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.
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.
A letter from me today to me a year from now.
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.
Today is my birthday. And here is the letter I wrote.
Dear me in a year from now,
I feel so close to you, so much love for you. And I’m also a little intimidated by you.
But then I remember that me-last-year was also intimidated by me-now, and that I told her that everything would be okay.
And it was. And here I am.
So let me step out of all this tangle and tell you what I know.
I love you so much.
Everything I do now is for you.
Sometimes I guess wrong, I miscalculate, I overestimate my capacity.
And still, every decision I arrive at has the secret intention to make your life more peaceful and harmonious, more grounded.
I realize, of course, that what you want the most is for me to take care of now-me first.
Because that is how I can be the strongest, healthiest me when I am you. If that makes sense.
And I do.
I do try to take care of now-me. That is one of the many things I want to give you.
What I have learned this year, among other things:
Sacrificing now for what is to come only cripples me-who-is-now. It makes the connection between us more shaky and more hesitant.
So I’m not going to do that anymore.
I nap for you. I stop for you. I flail for you. And also for me.
What I wish for you.
Support, sovereignty, peace, radiance, comfort, spaciousness, grounding, play, possibility, delight, strength, courage, wonder, trust, forgiveness, ease, resilience, flexibility, power, love.
It is clear to me now that you already inhabit these qualities. In fact, I’m pretty sure that your world is more full of these than I can even imagine.
Probably mine is too.
But you see them. You are better at seeing what is already there.
What I do for you.
I pause before each doorway: three, two, one.
Before each transition: three, two, one.
Before bed. Before visiting the river.
What I need from you.
Remind me that my gwishes are valid — that my wanting is legitimate and useful.
Show me how much you benefit from each piece that gets put into place now.
Comfort me when I am fearful.
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.
A flag with an image of take-out food on it.
The rocking chair.
An itinerary for pirate queen holidays.
Colored pencils.
A tiny boat.
This is your year.
I cannot wait to meet you.
Play with me! And comment zen for the blanket fort…
Even if your birthday already happened or isn’t coming for a while (or maybe it is your birthday — hi, Tricia!), you can totally write a letter to you-in-a-year.
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. And waving to all the other pisces out there.
Maybe tomorrow I can show you the letter that me-in-a-year-from-now wrote to me. Blowing kisses.
Very Personal Ads #87: redundantly sneaky ninja, I guess
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 Sunday ritual for clarity and remembering and stuff like that. Yay, ritual!
Oh, hooray for Very Personal Ads.
I totally need this round.
Thing 1: courage for a thing I’m working on.
Here’s what I want:
There is a project that I am currently rethinking and reformulating.
And I have this baby idea of a way to make it completely crazy, unexpected and different.
Pulling it off will require flexibility, agility, a willingness to fall on my face and some extra resources of courage. Yes, please. Some of that.
Ways this could work:
In bits and pieces.
In flashes of light.
In an unlikely shivanautical epiphany. A chain reaction of them. Bing bing bing bing.
And in all sorts of other ways that can surprise me.
My commitment.
I will stick with this.
Maybe projectize it during Rally (Rally!) next week.
I will find courage in all sorts of narrow places. And I will keep asking.
Thing 2: Defining emergencies.
Here’s what I want:
On Emergency Undisclosed Location Vacation last week, I did a lot of thinking (with help from Cairene) about what exactly constitutes a business emergency or a physical emergency, and why I’m faster to respond to the former, even though the latter is more easily definable.
I’ve taken some extremely Useful Notes this weekend, but I’d like to get more of a clear sense of how this works.
And then put this information into the Book of Me so I can keep processing and working with it.
Ways this could work:
Could be something to play with for Maryann’s Secret Play Date on Toozday.
Maybe morning journaling.
Maybe I just need to sleep on it. I don’t know yet.
My commitment.
To plant the seed.
To dance the dance, shake up the snow globe and let it all settle.
To sit with Scootch (my new fluffy hedgehog friend) and be in non-emergency mode for a while.
Thing 3: Prep for the March Rally.
Here’s what I want:
So the March Rally (Rally!) is happening crazy soon.
And it is also the best Rally because everyone there gets a blog head shot (only if you want one) from Jillian, who is an amazing photographer and the loveliest person you will ever meet.
Lots of stuff to do before it starts. Specifically some system changes.
In fact, I’m kind of sensing that I’m close to some sort of new understanding about systems and using them to create flow. This is emerging from all that spaciousness that came out of the last Rally where I focused on the depiling.
Anyway. This needs some time and attention.
Ways this could work:
Magic?
The magic of letting things percolate?
Doing some writing/meditating/walking.
Taking it to the trampoline.
My commitment.
I’m not married to any particular system. Just receptive to a variety of unlikely possibilities.
May the best possible structure for right now show up, and I will do my best to recognize it and welcome it.
Thing 4: Outlandish birthday gwishes.
Here’s what I want:
Last year I made a list of things I wanted to happen over the course of the year.
And, insanely enough, most of them did.
This leads me to think, as always, that I can be less hesitant about the fact of the wanting, even if I don’t always feel comfortable speaking the wants out loud.
So I’d like to compile a list of outrageous gwishes for impossible-seeming things, just to see what happens.
Ways this could work:
Well, with glitter crayons, obviously. Maybe some construction paper and stickers from the Playground.
And a ritual or two.
I imagine some urgent monster conversations will be required.
Maybe a place to put these gwishes so that I can revisit them later.
My commitment.
To be excited about what is possible, and what is possible that I do not yet know is possible.
To laugh.
To be patient when I can and understanding about the fact that I can’t when I can’t.
To enjoy the hell out of this coming year to the best of my ability.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Let’s see! I wanted a name for that binder thing that you get in a hotel room. And so many ideas! Yay. Thank you.
Also I wanted to create one of those, and while I didn’t, I did spend a few nights in a hotel and got some good ideas about possible structure/format.
Then I wanted solid recovery time and that’s why I was at the hotel. It was total emergency “take this vacation now because you are mumbling to yourself and drooling, and it’s this or the hospital” vacation, but that still counts.
It was awesome. Not nearly enough. But awesome all the same. There will be more.
And actually I just found out that my gentleman friend is whisking me away to a hotel out of town where there is a spa treatment waiting for me, and a big, fat bed with my name on it. So aaaaaaaaaaah thank you.
That, incidentally, totally takes care of my ask from a few weeks ago for birthday plans.
Which is fortunate because time is a sneaky ninja and my birthday is tomorrow and no, I did not have plans even slightly.
The last thing I wanted was ideas for ways to bring more color into Hoppy House, and I’ve got nothing. Will keep working on that and see what comes.
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.