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.
Very Personal Ads #88: pudding versus tuckered out
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
So my itty bitty personal ads made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.
Even when the asking thing feels weird and conflicted.
Ever since I posted the first one asking my perfect house to find me, which united me with Hoppy House, I have been a fan of the madness that is personal ads.
And now it’s my weekly ritual for clarity and remembering and stuff like that. Yay, ritual!
Oh, curse you, Daylight Savings Time! My old nemesis has returned once again.
But I’m here! So.
What do we gwish for this week? Or at all?
I have no idea. Let’s find out.
Thing 1: PLUM!
Here’s what I want:
Made lots of progress this past week on the Playground User Manual, and yes, I’m pronouncing it plum, as suggested, because it makes me giggle every single time.
Twenty one pages so far.
And I’ve realized that I’d really like it to be a collaborative effort. To come together at the Playground during the magical events that happen there.
Ways this could work:
I’m thinking that maybe this week at Rally (Rally!), some or all of us could add a page here and there.
May also put out an ask to past Rallions and other lovely people who have come playgrounding with me.
Maybe this will also be the push to help me finish the new Playground website too…
Other than that?
I don’t know. But I would like this to be a joy-filled, fun, colorful collaboration, and for it to come together gracefully and easily.
My commitment.
To see what happens when I don’t try to be in charge of everything but just set the culture for it.
To talk to the parts of me who get freaked out about that and to be curious about what would help them get on board with this.
To say the word PLUM a lot. Plumplumplumplumplumplum. Not plumb, though. No. That would be wrong.
Thing 2: Other binder-ey things…
Here’s what I want:
It’s weird because it used to be that everything in my business was online.
The ship’s log where my pirate crew shares all the important ship-sailing information: in the cloud.
Online courses, ebooks, holding Drunk Pirate Council with the help of a chat room.
Now we have the Playground — a real-life center where this stuff happens. And the Toy Shop at the Playground where we sell things.
And I have binders. Or the Anthologies, as I call them. Because binders remind me of school so I asked metaphor mouse to provide translation services.
Anyway. The anthologies are all kind of half-working. And I’d really like to get them in working order so that I can put them to good use.
Ways this could work:
During the Rally, of course. That would be a marvelous thing to work on.
Or I might have a shivanautical moment of bing that would tell me how best to structure them.
Or the right order could just emerge.
My commitment.
To be curious, loving, inquisitive and playful with this.
To stay receptive to new ways of ordering things.
To notice when I’m starting to turn this into a Big, Stressful, Important Project, which will then result in avoiding the hell out of it, and to try not to do that.
That is, to sweetly interrupt the pattern and find out what I want and need instead.
Thing 3: Closings.
Here’s what I want:
There are some doors that need to be closed, some things I am done with.
Never been very good at endings.
But now is the time.
Ways this could work:
A giant permission slip to have this be as awkward as it needs to be.
I don’t need to try to make this smooth or pretty or anything.
Just to be done and have the ending there.
My commitment.
To be curious about my relationship with endings.
To ask questions.
To feel what I feel and not have to like any of it.
Thing 4: A plan for the mysterious holiday away.
Here’s what I want:
Remember last year when I said that this year I was going to schedule in a holiday each quarter plus regular days off so that I wouldn’t go batty and have to be hauled away on Emergency Vacation?
Well, I did.
What a great plan. Which I totally ignored.
“Hi, days on my calendar that claim to be vacation days.” The fact that I have said this multiple times since January seems to indicate a problem.
Right. So that didn’t work. Trying something else.
In the meantime, I do have a small holiday coming up and I am determined to actually run away in some shape or form. But I do not as yet have plans. And it seems like, weirdly, without planning for this, it might not happen.
Ways this could work:
I’m going to flail on this and use whatever comes out of a whirlwind of Shiva Nata to give me some direction.
I will also ask slightly future me, who knows about these things, to share some information.
And I will ask for a small miracle.
My commitment.
To do the work of figuring out what I want, before I despair that it’s impossible.
And once I know what I want, to find a way to connect to the essence or the qualities of that want.
To play. And then to play some more.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
As always, I seem to have completely forgotten what I asked for the week before.
I wanted courage and I got it. Hooray!
Then there was some stuff about defining emergencies for the Book of Me. Which I did not do. But I added huge amounts of other information to the book this week, so something is moving there.
Then I wanted prep for the March Rally, which definitely happened, and gave birth to all sorts of good things.
And I wanted to gwish for outlandish birthday gwishes. And while they may not have been so completely outlandish, writing about them was really fun and inspiring.
A good week, all in all.
Comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for. Or updates on last time!
Stuff I’d rather not have:
- The word “manifest”.
- To be told how I should be asking for things.
- To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given unsolicited advice.
Wishing love and good things for your Very Personal Ads! I’m so happy to have people doing this with me.
Friday Chicken #136: this picture is too adorable for words.
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
One hundred and thirty six chickens? In a row?
Where does the time go?
It’s Friday, so we’re chickening. Yallah.
The hard stuff
A lot going on.
This is a big week.
And I’m trying to get stuff happening before Rally.
And there is just a lot.
Ketchup ketchup ketchup.
So much to catch up on!
Sleep. Work. Ideas. Things that are in transition, which is oh, everything right now.
Crisis switcheroo. Very funny, internal mechanisms.
So I didn’t at all have the existential crisis that I was expecting. Which is good.
But something else popped up that I’m not thrilled about.
And STILL no heat at the Playground.
Though with the weather changing, pretty soon I’ll be complaining about no cooling at the Playground.
I really need this gets sorted before I get too attached to that humming space heater sound and can’t write without it. Ahahahahaha. Oh, that’s not funny.
The good stuff
That was seriously the best birthday ever.
It is a known thing that I pretty much always have a crappy birthday.
Often the crappy-ness is so unique and spectacular that it breaks its own records.
This year? This year was lovely. It was beyond lovely. Exactly what I would have asked for, had I known.
My gentleman friend took me away on holiday for two days to a place with an extremely magical pool.
Spaciousness, warmth, comfort and goodness. Plus terrific food, time to write, warm water, walks in the sun, naps, whiskey, and being sent to the spa. And presents. Who doesn’t like that?
Me: “But how did you know? This is so completely perfect.”
MGF: “I read your mind. Sometimes your mind is really loud.”
The sweetness of all of you.
Thank you for the warm wishes at the Twitter bar and the Frolicsome Bar and everywhere. Thank you for reading my birthday rituals and being with me for the process.
Thank you for the sweet cards and entertaining gifts.
I now have, among other things, a wonderful book from Marie, an insane and fabulous duck-tea-infuser from Jacquelyn, a pink stuffed pig named Rex, and other delights.
Mwah!
Also, Rex the pig is so awesome that he let Selma sit on his head. See adorable picture of them hanging out with Scootch the hedgehog.
The official birthday of my business.
So the birthdays I usually celebrate in my business are when The Fluent Self got its name and website (that will be six years this August), and the birthday of the blog (three years this June).
But my business officially became a thing five years ago when I walked into the San Francisco City Hall and set off on this crazy thing.
Feeling a lot of love, gratitude, appreciation for the madcap run of drama and adventure that’s been my life since then.
And for my business itself.
Thank you so very much, me-from-then, for trusting your instincts and not listening to any of the many well-meaning people who said we shouldn’t or couldn’t do this. They didn’t know. And you did. Even if you weren’t sure. Some part of you knew.
New cool stuff for the Playground.
Like the giant hot pink bean bag cushion in the Refueling Station (next to the hammock, if you can picture it).
And some crazy turquoise tassels because who doesn’t need tassels.
And some new wigs for the Costumery. All very exciting. Yay.
Progress!
I got way more done than expected on the tentatively-named Playground User Manual (PLUM!).
Progress. It feels really good.
Also we had a super fascinating Kitchen Table call, with some smart, interesting questions that I have been thinking about all week. All good stuff.
Stuff I read and loved this week.
This piece by Maryann on slowing down.
Jesse’s playdate adventures.
Leonie’s beautiful guest post about the medicine of Shiva Nata.
Everything by A. Bitterman (scroll down for the bit on Running the hurdles with Harry Potter). He also has a children’s book. Which you should read. Discovered via @susan_marie.
Meet Plarchie, the giant plastic knitted squid.
Paula and her ruby red lips. Inspiring!
And: play this in a loop and everything will be fine forever.
And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
This week’s band plays flamenco-inspired bluegrass. Which you’d never guess from the name.
That Creepy Blue Mermaid Monster Thing.
Anyway, they have what you would call a unique sound. And yes, it’s just one guy.
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day and a restful weekend-ing.
And a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. Lately we’ve had some apologizing about people doing their chickening on Saturday or Sunday, or even later than that. So, for the record, there’s always chicken amnesty, and you can join in absolutely whenever you like. 🙂
Follow the rabbit holes.
Follow the rabbit holes.
As many as you like.
They are like the fractal flowers: everything is connected underground.
Following something that appears to be a distraction is not a waste of time, if — and it’s a big all-caps IF — you can do it consciously.
Here is what happens down the rabbit holes.
You find that one small seemingly unrelated thing plants seeds for the next piece.
The piece you’ve been looking for. Or the piece you didn’t even know you needed.
You connect the dots.
You find the treasures.
You discover that all roads lead to the thing you’re trying to get to anyway.
You realize that you are not avoiding your project. You are investigating an aspect of it. Or learning something that will help you with it.
Like this.
At Rally (Rally!), we delight in rabbit holes. We have permission slips written on popsicle sticks to remind us the rabbit-hole-following is useful.
And still we doubt.
But it works. Like this:
You’re working on an outline for something you’re projectizing.
Your post-Shiva-Nata brain is firing like mad.
You make your way to the Galley to get a cup of tea, and out of the corner of your eye you notice a book about labyrinths. It speaks to you.
You see there’s a section that will teach you how to draw one yourself, and then you say, “Oh no! This is a distraction! This isn’t what I’m here to do!”
But you have committed to being receptive to the rabbit holes.
You remember that there are many ways to get to the thing you want.
And now you have two possible rabbit holes, if not more.
You could choose to sit and talk to the well-meaning fear-and-guilt monsters who won’t stop yelling. You can bring curiosity and play to deciphering your internal rules that say no, working on a project has to be X and can never be Y.
That would be an excellent rabbit hole to dive into.
Because you know what? These patterns will show up in other aspects of your project and other parts of your life.
It is a worthy mission to collect information about this stuff so it can’t hold you back from your power in other, really vital situations.
Another worthy rabbit hole: you could just decide that something about labyrinthing is going to help your project.
You can actively choose this rabbit hole of learning about the labyrinth as a clear and intentional expression of choice, curiosity, receptivity, sovereignty and play.
Or follow both.
Either way, you will get what you need.
If you take fifteen minutes to draw labyrinths…
You might get the deep-in-your-body realization that your outline doesn’t actually need to be so linear.
Or that you need to work backwards — reverse engineering! Or that there are shortcuts that you couldn’t see before.
If you talk to the guilt machine….
You might get more information about how to sneak past some of the tough parts of your internal video game.
Maybe you have a new ally.
Maybe you have also resolved another fear that would have totally sabotaged this project six months from now.
But you will get something. And it will be good.
Find out.
If that book winks at you and you want to follow it, follow.
Just decide that you are going to find out what is in there and how it is going to help you. Experiment. Give it ten minutes. Follow it.
And not just following, but knowing that you are going to actively engage with the rabbit hole. You are going to interact with the guilt and the fear by being inquisitive, gentle, open to being wrong about what their purpose is.
The rabbit holes take you to where you need to go. Especially when you aren’t fighting with yourself the entire way. When you’re paying attention and staying receptive to the notion that something is here for you.
The rabbit holes make the connections for you. And they do it under the surface.
One of the hardest parts of this kind of intentional projectizing that we do at Rally is trusting and just going with it.
Not treating the the monsters or the walls as distractions — because they aren’t. Treating them as part of the adventure.
The important part is that it’s intentional and active.
Not subconscious and passive.
Follow and ask questions. Follow and take notes. Follow and engage with what is happening.
The outside culture says yell at yourself for following the urge to fold laundry instead of writing that proposal.
I say: find out what is waiting for you in the laundry.
Because you can decide that there is something for you to learn, meet or discover in the folding.
Is it a quality (like peacefulness or order) that you need to fill up on? Is it the taking time out? Is it a rhythm? Is it the spaciousness that happens when you clear this pile out of the way?
There could be all sorts of things there. And so much power comes from that moment when you give yourself permission to be playful and find out.
Exceptions, caveats, play and comment zen for today.
- This practice of actively following rabbit holes is totally an advanced practice. Permission to not have to try this yet. To let it percolate and settle over time.
- This practice is also way easier at Rally because no internet! Online rabbit holes are considerably harder. Interacting consciously with internet distractions can take years of practice.
- Much of this may feel untrue. This post will probably trigger a lot of resistance. That’s because this concept is crazy counter-intuitive. We live in a culture that is all about forcing. And fighting.
- Often we don’t trust ourselves because of past experience. Interacting with those parts of us who are afraid we will get lost in depression is another useful rabbit hole to spend some time with.
- There are a lot of biggified experts out there saying that the way to get something done is to put your ass in the chair and shout ass-in-chair at yourself, to struggle. The ass-in-chair people reflect our internal monsters. They mean well. They just don’t know how to do change without self-inflicted violence.
- Find your own way. Do what works. Ignore the rest.
- Remember that people vary. And that non-violence trumps the people-vary rule. So we don’t get to use the people-vary rule as an excuse for self-abuse.
- There’s time. Even for this. So it doesn’t have to make sense right now. The rabbit holes will be there for you whenever you are ready for them.
As always, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We let other people have their stuff, and we don’t give unsolicited advice.
We try things. We flail around. We laugh when we can and it’s okay when we can’t.
I would love to hear about some of your rabbit holes.
xox
The Unlikely Side Effect.
I have been making a collection of results and side effects that often come from being on Rally (Rally!) and projectizing up a storm at the Playground.
This has been a very entertaining experiment, and works well with the Playground User Manual and the Re-Entry Survival Kit, two projects I will be using Rally to finish.
And then two Rallies ago, someone pointed out a thing I’d already been thinking but hadn’t wanted to say out loud because it sounds crazy and what if it’s only true in my head.
But apparently if you’ve been on Rally, you already know about this, because everyone there agreed:
People are WAY better looking at Rally. Everyone.
Everyone becomes more attractive at Rally.
I’m not entirely sure why this is.
At first I assumed it had to be the flattering lighting.
Or a combination of that and how we’re all way more relaxed and happy than usual.
But Rally-ites (Rallions?) were reporting that during and after Rally, other people were noticing. Outside people.
Casey said that people always ask her if she’s lost weight. And then she’s all Uh, no. I was at Rally…
And I always find that people on the street seem to be smiling at me more when it’s Rally. And yes, Portlanders are a smiley crowd. But it’s something else.
So I’ve been asking my fellow Rally mice what they’ve noticed and what’s up with that.
Everyone agrees that yes, it is definitely a thing, but why?!
Here’s what came up when we talked about.
I’m not sure that any one of these things can work as a theory, but together you get a sense of something.
The Playground glow.
“There’s a Playground glow!”
“I always feel more attractive here. Permission floods my body. There’s so much more permission in my life, and I can extend it to all of me. It means I’m much more at home in myself and comfortable in my body and in how I move.”
Freedom and autonomy too:
“It’s having all that freedom from care-taking: reduced anxiety about what other people are thinking or how they are reacting.”
“I think it’s the autonomy. You really are in charge of your own experience here, and your relationship with your project and your time and your space. There is so much power in that. I stand taller. I smile more…”
And the napping.
“Definitely all the napping. I nap like, at least twice a day when I’m on Rally, because it just feels so comfortable. And so I’m getting a lot done but also weirdly relaxed.”
Related to napping:
“Being in an environment of total non-judgment.”
“Play! Being around stuffed animals and hiding in blanket forts and wearing costumes and drawing with markers. It puts you back into that radiance of youth.”
Everyone agreed with this one:
“Yes! You’re shiny and happy because you’re sovereign — you don’t care what other people think. No one can tell you that you’re playing wrong. You know how to play!”
The comfortable-ness.
Like this:
“You get to see other people in their beauty and radiance, what they’re like when they’re comfortable being themselves, and then you love them even more.”
“It’s more comfortable to be around other people who are enjoying themselves.
And the thing that someone says at nearly ever single Rally:
“I’ve been more authentically myself over the past few days than ever in the rest of my life, since I was a little kid.”
It’s crazy. But in a good way. I am liking this crazy.
Right? Back me up if you’ve rallied or been to the Playground!
This is a thing. And it makes no sense, still. But it’s a thing.
Does it last?
I don’t know. You tell me. How long do we carry Rally glow with us?
And really, I am going to have to run some studies with people who have done multiple Rallies or other Playground events to see what their experience is like.
And an unlikely opportunity.
The next Rally starts the evening of Monday, March 14. That is in a week! A week!
We have arranged for Jillian, who is a terrific photographer and Friend of The Fluent Self to be there to do a no-cost blog headshot session with anyone at the Rally who wants one.
If you’re there, you can get a wonderful high-quality headshot photo of you to use on your blog, website, whatever, while you just happen to be looking your absolute most radiant and confident.
I’m getting one too, and I am so excited.
We’ve had bizarre turnover for this one — so if you want a Stowawayship scholarship, do that quickly. That is all.
Some translations, if you have no idea what I’m talking about:
The Playground is the the center I founded where we practice living the stuff that I write about here, and we destuckify and it’s very laid back and extremely fun.
A Rally is where we spend three and a half days making big, crazy progress on any project at all (an ebook? a product? an art project? a business idea? the Book of You?), in the most comfortable, supportive, magical environment imaginable.
With presents and snacks and star shows and other delightful-but-impossible-to-describe things.
And comment zen for today?
The usual stuff applies about giving everyone room to have their own experience.
If you’ve been on a Rally and have a theory about why we’re hotter there, or why it is so magical, or why its magic is so hard to explain, I’d love to hear it.
Or if you just want to say YAY RALLY.
Or if you want to build an imaginary blanket fort here. Because that’s always fun.
Kisses.
A letter from me-of-next-year to me-yesterday.
A few weeks ago in one of the Very Personal Ads, I asked for “birthday rituals”. Not really knowing what would show up, but just hoping that something would emerge.
And nothing showed up until then it did. I felt drawn to write a letter to me a year from now, and then I asked her to write back to me.
Yesterday, on my birthday, I shared the letter I wrote to future-me. Today I am posting the letter that she wrote back. This is from me one-year-from-yesterday.
My love,
You are so good to me.
I wish I could paper your world with permission slips: to do less, to know that you are enough, to trust the mission and let the mission do the work.
Take time for you now.
Take more of it.
There is enough. You may not be able to feel the truth of that yet, but there is.
What I wish for you.
Vision, perspective, strength, compassion, comfort, safety, protection, shelter, isolation, connection, sanctuary, trust, knowledge of your own beauty and your own power, appreciation, welcoming, belonging, structure, order, kindness, containment, agility, wisdom, anchoring.
May you know that everything you have done this past year is sufficient and beautiful as it is.
I know you don’t believe me but one day you will.
What I do for you.
I talk to you.
And I hold your hand.
I am the deep breath and the quiet release. I am the loving companion.
Did you know? I create retroactive emergency vacations for you. I help you find your safe spaces.
I plant trust and hope in every corner for you.
And I encourage you to follow desire. With curiosity, receptivity and conscious awareness.
We play. We play a lot. And I look after you.
What I need from you.
Keep me in your sights.
Talk to me often. Call on me for help.
Do less than you think is “necessary”, but more than actually happens:
Do three yoga poses instead of resenting the hour you don’t have, close your eyes for fifteen minutes instead of waiting until you get a real break, whatever that might mean.
Feel out the structures and set up the forms so that I can come in.
Keep dancing the dance.
Know that you are not alone.
The planting of the gwishes.
[This is where I listed all the things I want from the coming year.
These are silent gwishes – things that are in between goals and wishes. They have to do with being the queen of my internal world and everything that comes from that.]
What I am giving you.
Signs and reminders.
Color.
Flowers.
Appreciation.
A magical bath.
Your crown, of course.
I am with you already.
I am with you already.
Take care of yourself as best you can, and I will be with you the entire way.
Play with me! And comment zen for the blanket fort…
No matter where your birthday falls in the year, maybe you would also like to see what happens when you ask you-in-a-year to write to you-right-now.
It can be as short or as long as you’d like. You can share it here or not. You can follow the structure that came to me or invent your own or just write whatever comes into your head however it wants to appear.
As always: this is a wonderfully safe place. We let everyone have their stuff and their own experience. We make space for people by being welcoming, and not giving unsolicited advice.
Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.