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.
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.
Friday Chicken #135: naming the hedgehog
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.
Huh. Apparently it’s Friday. That’s not crazy at all.
Let’s see.
The hard and the good are pretty much all the same things this week.
Except for the hedgehog part. Everything hedgehog-related goes straight to the good category. At least right now.
The hard stuff
Body is creaky, tired, achy.
Poor me.
Body is older.
This whole upcoming birthday thing combined with all my routines having disappeared this week is leaving me feeling uncomfortable in my skin.
I can’t wait to get back to walking, tramping, dancing, moving, stretching, all of that.
Everything is older. And more tired.
Not once did I get carded this week.
And then six different people asked me if I have kids, and told me how haggard I look, in the same sentence.
Oh and at the grocery store, the cashier told me, “Get some rest, okay? I’m worried about you.” And I told her I was running away.
And then she asked if I had kids and I said no and she said, “Oh, that’s a relief.” And the other cashier said, “Just be safe.”
That’s great.
Hitting the no return point of tired.
You know, when you’re just mumbling to yourself.
And when total strangers feel the need to intervene.
Emergency Vacation is ending and Inowanna!
The past three days of Emergency Undisclosed Location Vacation (aka Going Dark) have been so wonderful.
I don’t want to come back.
No. That’s not true. Of course I do. I miss my gentleman friend and my clients and Hoppy House and the Playground.
But oh for some more of this. So sad.
The good stuff
Emergency Vacation was just the thing.
Of course it was. It always is.
The hotel, the drinks, the view, the spaciousness, the being alone.
It was all so good and so perfectly what was needed.
Thursday.
I hung out with Cairene and we ate yummy street food.
And then I sat in a cafe and wrote.
Sitting in the sun, walking in the rain, going to the bar. And writing.
Why can’t more days be like this?
Transitions, once they’re actually happening, are okay.
My birthday is Monday. And I’m always over my pre-transitional-freakout by the time the day itself actually rolls around.
So if I can just get through the next day or two of over-thinking everything, I’ll be in party-mouse mode.
And the good part about getting older.
A couple more years and people will maybe even stop asking me about Bolivia all the time.
More of this vacation thing.
Not just scheduling it. Actively taking it.
I have a plan. And it is a good one.
Coming back.
To all the good things.
I have a hedgehog!
He is a toy hedgehog and he is cute as a button. Button!
But that’s not his name. His name is Scootch. I will take a picture so you can meet Scootch.
He is the most adorable and the most soft and I love him. Scootch!
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 is brought to you by all the suits at my hotel who kept flooding the bar at unlikely hours, so I had to go Emergency Vacate in my room, which is way less fun.
I would have called the band Booze to Go, but I’m pretty sure that already is a band.
Flock of Bastards.
Or FOB and the Watches, as they were known in an earlier incarnation.
You can catch their show anywhere on the west side of the river. The weird part?It’s really 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.
A conversation with me who is toast.
Talking through the burnout.
And yes, I’m talking to myself.
What is needed?
What do you need, sweetie?
More stopping.
More going dark.
More hiding.
Acknowledging the hard. And finding the useful.
What is useful here?
Obviously, burnout sucks. Without having to appreciate the burnout or be grateful for it because that would just be annoying, what is useful about having reached this extreme state of it?
Well, I can take notes about what it’s like, and and put them in the Book of Me.
When I plan things for future me, I can build in time for unexpected craziness.
And I can seed vacations. Plant them into the calendar. But actually take them. Not like the ones that are on my calendar now that just get ignored.
Also holidays that come before the work and not just after.
Schedule in both planning time and down time. Time for being OFF.
Teacher me needs to be rested and replenished before running events. She needs to be alone.
She needs to be thoroughly rested and cared for. To retreat into a cocoon and emerge new and refreshed. It’s a better for what is being taught to come into the world.
Now is not then. So how is now not then?
This state of intense wiped-out over-done tired is really reminding you of your last teaching trip to Berlin two years ago when you fell apart completely. Except it’s not like then. How is now different from then?
That burnout came from weeks of endless auditory and energetic assault on my senses, along with a number of extremely stressful and problematic situations that were beyond my control.
This round, on the other hand, comes from working too much at things I love that are highly successful. Different.
That burnout happened during a much bigger transition period, in a time of (perceived, at least) considerably less support.
The infrastructure wasn’t there. We thought we were going to have to leave Hoppy House. We didn’t know what was coming next. Everything was shaky and up in the air.
And I didn’t know anywhere near as much about how to take care of myself. I didn’t have my morning rituals and my stopping rituals. So the falling apart was that much more violent and drastic.
Now we have so much more stability and sovereignty.
Imagine. What will you say about today?
One day you will look back on these past weeks as the thing that changed everything in your life for the better. Why?
Hmmm. So this is how and when I learned to really and truly re-charge. And also to plan things to require less recharging.
The genius thing that is pre-vacation so you start everything super-relaxed? That came from this.
This is where I figure out the transitions. This is where I learn to respect my capacity and to over-estimate rather than under-estimate the amount of down time that is needed to do what I want to do in the world.
What happens once this shift has been made?
Once you know how to care for yourself, what happens to you and in your life?
I laugh more. I apologize less.
My teaching becomes even more grounded. I maintain boundaries better. I’m less worn out.
It’s easier for me to promote the next event because I’m not secretly wishing for a magical month of time off.
Recovery times get both easier and shorter.
I am full of love for what I do, not just while I’m doing it but before and after too.
Going on holiday isn’t about exhaustion, but about pleasure. Note: this concept is blowing the top of my head off, so I am going to need to sit with this some more.
Apparently my fuzzball monsters have some serious objections to the idea of doing anything for pleasure. But I’m also getting that the more I take this time for me, the less my monsterlets show up.
Because it’s only when I’m worn out and vulnerable like this that I start to think maybe they’re right about things. Interesting.
And comment zen in the comment blanket fort.
You are welcome to grab a cushion and play if you want.
You can answer any of the questions I came up with or make up your own. You can talk to exhausted you or past you or slightly future you.
You can sit around and listen. Whatever you like.
As always: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We give people room to have their own experience and to that end, we don’t give unsolicited advice.
xox
Retroactive Emergency Vacation
It’s story time today.
Ten years ago this May.
I don’t want to write about this. And definitely not in the mood to go into all the details.
So. Ignoring the mechanisms, the how and why of my world falling apart, some relevant pieces:
In May of ten-years-ago my husband and I left our Tel Aviv apartment that I loved so much. Maybe even more than I’d realized, in retrospect. Oh, retrospect, you are always so late.
His parents had given us a flat they owned in the suburbs. Next door to them.
Except it was still being renovated, and I was working in the city.
My shifts at the bar ended late — too late for buses. And a cab out of town would eat up all my earnings.
My husband stayed at his parents in the suburb. And I stayed on various couches of girlfriends in Tel Aviv.
Time is funny.
It was supposed to be just for a month. We’d see each other weekends and in between my shifts at work.
We didn’t. Not really. Renovations took longer. My best friend went to London and I house-sat for a while, then took care of her ex-girlfriend who was going through a rough patch.
Three months.
I went to the States for a visit. Stayed with a girlfriend in Chicago. Went on a road trip. Place, perspective. Breathing room.
Four months.
Timing is timing.
I was scheduled to fly out of Chicago on September 12.
This was 2001, so September 11 meant there was no September 12. At least, not in any way that mattered.
Flights were canceled. Flights to Israel were canceled for even longer.
Another month.
Six months into seven.
Eventually I came back. The marriage, unsurprisingly, came apart. It was agreed that I would move out.
A friend of a friend was moving to Sweden. I could rent her apartment.
She changed her mind about if and when so many times that I lost count.
I stayed on more couches.
By the time I moved in, it was almost December. Seven months of couch-sleeping. Of not knowing when or where — or if at all — there would be home for me.
Why this.
This six month period is by no means the hardest or the shittiest thing that has happened to me.
It hurts to say: this doesn’t even make the top ten.
But that doesn’t mean this time wasn’t terrifying and painful, because it was.
And sometimes I talk to me-from-then. I invent vacations for her. I put her up in hotels and buy her books. I take care of her. It’s what I do.
Why now.
I have trouble taking time off. I have trouble stopping.
Until it’s an emergency, and Emergency Vacation is declared.
This is a known thing.
But to every absolute declarative “this is how things are” truth, there is always an exception. And here it is:
While I personally may be terrible at creating refuge for myself now, there is a version of me who knows how to stop.
It’s the me who invents vacations for past versions of myself.
Look at all the things I have trouble giving to me-in-the-present:
Time, space, money, attention, caring, forgiveness, comfort, reassurance, appreciation, protection.
And yet all of these I gladly give to me-who-went-through-all-that-crap.
Bless the loophole.
Yesterday, I took myself away on a holiday.
I took me-from-now and me-from-ten-years-ago, and we went on a little self-rescue mission.
We booked a gorgeous hotel room. We packed an overflowing picnic basket. Books and magazines. Slippers. An appointment for a facial.
Normally I would never do this for myself. But it’s okay, because I’m taking care of her. I’m taking care of her by showing her that now I can take care of myself.
She knows what I’m doing, me-from-then.
She knows this is my way of easing into being the person who can take care of herself in the moment and not just after the fact.
She’s happy for me.
And I am happy for her.
Very specific comment blanket fort zen for today.
This is really, really vulnerable stuff I’m writing about. It’s hard to do.
What is welcome.
Your stories.
The versions of you who are in need of a Retroactive Emergency Vacation, whether you literally might go on one or not.
Spaciousness. Warmth. A glass of wine or a cup of tea.
What I am not okay with:
Not that you would do this, of course, but just to have said it…
I do not wish to be told what to do, psychoanalyzed, judged, given advice or given that thing which is called tough love but is not loving in practice.
I do not want to be told that I shouldn’t be posting here if I’m on vacation, or that I need to learn to take time off.
Thank you.
Happy Retroactive Emergency Vacation to me. And to all of your various verisons-of-you who need one too. Hug.