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.
Here’s What’s Done.
So, as you may have gathered, I’m deep inside of an absolutely gigantic project.
This means I spend most of my time looking/poking at What Is Not Yet Done.
Because there is a certain amount of DONE that needs to happen in order for Stompopolis to open.
Or at least: This Is Relatively Do-able and/or What The Hell Ready Enough. But some form of done needs to happen. And ideally as soon as we can swing it.
Anyway, it’s kind of exhausting having my eyes on What Is Not Yet.
I’m ready for the point where you turn around and exclaim over how it actually looks like you’ve done a lot.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa look how far we’ve climbed! Wow. I had no idea! This is breathtaking and incredible. “
That’s what I need right now. So let’s do that.
Here’s What’s Done.
Let’s see…
The new Destuckification Playground has been transformed.
The massive stage is built.
The stairs for the stage are built.
The trim and carpeting for the stage are here.
The sides of the columns (did I mention that we have an enormous ballroom?) have been painted ORANGE, and the faces have been painted a buttery cream.
The Toy Shop is painted. The Mezzanine is painted. The Treatment Room is painted.
The stage is painted. The curtains are mostly up.
As of yesterday, the baseboards are painted (yay!), and now everything looks sharp.
Let there be light. And sound. And internet.
The electrician came and put up the spotlights for the stage.
The rest of the lighting has been ordered.
The chandeliers have been cleaned.
The sound system is on its way.
Internet in ten days.
Necessary things have been ordered.
Like fairy doors.
But also: the new yoga mats.
The French bulldogs of entry. The owls.
Necessary things have been bought and collected.
Various furnishings.
Tables, chairs and rugs.
We have a massage table coming for the Treatment Room.
Necessary decisions have been decided.
About the nineteen Stations inside the new Playground.
About signs and systems and hours and prices and how/when/who/what-if.
Cloth.
We have been cutting and knotting and cutting and knotting.
Thinkery is being thought.
About so many things!
Meditations are being meditated.
I have been going deep.
This project (which, by the way, is really not a big enough word for being on a crazed mission to change a city and launching five different businesses at the same time) requires a lot of INSIDE time.
Not just interior but very interior. And even more interior than that.
So I’m doing it.
The humming is humming itself.
And every day I go to the new space and I sing to it.
I sing the Embarking song from Rally (Rally!) and I sing it the special songs that it likes. And it reverberates and hums. It hums READY READY READY and PLAY PLAY PLAY and LOVE LOVE LOVE.
This will happen.
This will happen.
This afternoon, I am going back to the piles of notes. To all the deciding that is yet to be decided, the systems that don’t exist yet, the challenges that have not yet found their perfect simple solutions.
To the bathrooms that need seemingly endless work and the Nap Room, which has not even been prepped for painting yet. The hooks, the web copy, the cushions, the signs, the softwares, the mistakes, and whatever else is in the labyrinth. Don’t forget about juice glasses!
But just for now, I am turning around. Deep breath in and out. Surveying all that has been done and put into place.
And all the internal expansion that I have done to become the version of me who can pull this off.
From the knowing that this new place exists (which I have known in my heart for two years) to being Almost-Ready-To-Open.
Stompopolis will hold many things.
A full-time open-to-the-public Playground where anyone can come and play.
A Shiva Nata studio with daily classes.
Treatments: thai massage, chiropractic, bodywork and fun coach-ey things.
An Introvert Recovery Room where you can spend an entire hour napping, meditating, reading, being with your project or just basking in alone time.
We have new offices. And of course there’s the current Playground — which is now becoming the Playground Caboose. That’s part of it too.
Stompopolis will hold 7600 square feet of transformative, playful, hilarious, sweet, gentle, joyful, fun, exploration for gleefully making progress on projects, gwishes, and anything else that needs destuckifying and biggifying.
And this is JUST THE BEGINNING.
Hello, every-step-already-taken.
Sometimes it seems like there’s still forever to go.
And I’m planting this here as a reminder that actually the view from here is pretty damn impressive.
Hi, new Playground! Hi, new space! I’m on my way.
Play with me. The commenting blanket fort.
What I would love:
Joyful welcoming for Stompopolis and for all the marvelous things that will live inside of it. Also hand-on-heart sighs for both how far we have climbed and for the rest of what is left.
No advice, please. Just warmth and appreciation for what we’ve done so far.
And if you would like to take your own Turning Around — in Grand Fashion!— to look at the view from a different angle, you are welcome to join me. I think I’ve been giving myself a crick in the neck from all this peering upward.
Love love love.
Very Personal Ads #141: Flibbertijibbet. Or Quoz.
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these VPAs to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, even when asking feels conflicted.
I always get useful information about my relationship with various aspects of the ask. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: the just-right buffer phrase.
Here’s what I want:
I need a phrase that means STOP!!! Schtopp!
Ideally it would sound less dramatic.
Though actually I don’t care whether or not it sounds dramatic. I just want it to be a positive, not a negative.
Like: “Okay, Pause! Paws!”
Or like in Ounce Dice Trice, when you can change the subject by saying Flibbertijibbet. Or QUOZ.
Except it isn’t about changing the subject. It’s about saying: “HEY. Urgent need for several seconds of silence in order to reconnect to essence because disconnection has happened.”
Ways this could work:
The truth is, I already have this.
I have Hiro‘s marvelous phrase: “This isn’t working for me.”
I have Ish Kabibble!
I can call a time out AND an Ish Kabibble.
So I guess my ask is really about a) remembering, and b) being able to maintain a calm, light-hearted presence in these situations.
I’ll play with…
Wanting the want.
Noticing the glitch before we’re into the glitchery. Stopping before the essence of the thing I am intent on has left the room.
Thing 2: More about doing things in Grand Fashion.
Here’s what I want:
My experiments with having things happen in Grand Fashion have been a really big deal.
I’d like to do some writing and consolidating of data.
Ways this could work:
Morning writing. Skipping some stones. And, of course, taking five steps backwards. In Grand Fashion.
I’ll play with…
Doing THIS in grand fashion too. Ha! Take that!
Thing 3: Making it fun.
Here’s what I want:
I have a big week ahead of me.
And I’d like all the things that seem impossibly impossible to turn out to be fun.
Or maybe I can be fun in the way that I approach them. I would like to say: Wheeeee this is all new and exciting!
Ways this could work:
I’m planting it here.
I’m also noticing that I have Ludicrous Fear Popcorn about people thinking that I’m having fun, so I want to give more attention to that. Maybe do some Shiva Nata on the patterns so they can reconfigure themselves.
I’ll play with…
Thing 4: We need more cloth, please!
Here’s what I want:
Everyone has been lovely about sending us cloth in purples, blues and greens for the new open-to-the-public Treatment Room.
And we need way more.
Size is unimportant. Sheets, pillow cases, old t-shirts that we can cut up.
Purples and blues more than greens as we already have lots of green.
And DARK or BRIGHT is definitely preferable to pale, though really it all helps.
Ways this could work:
I’m going to ask here again.
Our mailing address:
The Fluent Self, Inc.
1526 NE Alberta, #218
Portland, OR 97211
United States
I’ll play with…
I can also ask at the Floop and on Facebook, aka the Frolicsome Bar.
And I am going to keep working on being okay with receiving help.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I asked for recommendations for CUBBIES, and got lots. Thank you. Special thanks to Angela, for all the great library furniture links!
Still no decisions made on that, but feeling more hopeful about solutions.
I wanted a rolling stool for the massage room, and still want one.
I asked for a fix-it-ey person who can take down the lights at the Playground Caboose. My guess is that we won’t be able to make progress on that until the new space opens, but I will keep asking.
Really, all of the asks from last week were about the pain hiding underneath the wanting. So I’m going to rewrite all of these to focus on the thing that I really want, which is to feel more supported in this gigantic project. And of course the ask behind that is to reconfigure the old patterns that keep me from seeing the support that is there and accessing it.
Play-filled comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Wanted: Your own personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like.
- You can also do these on your own or in your head. You can always call silent retreat!
- Leave your gwishes! Throw things in the pot!
- Things we try to keep away from: the word “manifest”, telling people how they should be asking for things, unsolicited advice.
- VPA amnesty applies, of course. Leave yours any time between now and next Sunday (or whenever, really) — it’s all fine by us!
xox
Friday Chicken #190: benediction chicken
In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Wow, Friday. I mean, Friday.
This has been a big week. I think I will begin this week’s Chicken with some thank yous.
Point of thanks.
Thank you, Playground. Thank you, Rally (Rally!). Thank you, space. Thank you, body. Thanks to Alon for presence, and to T.J. for discernment and to Zach for drinks. Thank you, Chuck, for yoga in the dark. Thank you, Bryan. Thank you, Ath.
The hard stuff
Staying above the minutiae.
Everyone wants decisions and I don’t have any yet.
Some things need to percolate.
Getting sucked into the small things instead of interacting with the small things.
Feeling massively overwhelmed.
SO. MANY. THINGS.
Doing the things that I know don’t work.
Getting lost in the online river.
Thinking that work stuff should take precedence over pause (paws!).
Thinking that I can take care of myself later.
Not doing the things that I know do work.
Every time that things were hard this week, yoga and Shiva Nata and singing and force-fielding brought me back.
And every time things were hard, it was, of course, because I hadn’t done any of those things to begin with.
Forgetting about how now is not then.
And then falling apart because I got disconnected from my superpowers.
Recognizing a mistake.
Hello, mistake. Hello, misunderstanding of my capacity.
In Grand Fashion!
The new practice of doing things In a Grand Fashion brought up all kinds of stuff for me.
It was incredibly useful, and also: ohmygoodness, I have a lot of stuff.
Changes.
All this surrender business is work.
Which is really funny, because……YES. That is exactly why it’s funny.
The big experiment.
I was running a giant experiment at Rally this week with how I [verb] Rally, and at points that was really challenging.
Mainly because I was secretly hoping to have a specific hypothesis proven in a specific way, which is not what happened.
Releasing expectations and letting go of attachment is a full-time job right now. All results are useful. I just need to remember that.
Agreeing to something even when I know it’s a horrible mistake.
Having learned the hard way a hundred million times, you’d think I’d remember:
Never agree to “answer a quick question” right from someone who works with me right before embarking on something important like a phone call. Or yoga.
Invariably, whatever they think is a “quick question” is actually something that derails months of work that I thought was done, and then I’m all shaky and off-balance for the experience that requires my immediate attention.
I know it’s okay to say “not right now” or to take a silent retreat. I just don’t remember that I should. That it’s really more of an absolutely absolutely.
I am ready for this to stick. Entry entry entry.
The good stuff
The stage! It’s built!
The First Mate and Danielle’s Hunky Man came in on Sunday and just hauled ass.
They put in a spectacularly impossible 12 hour day of barnraising.
And now we have the most wonderful stage in the new space.
In a Grand Fashion!
Doing things In Grand Fashion brought a lot of presence and delight into many different aspects of this week.
Plus I learned a lot about various false assumptions I’ve been operating under.
HUZZAH!
Taking five steps back.
It works.
Shiva Nata.
Not only did I have ten thousand epiphanies this week, thanks to the madcap shivanautical flailing we did this week, but I also feel better about everything I’ve been going through. Because I can see the patterns.
We did a hilarious class with sound effects. Bloomph-bing! Wheee-oooh!
And some amazing meditations.
The workshop I did for the roller derby team was also extremely entertaining.
Understandings about what comes next.
And a path to follow.
Someone who let me fall apart and didn’t have stuff about it.
Usually when I fall apart, people in my life can’t handle it.
This person was able to just let it be the temporary reality, and be with me while I was in it.
It was amazing.
Presence, grace, effort and effortlessness.
That’s all I want to say about that.
Yoga.
Related to the above.
Rally (Rally!)
Rally #18!
A lovely group of bright, creative, marvelous people. No surprise there. It’s a wonderful, life-changing, incredibly special and subversive way to spend a week.
My projects are grateful, and so am I.
The great experiment.
I learned a lot of interesting things.
Relearning something I thought I already knew.
But now, thanks to Shiva Nata, I know it way deeper.
I know that the three different things I was working on are actually one thing, and I know what I need to do in order to take care of myself.
Dinner with T.J.
Dinner with T.J. = a very special thing.
And I was right.
I got to go to the bar that I always think of as “that bar that I would totally go to if I were twenty five.”
And it was that bar.
More thank yous.
To Corie, Kaari, Karen, Shannon and Isabel for fabric for the new space..
Thank you to all the Playground painting mice: Rhiannon, David, Chuck, Casey, Sam, Briana, Elizabeth, Danielle, Tyger Bomb.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band is from Vancouver:
Ross Covered Mocks
They’re loud and happy. I sing their songs in the shower.
Though as it turns out…. it’s actually just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- I’m hardly teaching at all next year. So if you want to study with me in person and go on a beautiful epiphany-filled sparkly voyage, come to a Rally (Rally!). May, July and September are almost full. Next year there will only be a couple Rallies, and then we’re done.
- Everything you do goes better when it happens with conscious entry. I highly, highly, highly recommend the Art of Embarking.
- There are now only four spots left for Crossing the Line: the 8 Day Voyage. (password: haulaway).
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
In Grand Fashion.
This morning I accidentally caught the tail end of a radio interview while preparing for my day, which is a special day because I am at Rally (Rally!).
The guy being interviewed was a top athlete who hadn’t competed in several years. The interviewer asked if he expected to do well. If he thought he might win.
And he did. He was quite certain about it. And not only did he expect to win, but he planned to do it in grand fashion.
This phrase has been soaring in my heart all day.
Grand!
I absolutely ADORE the idea of doing something in grand fashion.
What would my day look like if I expected things to happen in a grand fashion? Or if I took steps to make them that way?
This morning I was setting up for Glow Sitting (shhhh, secret agent code for meditating).
And instead of just plopping down on my cushion and lighting my candle, I set things up. In Grand Fashion!
I made a circle of colorful blocks — because I work at a Playground!
The cushion went in the center of the circle. I sang a song. With a Gigantic Flourish at the end, in grand fashion. There was tea waiting for me.
And so my meditation, while simple, was also… marked. It was adorned.
All sorts of things could be different if they happened in a grand fashion.
At least, that is my experiment.
What happens to say, taking a break to go to the bathroom, assuming you could take that break in a grand fashion?
What happens to a snack?
How do I approach Drinking A Glass of Water differently if today I’m going to do it in grand fashion?
There are no rules about how this works.
In Grand Fashion doesn’t mean that the thing itself has to be fancy, or that it has to happen with trills and flourishes.
It really means PRESENCE. And grace. And curiosity and excitement.
It means doing the thing I would do anyway, but knowing that I am completely committed to doing it with panache. To being fully in it.
Or doing the thing I think is not-special or not-meaningful in a way that reminds me that it is.
I am pretty sure that doing things In Grand Fashion will lead to delight and play. I’m pretty sure that I will discover things. And that all of this is related to preparing for the voyage.
But mainly there will be slightly more time and slightly more space.
I’m giving that to myself, but also to my choices and to my reactions. And not in a boring way either. I’m doing it in grand fashion.
And, as my fellow Rallions know, because we coded this into our morning Shiva Nata practice… bing wheee mmmm oooo presence, gotcha!
Play! And the commenting blanket fort.
You are welcome to experiment with me, to mess around with this and apply it in various ways. You could have your internal scientists take notes, if you like.
Otherwise I am also receptive to rejoicing and saying YAY for embellishments and extras. Oooh, you could even leave comments In Grand Fashion, if you so choose.
And of course it is always okay to take a silent retreat.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We take care of ourselves by taking loving responsibility for our experience. We let everyone else have their experience. We make space for ourselves.
Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
Very Personal Ads #140: pleasing to everyone involved
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these VPAs to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, even when asking feels conflicted.
I always get useful information about my relationship with various aspects of the ask. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: Shoe cubbies!
Here’s what I want:
I want a recommendation for fabulous shoe cubbies that can go outside the giant new Destuckification Playground that we’re opening.
Everyone has been recommending the Ikea Expedit, and we want something that holds way more cubbies than that. it needs to fit lots of shoes, and we can’t attach it to the wall.
The cubbies do not need to be big. People will be able to take their bags into the main space, it’s just shoes we’re leaving in the hall. Like at a yoga studio.
This solution should be relatively easy/speedy to implement.
Ways this could work:
One of you might have an idea.
One of my yoga colleagues might have an idea.
Maybe someone who works in a nursery school or daycare?
I can also ask on the Floop.
Or maybe the perfect simple solution will reveal itself.
I’ll play with…
Asking.
Working on the part that is my stuff (issues about space). And on the part that happens in the soft, below the surface.
Thing 2: A rolling stool for our massage people.
Here’s what I want:
We’re opening a treatment room in the new space, and we need a rolling stool.
Recommendations?
Ways this could work:
Same as before.
Maybe someone here knows.
Maybe someone in Portland has one.
Maybe I could convene an Enthusiastic at the Playground Caboose (which is what we’re now calling the original Playground) and we could come up with options for all the things we need in order to open, which are many.
I’ll play with…
Staying calm.
Trust. Faith. Presence. Patience. Working on the part that is mine.
Thing 3: A fix-it-ey person.
Here’s what I want:
I want someone who can take down all the old lighting in the Playground Caboose.
This person should be handy and capable. Normally I’d have people who can do it but they’re busy building the new stage.
Maybe we could do some kind of awesome trade.
Ways this could work:
I don’t know.
I’ll play with…
Planting the wish.
Thing 4: A resolution to a challenging situation.
Here’s what I want:
Somehow a solution comes to the surface that is pleasing to everyone involved.
It happens easily and smoothly, and in a way that I currently can’t picture.
Ways this could work:
I can shift stuff on my end, and change my relationship to this situation.
I’ll play with…
Making this part of my mysterious PROJECT while I’m at Rally (Rally!) this week.
Doing lots of stone skippings and reflecting.
Thing 5: [Silent Retreat]
Here’s what I want:
I’m taking a silent retreat on this one.
Ways this could work:
Humming my happy hum. Doing Shiva Nata to see the patterns more clearly and to allow things to change.
I’ll play with…
Wanting what I want, without having to know how it could happen.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted a rededication of my pirate queen quarters. No physical progress yet, but lots of mental-emotional shifting. So that feels important. Re-asking.
And I wanted changes to the Playground Caboose, which is also happening slowly and mostly in my head, though actually I did move a bunch of things around. This theme is a big one.
Then I wanted a wiki, and the one Marisa recommended (Twiki!) looks like it will work. We’ve just started playing with it.
I also wanted to set up the 2013 Rally dates, and while they aren’t finalized, I sat with that and thought about quarters.
Next I wanted ease-filled resolution to some challenging situations, and using the alignment technique saved my ass.
There was an ask about preparing for Rally by changing how we do the Orientation, and that is READY. I scrapped the whole thing and rebuilt it. It was a ton of work but I’m feeling good about having it done.
And then there were my Silent Retreat asks, which I had to look up. It was four different things, and three of them happened exactly as I’d wished for. The other one turned out to be the wrong question, but I had a massive shivanautical insight about what the right one is. So that was all good.
Play-filled comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Wanted: Your own personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like.
- You can also do these on your own or in your head. You can always call silent retreat!
- Leave your gwishes! Throw things in the pot!
- Things we try to keep away from: the word “manifest”, telling people how they should be asking for things, unsolicited advice.
- VPA amnesty applies, of course. Leave yours any time between now and next Sunday (or whenever, really) — it’s all fine by us!
xox