What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Wish #251: Exits and Strategies.
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
What do I want?
It has to do with exits and strategies, mostly with exits, and possibly also with Exit Strategies, which might need a new name.
It has to do with craving a sense of safety (which does not come from strategies, it comes from me remembering that I am safe).
And it has to do with goodbyes that are doors, and creating beautiful containers for the experiences of endings/beginnings.
That way these endings don’t have to be the sad, aching, everything-is-falling-apart endings of the past few years. They can be conscious, safe, sweet, intentional, infused with love, made from spaciousness, filled with Amnesty. Sometimes closing a door can be peaceful, even joyful…
Okay, the monster crew just gave a big NO to the notion of joyful exits, so we will just leave that as a theoretical concept to revisit later when it feels less scary. And I will conjure up the memory of some exits that I have enjoyed, exits that felt like FREEDOM.
What do I know so far?
A lot of endings on the horizon. Or really, a lot of changes that involve exits, in various forms.
Sometimes I am the one doing the exiting, in some cases it is a person or a practice or an experience exiting, in other cases it’s just endings.
And: everything ends. I know that.
The Spy is going away for a long time, a little under three and half years, during which time there will be no way to have contact. The exiting isn’t for a while, but the strategizing is now.
There are other people exiting.
And the lease on the chocolate shop is up in a couple of years and I need to decide if I am staying in the chocolate business.
Or possibly changing the chocolate business: it made no sense that I had a (metaphorical) chocolate shop until my recent nut obsession. So maybe I could fill my shop with nut-based treats and eventually turn it into a nut emporium that happens to have chocolate sometimes?
Or maybe I just want out. Maybe I want to say no instead of not-yes. Maybe I want to find a new yes.
Maybe I still have too much pain over the loss of my big dream, and all the things that happened when all the barns burned. Maybe I don’t want any shop at all, and I just want to be here, in this lovely online space with you.
What do I want?
When I say “strategies”, I think I really mean: Ease.
Mechanisms for ease.
For example, if I know these things are ending, I can prepare for certain aspects. Maybe not for how I will feel necessarily, because how do I know? But I can make things easier on myself.
I can ask Slightly Future And Wiser me what she knows and what might help.
I can come up with practices that might help with the missing and with the transition.
What do I know about this?
Huh. Most of the time when I think about loss and my relationship with loss — and I don’t believe endings have to be about loss necessarily, just that this is how I have perceived these particular past endings….
I am used to endings being sudden.
Or if gradual, unseen and unexpected. Endings for me have typically been of the [holy shit I never thought that would happen] variety.
Sudden endings: One of my best friends taking his life. Taking, taking it where? Ending it. Or my beloved mentor turning on me out of the blue and attacking with stories, assumptions, misunderstandings, lawyers. Rena dying. No warning.
Gradual endings: Relationships unraveling. The person who used to say “you are glowing in my mind, goodnight-goodnight my beautiful lover” becoming the person who says “thanks for your words, I’ll probably talk to you later”. Realizing that the center I’d been dreaming of for years and had finally built was never going to be able to sustain itself, and saying goodbye to all the time, money and energy that had gone into making it just right, and letting it turn into a chocolate shop that I didn’t want because that was the only option I could see.
Those endings were like waking up and taking forever to realize that everything in the dream was a dream, shaking off cobwebs, slowly piecing together the new reality.
Suddenly, now, there are all these endings approaching, and I can see them and I even know the dates of their arrival, this is new.
What do I want?
The quality of this month is effervescence, and I think that is important:
What if these endings can happen with lightness.
What if these endings don’t have to be crumpled-on-the-floor-in-tears, watching the barns burn, moving through the shock in waves.
What if these endings have to do with choice. What if I meet them with bubbling effervescent aliveness
Like I said last week in my wish:
More lightness. More light.
The same thing that happens when I view the bells / when I am a bell.
What if I can ring in these endings, these new doors….
What else do I know about my wish?
It is going to be okay, whether I come up with strategies or not.
I can handle these exits, I know about doors.
All I need to do for now is seed the qualities I want, breathe them, practice living with them, get to know them, plant them in my compass. Eight breaths in eight directions, so that I put myself to bed inside of a compass and I walk down the street inside of a compass and I meet the new whatever-will-be inside of my compass.
What will help me with my wish?
Writing some goodbyes.
Inventing some rituals to play with, some for me and some will allow me and the to practice at the same time even though we won’t be connected in other ways.
Finding out what I need, what will help this feel safe and supported. Crying as much as I need to cry. All forms of release are valid. Permission and legitimacy to the emotions stirred up by endings.
Remembering that Now Is Not Then. These endings are new endings.
Anything else? Starting points?
Interviewing Incoming me. Skipping as many stones as possible. Writing and Righting. Xs and Ys. Beautiful dances. To be wonderfully surprised. Red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
My compass for these wishes:
Sustenance. Trust. Presence. Release. Anchoring. Shelter. Glowing. Receiving.
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: Recovery Recovery Recovery.
Clues?
“I am intimately familiar with the music of not-no. I play that music. All echoes and reverb.”
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka bells and wishes…
I am so happy about last week’s wishes, and also the week before. Also, did I tell you guys that I got a ride to Bellevue? Thank you, dear Tree, and everyone who wanted to help.
In short, I had an absolutely incredible time during Operation Bell View, and an amazing experience exiting it (see, I know how to exit gracefully now, I just forget that I know this), and was able to take exquisite care of myself, which is what I wanted most.
The superpowers of bubbles and bubbling are still with me, amazingly. And I was even able to Trust In Pleasure, which is one of the things I find hardest.
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 #300: Streamers and balloons! It’s a quiet celebration!
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
You guys! You guys! THREE HUNDRED CONSECUTIVE WEEKS OF CHICKEN.
We are having a party. Except since I am an introverted hider and can’t handle parties, it is more like: we are celebrating very quietly and there are balloons and streamers and we are all saying (yay).
If you had told me three hundred chickens ago that I would stick with this for years, and that it would become an amazing safe space for so many of us to process and share, and that I would have real-life friends that I met through Friday-Chickening, I would never have believed it. But here we are, and it is beautiful.
What worked this week?
Two (two!) transition days.
Operation Bell View ended on Sunday night but I built in TWO entire days for recovery.
I hid out at Agent Rosie’s safe house, and it was basically the best thing in the entire world.
There was a bathtub and there were cute dogs and there was a warm, soft bed, which I basically didn’t get out of for two whole days, except to take long baths and then go right back to sleeping.
Thank you, Agent Rosie for offering this, and thank you, past-me, for saying yes. This whole experience was treasure, which is related to the secret mission of Operation Bell View: What Happens When I Treasure Myself?
It turns out that taking time to recover from an intense experience not only is treasure (and treasuring myself, which is more treasure), but it enhances my ability to reveal-and-receive the treasures of the experience itself.
Next time I might…
Ask.
Asking resulted in so many good things for me this week. For example, I asked on the blog for a ride to Bellevue for Operation Bell View and I got one. Also I asked the hotel to call me if they found my sweater in the ballroom, and they did.
Also not asking worked well for me: Agent Rosie offered me a safe house that I didn’t even know I needed.
However, right now I am noticing that I only ask for help once I have Exhausted All The Other Options. I would like to see what happens when I ask for help and support as a practice.
Asking sooner. Not attached to the result. Just finding out what my options are instead of trying to do it all myself and only asking when I am completely sure I can’t manage on my own.
Also: noticing all the beautiful unasked for things, saying thank you for them, replicating them. For example, Agent Rosie left a gallon jug of water on my bedside table: what a gift. The dance convention provided fans (of the kind you wave), another gift.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Hahaha, recovery is hard work. I mean, on the surface what I’m doing doesn’t look like hard work: napping and taking baths. But all the stuff happening below and inside. Big movement. Big thoughts. Big decisions surfacing. A breath for process, and for trusting the process.
- Triggered. A breath for remembering that Now Is Not Then.
- The Spy is going away on a very long secret op (very long, as in: years) that will involve zero contact with the outside world. Not for a while, but there is a date, and it is happening. I feel so joyful for him, I am thrilled about this incredible opportunity, and I support his mission wholeheartedly. And I am going to miss the hell out of him. A breath for letting go.
- I want a thing, and do not currently see how it is possible for me to pursue it. A breath for honoring desire, giving it space, trust, patience.
- On the way back from Operation Bell View I ordered a salad (spinach, goat cheese, walnuts, strawberries). The menu didn’t say candied walnuts, but they were! I haven’t eaten sugar in fourteen years and two months, and half a walnut launched me into a heart-pumpingly high hyper ride that made the three hour journey back to Portland very….interesting. And jittery. A breath for an unexpected, unpleasant, scary moment.
- I have more intel about what I want, but it involves More Work, and I do not want More Work, and I do not know how to make this happen any other way. A breath for waiting for more intel.
- Unexamined sexism showing up all over the place at the dance convention, and went completely unchallenged. It drove me crazy, and even more crazy when you mention it to people and they have no idea what you’re talking about, aren’t bothered by it, and their suggestions for how to handle it are just absurd. A breath for frustration, and for a whole world that needs to change, and needs all of us to be a part of that change.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Operation Bell View! It was even more amazing than I allowed myself to wish for. I had lots of conflicted thoughts about going. Now I have zero conflicted thoughts: it was 100% the best thing ever, and I am so glad I did it. A breath for gratitude, pleasure, over-the-top bliss.
- BUBBLINESS! The superpower of Effervescence from the Calendar of Salves has kicked in for me big time. I have basically been feeling bubbly all week. Bubbly and calm, a beautiful combination. A breath for appreciation.
- I was able to go to a four day dance convention, an insanely intense experience, and really and truly take care of myself the entire time. I gave myself permission to skip everything that wasn’t good for my force field (competitions, performances, hanging out, elevators). I took naps and gave myself yoga and put myself in the bath at every possible opportunity. A breath for having finally learned to treasure this body that is my home.
- Going to bed at 8 so I could get up at 2:30am and dance. Dancing until 6:30 in the morning. A breath for pleasure.
- A champion dancer asked me to dance. Twice. And then we did. Which is kind of like saying, a unicorn asked me to dance and then we danced. It was fun. Haha, fun. Fun is a tiny, stupid, useless word that doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was incredible. Now I know what people mean when they describe a dance as transcendent, taking you to another place. I can’t really describe it, but it was kind of like being suspended in time? If time = delight? Or cocaine? Magic cocaine delight time suspension? Words are not the equal of this experience. It was like floating, but also like moving through a rich liquid, and as everything my body did was perfect because the signals were so clear that I was feeling what was happening instead of doing what I was being told. A breath for remembering forever what that felt like.
- A long recovery bath that was nothing short of life-changing. A breath for letting go and letting go and letting go.
- My purple sweater! It is my favorite sweater, and I left it in the ballroom at the hotel last Thursday night. Went to the hotel Lost and Found every day, nothing. Sunday morning I filled out an inquiry form at the desk in case they found it. By Tuesday afternoon when I hadn’t heard anything, I let it go and had my sad and wished that whoever has it receive much joy from it. An hour later there was a message from the hotel: they found it! The superpower of All That Is Mine Returns To Me. Thank you. A breath for this sweet miracle.
- So much appreciation and thankfulness. Solomon, who gave me a ride while his dog napped on my lap and we listened to the rain. Everyone who danced with me at Seattle Easter Swing. A late night conversation with a friend in the desert. Agent Rosie’s beautiful dogs. Long Slow Deep in the hotel room. The red bracelet. The back-up shoes. Having packed the exact right amount of snacks. Getting lots of writing done on the bus. The Spy getting his good news during Operation Bell View: our missions were connected. The best welcoming-home. Things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I completed Operation Bell View. It was amazing. Still working on Operation KLM and Sea Sky Dance Play. Big progress on the Mission of Xs and Ys. WHAM BOOM.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I had the superpower of taking exquisite care of myself (I have wanted this one forever, see previous chickens!), and the superpower of Knowing When.
Superpowers I want.
Welcome confidence. Both in the sense that I welcome confidence, and that I feel welcome and confident, and that these are related.
And the superpower of Extreme Sexy Fearlessness is working for me, so I will re-seed that one as well.
Salve. The Salve of Everything is a Salve.
A very special salve for our three hundredth Chicken, and this salve is a little meta, yes.
When you rub this salve into your skin, you suddenly remember that everything contains qualities, and everything holds the possibility for healing.
So then you go through your day and you are surrounded by salves. A breath of fresh air fills you with Possibility. Touching the wall grounds you with Steadiness. Rubbing your hands releases a chain reaction of Sweetness. Washing your hands activates Release.
Suddenly you are surrounded by all the right salves. That sign on the storefront that says OPEN is secretly a salve of Opening. That red stoplight is a salve of Rest.
This salve is a key, because it unlocks secret translations. The truth is, everything already was a salve. But once you dip your fingers into the Salve of Everything Is A Salve, you can feel all the other salves….
Enjoy.
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 is also from Lucky Lola (like last week), and also from Maryann and the Vicar, and it is called Bunny Fufu and the Candy Corvettes.
They play rockabilly striptease music (think slow jive), and actually they are 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 #250: bells and wishes
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
Two hundred and fifty weeks of wishing!
How great is that?
I feel pretty excited about this.
So let’s find out what the two hundred and fiftieth wish is, and I will imagine that this wish is infused with the magic of all past — and future — wishes. It’s an extra good wish to week, because I just decided that it is.
I will also add that this post (and wish) was originally titled The Quietest Tipping Point. However, the phrase “bells and wishes” as opposed to bells and whistles is just too funny and so completely perfect.
What do I want?
Hmmm. It has to do with tipping, in a variety of ways.
It has to do with recovery and transition.
And it has to do with bubbles and bubbling.
And pleasure.
What do I know so far?
Today is my fourth day of a just ridiculously packed crazy-intense dance convention in Bellevue, Washington.
I have been calling this Operation Bell View, because I am here in part to learn about being a better bell, which means seeing all the ways that I already am a bell, as well as seeing all the bells around me.
[Being a bell] = [Glowing my light] = [Being connected to qualities] = [Being deeply beautifully quiet]
Dancing is one of my doors into being a bell, and being a bell is my mission, and so here I am in Bellevue aka Bell View, viewing bells.
If that didn’t make sense, don’t worry about it, and just assume that working on becoming a better dancer is interwoven with the main thing I care about in life.
Anyway. A dance convention is not necessarily the most supportive environment for a highly sensitive person. It’s a lot more human contact than I generally am equipped to deal with, it’s wild hours, and a lot of advanced learning.
I’m so glad I said yes to doing it, and now I need some serious recovery time.
What do I know about recovery time?
Recovery and Gentle Transition after Operation Bell View is the big thing right now. Actually it is part of the mission.
No, actually it is the most important part of the mission.
And this is where I have to pause and thank past-me for setting things up for me of right now.
She found me the perfect hideout: I’m staying with Agent Rosie for two days, where I plan to nap in a dark room and oh, I don’t know, probably just more of that.
And I want to use Tipping as my way into Recovery/Transition, maybe even as my methodology.
What do I know about Tipping?
Tipping is a kind of secret agent code, with two meanings, maybe more.
TIP stands for Trust In Pleasure. It is related to my mision of Self-Treasuring and taking exquisite care of myself.
Tipping means knowing and remembering that taking a long bath with epsom salts and lovely oils is not a waste of my time and it is not “indulgence”, it is trusting that this pleasurable experience is deeply healing, and the more pleasure I allow in, the more healing.
There is also tipping like leaving a tip, and I am noticing that I have some Stuff about this, probably residual pain from my five years of bartending. So I am going to gloss over that for now, and I will remind myself that a tip can also refer to intel: receiving information that is vital to the mission.
Tipping also has to do with the tipping point, a la Malcolm Gladwell, the idea of a moment of critical mass that moves things from potential into kinetic.
Tipping like I’m a little teapot.
This makes me think of this joke that Richard and I have. Whenever one of us is sad, we say oh no Poor Me. And the other one says: “Tip me over and Poor Me out!”
Which is also kind of like potential into kinetic, but it is changing the stagnation of a sad poor-me moment into a silly playful one. This is also like the superpower of bubbles and bubbling.
What do I know about bubbles and bubbling?
Haha, I asked this question last week:
Bubbles and bubbling are an important part of recovery and transition because they change the mood.
Blowing bubbles makes everything lighter. You can’t stay in a bad mood while blowing bubbles, I have tried.
Also bubbles in bubble baths.
Also bubbles like bubbling over with joy, which is how I feel when I dance.
And bubbles like Effervescence, the salve and superpower of the month of April on the Fluent Self calendar of Salves. Effervescence means, to me: everything gets lighter, in both senses of that word.
More lightness. More light.
The same thing that happens when I view the bells / when I am a bell.
What else do I know about my wish?
I just want peace and quiet, lots and lots of delicious peace and quiet.
I want to remember that sometimes doing a thing I want requires this kind of deep recovery.
And who knows, maybe lots of things require this kind of deep recovery. Maybe everything.
Maybe this is how I need to exit every mission in order to better enter the next one.
What will help me with my wish?
Not scheduling anything this week.
Crying as much as I need to cry. All forms of release are valid.
Permission and legitimacy. Amnesty.
Anything else? Where do I want to start?
Interviewing Incoming me. Skipping as many stones as possible. Writing and Righting. Xs and Ys. Beautiful dances. To be wonderfully surprised. Red lipstick. Eight breaths. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.
My compass for these wishes:
Sustenance. Trust. Presence. Connection. Anchoring. Warmth. Glow. Receiving.
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.
- 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: Recovery Recovery Recovery.
Clues?
I was watching this television show and someone said that [X] was a waste of time. The other guy said, “It is until it isn’t.”
In this case, X was a stakeout, and this was correct. So. What if other things I tend to think are a waste of time (like pleasure, for example) are actually important missions that haven’t yielded their treasure yet?
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka bubbles and bubbling…
As you can tell, I have been thinking a lot about bubbles. I’m going to silent retreat on this for now, other than to say that the castle is definitely coming down, and I am looking forward to learning about what beautiful things will arrive in its place. Or their places, I should say, since there are several castles involved.
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 #299: Chicken dances the Operation! Bell! View! Countdown! Shuffle!
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
You guys! TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE WEEKS OF CHICKEN.
That is a lot. How are we going to celebrate next week? I’m open to ideas.
What worked this week?
Editing as a soporific…
When I go dancing late at night, it is nearly impossible for me to calm down enough to put myself to bed when it is over. Adrenaline! Excitement!
And none of the usual things that calm me down seem appealing.
I have discovered that the one thing that always seems to work for me is editing. Take out the red pen, go through a few pages, all of a sudden I want to go to bed.
Last-week-me knew I’d be at a dance convention this week, up until all hours, so she put together some editing projects for me. The best.
Next time I might…
Ask: What happens when I treasure myself.
This question changes things for me. It also is a good reminder that whatever I’m currently doing might not be what I need or want.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Most of this week was about the final prep stages of Operation Bell View, and transitioning from preparing for it to actually being on it. And in it. I am literally in Bellevue, Washington. I’ve never really done an op like this before. It is a ton of work, and I’m not even really sure why the Agency put me on this mission to begin with. A breath for trusting the process.
- Oh man, so much stuff from Then. Being at a dance convention is bringing up all these memories of my first ever yoga teacher training, which also happened to be the first teacher training in Israel that had international certification. Half the people in the training were Russians who were former gymnasts, the other half were famous Israeli yoga teachers there for the certificate. I felt so completely out of my element. A breath for remembering that Now Is Not Then.
- Feeling anxious! About all kinds of things. A breath for comfort.
- I was hoping that the missing would get a little easier this week. Nope. Missing, missing, missing. A breath for staying with the sensation and letting it be what is true for me right now.
- Operation Bell View is so much work. A million tiny details. A breath for releasing worry.
- Saying yes to something you want is (or can be) amazing and terrifying. Operation Bell View is a huge commitment towards Dancer Me, and this is new and exciting and scary. A breath for trust.
- Hmm. Silent retreat. A breath for patience and moving through the hard.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- OHMYGOD. I’m here! I made it! Operation Bell View! After all these weeks of planning and training and logisticking. A breath for being exactly where I want to be, in many different senses of that.
- Crimson nails. A breath for the me who wants to be seen.
- Friends. A breath for companionship.
- The seder, a beautiful ritual, people I love, tradition. A breath for my chosen family.
- Nothing is wrong. A breath for remembering this.
- Writing. A breath for process.
- Lilacs. Tulips.Skipping stones in the park. A breath for this beautiful place I live in.
- So much appreciation and thankfulness. The Johnny Boyd show at Secret Society. Distance-nidra with the Spy. Having the exact right thing to wear. Knowing what I want. Things are good. A breath for deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
I am ON Operation Bell View! It is happening. Made progress on Operation KLM and Sea Sky Dance Play. More on the Mission of Xs and Ys. WHAM BOOM.
This coming week I will be recovering from Operation Bell View, which is also part of Operation Bell View. 🙂
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
I had the superpowers of Steady Trust and Finding A Better Option.
Superpowers I want.
More extreme sexy fearlessness. And remembering that I don’t have to carry other people’s problems for them. I don’t even have to carry my own….
Less carrying!
Salve. The Salve of Less Carrying.
Also known as the salve of release.
This salve is like a deep exhalation followed by a deep inhalation followed by another even better exhalation.
It is not letting go like giving up. It is letting go like, oh right this isn’t even mine.
It is a lightening and a re-balancing. Things make more sense with this salve.
Things you stop carrying: other people’s beliefs, projections and desires. Societal and cultural rules and expectations. Various ideas and assumptions about what you “should” be doing or how you “should” be doing it.
None of it needs to be carried. It just doesn’t.
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 is from Lucky Lola and it is called Chicken Attached.
They play Swedish folk music, and actually, as it turns out, it is just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at receiving in all forms, or as I’m calling it: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow. 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.
Special Agent K
When I was a kid, my two favorite breakfast cereals were Special K and something called Kix.
At the moment I am having trouble conjuring up the taste-memory of either of these. It has been over fourteen years since I’ve eaten breakfast cereal, that got dropped when I kicked sugar, yes kicked-with-a-K.
And even then I was living in Israel then where neither of those cereals were available, so it has probably been closer to twenty five years since I’ve tasted either of them.
I’m pretty much convinced though that Kix tastes like vaguely-sweetened crunchy dust. But the name! What a great name.
Even as a child I remember thinking that names were kind of magical. A name could make something seem more appealing than it was. Kix!
Kix! Let’s do it for kicks!
Special Agent K.
So I was at Rally (Rally!), my favorite place to be, if you can call Rally a place, which it isn’t, and it was Rally K in the Alphabet Carousel.
I noticed that I was feeling a little wary about K, because it seemed like there might not be a lot of good K words to play with.
It turns out there are the exact right amount of K words to play with, and not just because Nothing Is Wrong, but because the K words are extra-kicky, and they spread so much kicky joy that they carry you to wherever you need to go.
At Rally, we have cover stories and secret identities, and I said my name was Kay.
And then over the course of Rally it eventually became clear that oh right, of course, I am a secret agent, so I became Agent Kay, and then Special Agent K, which is how my mind became flooded with memories of Special K. And Kix. For kicks!
I learned some interesting things about being K/Kay.
Something fun about temporarily taking on a new identity is discovering how much you know that you didn’t know that you know.
I would have said that I know nothing about this Kay person.
And yet I immediately had the whole story:
My name is Kay. I’m a burlesque dancer and choreographer. I’m here to get better at tassel-twirling and to get over a choreography block. The superpower I have is that I love getting naked in front of people! And I have zero fear of commitment! This doesn’t mean I commit to things if I don’t want them, just that the act of committing doesn’t scare me.
So basically this Kay is nothing like me.
But because I got to be her for three and a half days, I got a feeling of the freedom that Kay knows about.
And I learned about how the other beautiful K words fit into this adventure. So here they are, because how could I not share them with you. For kicks!
I chose eight K words to make a compass.
North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest.
Each direction gets a K word, and then maybe some bonus words. For kicks!
And not just kicks, but HIGH KICKS.
High kicks are extra fun. And also I’m a burlesque choreographer, so why not.
High kicks. Hi, kicks.
I’m on a kick.
Here we go.
Key.
Key is a marvelous K-word. Key is North. North is key.
Lots of things are key. That itself was a key concept from Rally K. The more I pay attention, the more I notice how key the keys are.
Keys are good for Openings.
Keys are also good for Safety.
Keys are beautiful.
Locks are outrageously sexy.
Keys are always available, because any moment can be a door, and entry can happen anywhere.
King.
King is a symbol. I put it at northeast.
King is my reminder that I am a sovereign being, and everyone I encounter is a sovereign being.
I am allowed to have my thoughts, my experience, my reactions, and they are allowed to have theirs.
I don’t get to tell other people what to do or how to feel. I make a point (this is key!) of not agreeing to other people telling me what to do or how to feel, and I certainly don’t have to listen if they try. I have choices.
King means (to me) wearing the crown. It means staying attuned to Kindness.
Kindness.
Kindness and Loving-Kindness are about presence.
Not about being kind because you think you should. Not about thinking other people are less than or more than.
Kindness is about taking a breath. Remembering that we all have our stuff and we’re all working on our stuff and it is a process.
Just this thought is kindness. Wishing people well is kindness. When I remember to say, “May this situation dissolve in love, may peacefulness prevail” instead of “Ugh the cheese shop next door is the worst”, this is me trying to practice kindness.
And kindness goes inward, not just outward.
I can extend kindness to all the Havis, past and future, at all ages and in all situations. It is a way of treasuring myself, taking care of myself.
Knight.
The Knight is in the southeast, and the knight, like the king, is a symbol.
The knight is for bravery, courage, strength, doing the thing that needs doing. I am still going to do it in my own way and at my own pace, the knight is just a reminder that I have the strength I need.
The knight is for setting off on voyages, internal and external.
The knight has a silent K which makes him or her a special agent K.
I am silent and I am Kay, so I am also a Silent K!
Knocking.
South is for knocking, a word that always makes me think of Bryan. During Long, Slow and Deep, he talks about knocking for what seems like forever.
He says that when you are in a yoga pose that is stretching you, it is important to remember that you aren’t trying to make something happen. You aren’t barging down the door. You’re waiting for permission to come in.
These parts of you that you are trying to reach and get close to through yoga….you’re waiting patiently for them to let you in. And you knock to let them know you’re there.
Funny how much I like the word, given how much I hate hearing a knock on the door.
Whenever someone knocks on the door when I’m home, I hide until they go away. If it was someone I knew, they’d text me, so it is not someone I know and they should go away. And by hide, I mean: I drop to the floor and curl up in a ball and panic. Then I notice, and do what I can to calm myself, to soothe the pain of Tiny Havi who doesn’t know that now is now, not then.
I don’t have a clear sense of what the knocking triggers, just that my whole body is terrified.
As a concept though, when Bryan talks about knocking, I love that. It is gentle and sweet. It isn’t a surprise knocking, it is a welcome knocking. Hello friend who has been waiting for me, I am here. Hello sweet lover who has filled their home with flowers for me and is waiting for me to arrive.
Knocking says: Hello, beautiful door. Hello, moment of crossing through.
Knowing.
Knowing goes in the southwest.
So much beauty and grace in these moments of knowing.
Also in the moments of not-knowing, and recognizing how much is unknown. But even that is a deeper form of knowing.
Knowing comes from listening, it comes from my body, it comes from my heart, it comes from my mind, it comes from trees and gardens, and slightly wiser me. It is all the deeper internal intel that I choose to say yes to.
The quieter I get, the more I get to experience moments of Knowing.
This is where all the salves come from, all the qualities. This is how I figured out that Nothing Is Wrong, and that Smiling At The Broken Pots works better than cursing the breaking.
This is how I know when to turn left and when to turn right and when it doesn’t matter at all. Which is always, because everything recalibrates, just like the map that tells you where to go. That is another Knowing that I received from living in silence.
Kinetic.
Kinetic is west.
Kinetic is, for me, one of those all-time sexy words. I can’t remember how or when it first came alive for me as a word. That is a lie. I remember. It was in a love letter, one of many beautiful letters exchanged with a far-away lover once upon a time.
Potential-to-kinetic.
Kinetic is alive. Kinetic is rushing water, passion, that moment right after the moment when everything tips. Kinetic is the kiss that arrives after the first one. The moment of laughing because you aren’t turning back. Kinetic is tearing off clothes and toppling into bed, and then the moment after that and after that.
Kiss.
Kiss is a beautiful word.
I don’t really have much more to say about it than that. I put it at southwest because all compasses should end with a kiss.
Actually I do have more to say about that. Kissing is — as far as I’m concerned — so completely and utterly the best thing in the entire world, and I feel strongly about this.
One time I was talking to a friend and she said that her marriage was perfect except that they never really kiss, because her husband doesn’t like kissing and isn’t good at it, and he doesn’t see the point. And she felt impossibly sad about this because she, like me, thinks that kissing is the best. But everything was “perfect”.
And — this is where we invoke the People Vary rule — I could not even grasp this concept. I wanted to say, RUN AWAY, GET OUT, GO CHANGE YOUR LIFE SO THAT IT CAN INCLUDE KISSING!
Except I didn’t. Her story is not my story, her life is not my life, I don’t get to know what is right for her, I don’t get to make her choices, I only get to make my own.
And I understand how very possible it is to think that having one thing you want means giving up the other thing so you give up the other thing. I have lived this so many times.
I am blowing a kiss right now to soothe this, because kisses are good for that too. Here is a kiss for trusting in all timing is right timing. Here is a kiss for love.
For love.
That is all the K words. Well, not all of them.
There are more wonderful K words. Like kookiness, a quality I happen to strongly identify with. Or kindred, like spirits. Keen. Knitting, as in: bringing things together. Koala is a wonderful K word. Kauai. Kaleidoscopes.
Kay likes all of these things, and so do I.
May it be so! And come play with me.
Thank you, letter K.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with K, go for it.
If you want to share in any of the qualities and magical words I named here, you can.
They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
Whispering loving spells that begin with K, for myself, and for anyone who wants…