and external, that get in the way of taking exquisite care of myself.
I want to release judgment, pain, regret, conflict.
I want to release and release, and let this be part of the crossing.
And I love this month’s salve and superpower: All Past Pain Is Transformed Into Jewels. May it be so.
Anything else?
I already know how to take care of myself, thanks to collecting notes in the Book of Havi Bell over the past several years.
The next step is remembering that these aren’t just things I could do, it’s what needs to happen. Without apologies and without delay.
Talking to Incoming Me about this…
Me: What if I never learn how to do this?
Slightly wiser me: Remember when you said that about feeling glamorous?
Of course you will learn how to do this. You already know. You are practicing and remembering, remembering and practicing.
Robert Royston said that an amateur dancer practices until he gets it right, a pro practices until she can’t get it wrong. You’re practicing, and you’re committed to the practice, and this will become second nature.
Right now, it’s a new habit, it’s wildly subversive, it goes against everything you’ve been taught and modeled, it goes against everything the world around you celebrates. You’re right. They’re wrong. Trust what you know. This is important.
Let’s make a compass:
Options. Safety. Ease. Release. Freedom. Pleasure. Glow. Wild.
And I will continue to 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.
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.
- 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: Operation Crown Bridge III, Xs and Ys, This Is The Ship.
Clues?
Practice it until you can’t get it wrong.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Ketzev 8…
Last week’s wish is hilarious, I wanted to stop rushing myself with panicky monster stress of “no-time-no-time-no-time”, and I also wanted the superpower of eight kilometers in a single step. Both of those have been outrageously helpful during my complicated adventures in Michigan.
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 #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.