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.
From my journal: more on piles.
A little raw. A little messy. I spent the weekend running the Shiva Nata teacher training, doing insane amounts of brain training and pattern rewriting, and everything is jumbled. In a really good way.
All the snow globes have been shaken, and everything is sifting and settling in new and remarkable ways.
But processing it? Still a little incoherent. And useful. So here is some of what has come up in my journal, as I prepare for Rally (Rally!).
What I want from this Rally
A giant permission slip to not work on the thing I was going to work on. At least, not to work on it directly, but instead to fractal flower it.
I want to go back to the piling and the depiling, and reconfigure my relationship to the piles, something deeper, more powerful, not really sure what it is.
Oh, but my fuzzball monsters do not like this plan. They say there is no money in this and also waste of time waste of time.
So. Back to what’s also true.
I know that the essence of this old pattern of piling and hating the piles and fearing the piles and meeting the piles is about safety and spaciousness.
And if everything is connected, this new depiling could be a way of creating the spaciousness necessary to build the right frame for the thing I was originally going to work on.
The frame holds everything, remember?
The monsters are considering this. They are gnawing on their hands. But not in a menacing way. Just deep in thought.
They say yes but yes but yes but. The stuttering loop of yes-but.
What is it, guys? What do you need to happen so that you will feel safe and supported again?
Here’s the yes-but.
YES BUT YOU’LL JUST CREATE MORE PILES SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME TO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T USE YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS?!
Aw. You guys think I have creative genius? I knew it!
So listen, I have to tell you something, monsterlets.
On the second day of the last Rally, we investigated the online piles. We tracked why things pile and how they pile and where the iguanas go.
Then we deleted 865 Direct Messages. And you said that within a month we’d be back where we started.
So?
So here we are, three weeks later. And how many DMs are in there? None. Zero. Still.
That’s because our creative investigative depiling team was able to identify all the ways (seventeen!) in which I was creating piles, so I could stop doing that.
And we also came up with our chart of the Thirteen Most Common Iguana Species, which we use all the time.
It gave me a system for handing things off. And for not creating. And for deleting when I’m done.
So that particular form of piling is done. Same with the Frolicsome Bar. So things can change, even when you say they can’t.
Sure, there is value in regular maintenance. And yes, maybe doing casual decluttering doesn’t shift the bigger pattern (though I think everything shifts the bigger pattern in some way, really).
But this is different. This is about conscious, mindful, loving, investigative de-piling, which helps me learn how I function in the world and what I need and how not to be in the patterns that keep me in pain.
Spaciousness, again.
Here’s the good part.
This new experience of not constantly being in direct interaction with piles, iguanas, flying shoes and other things that are not supportive?
It creates spaciousness.
AND.
All this spaciousness gives me peace of mind. When I have peace of mind, I am able to be both restful and active.
Creatively active, and physically active. And I generate gwishes, and I make stuff happen. All because of the space to do it in.
I am convinced that this next layer of depiling will change the way I interact with all of my space.
It will lead to a much-improved relationship with both the Wish Room (my home office) and the Pirate Queen Quarters (my office at the Playground).
Inside the thing that is inside.
Okay, monster council and scared, sad, lonely parts of me…
Here is what I know:
I know that these piles are stand-ins. They are proxies for things I am not facing.
This includes pieces of my past, and pieces of pain, and my aversion to confrontation.
And since I’m in the process of rewriting that pattern, using basic destuckification techniques and Dance of Shiva, this is the time.
Guess what we are going to do?
We are going to re-invent this thing that I know of as “confronting”.
We will metaphor mouse it. We will find out what is inside.
Because even though I have spent my entire life thinking that I am terrible at confrontation, this is not true.
Not true at all.
Every time I talk to a wall or negotiate with a monster or respond to shoe-throwing with sovereignty…
That’s a form of confrontation.
And I’m actually really good at that. But only when I think of it as acknowledging pain.
I can acknowledge pain.
So what if all the things I am currently seeing as confrontations, impasses, impossible situations… what if they aren’t that at all?
What if I just need to acknowledge some pain? I can do that.
See? That is the power of spaciousness. Bing! Shivanautical genius. I get it.
Anyway, back to the piles and the piling. I don’t need to “confront” the piles: just to acknowledge their pain and my pain, so the pain can dissolve and the new pattern can appear.
To be continued…
In the meantime, play with me? If you want to think about piling and spaciousness and patterns and all of these things, you are more than welcome to.
I would love the company.
As always, basic comment zen applies: we all have our stuff, and we let everyone have their stuff. We don’t tell each other what to do, unless someone specifically asks for advice. And we give everyone room to have their own experience.
Love to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads. Rally!
Very Personal Ads #85: love letters in miniature
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!
Hi! So. Today’s VPAs are happening on Toozday and not Sunday, because I spent the weekend running the Shiva Nata teacher training.
This week the very personal ads are also in the form of tiny love letters instead of the usual “What I want, how it could work and here’s my commitment.”
And everything is slightly different, because doing all that mad neuron-connecting flailing has changed what I know and how I know it. As it does.
Alright. Let’s do this.
Dear week,
I know things are a little off between us.
Like the fact that it’s Toozday out there in the world but not in my mind or in my body. Time is settling differently now. It’s landing differently. So we’re going to have to deal with that in some form that has not yet made itself known.
My wish for both of us is this:
Spaciousness. Ease. Support. Wonder. Appreciation.
I am going to take a breath — or maybe three — in each transition. I am going to ask you to hold me when I am scared.
The Rally (Rally!) begins tonight, and I am going to devote this rallying to learning more about my relationship with you. That is to say, with space and time, with divisions, transitions, boundaries and crossings.
Also this:
You are not arbitrary.
Even if this thing of week-ing is in some ways an externally imposed structure, it is one that I have agreed to. And I am going to investigate what is there within you.
There is love in here, and I will find it.
Dear twenty new graduates of the Shiva Nata teacher training,
Spending the past few days with you has been such a very special thing.
I wish that you could see how bright and radiant and powerful you are. That it could somehow be reflected back to you in the mirror reflections of the dance.
But even if you can’t see it, maybe you can feel the spark of it.
Over the next weeks and years, so much of what we did and said will be absorbed in new ways. It will spiral through your life.
And that is a big and crazy thing.
My wish for you is:
Comfort. Reassurance. Knowing. Discernment. Trust. Play. Freedom.
You are loved. You are safe. You are supported.
The rest of the things I have to say do not have words, so just this:
You are teachers. You always have been.
Dear Eric,
My heart says that the most important thing I can do right now is to stay receptive to the idea that you care about fairness. My gut feeling says that you cannot possibly be telling the truth.
I am hoping that my heart is right and that we (my stomach and I) are wrong.
Since there is no way of knowing, I am practicing the practice of not making assumptions.
I’m trying to make room for the possibility that I am wrong. That 99% of this is a misunderstanding. That there is a logical, reasonable explanation that is hidden.
And that what appear to be gifts of poison are actually flowers.
I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be surprised.
At the same time, I also am not afraid of what it means if I am not wrong. My respect for your boundaries is not going to lead me to compromise mine.
What I wish for me:
Trust. Trusting that I can be present with this situation and not confuse it with other situations. To trust that I can take care of myself. To trust that I can know what is needed.
And safety, so that I can keep working on this trust thing.
What I wish for you:
Safety. May you feel safe enough to recognize that no one is against you. And that there is room for all of us.
And trust, so that you know that I am speaking truth as well.
Let’s have a peaceful, ease-filled resolution to this.
Dear March Rally,
Oh, how I am looking forward to you!
And at the same time, I have not been telling people about you, because I need a vacation first.
Also, because I don’t really want to talk shit about how much I suffered through SXSW.
I’d rather talk about how fabulous it will be, and how it’s so amazing that Jillian will be there to do headshots for everyone who wants one.
So I am hoping that this week I find all the right words.
What I wish for me:
Patience. Silly, lighthearted play. Exploration. Practice. Support. Community.
What I wish for you:
Support. Love. Spaciousness. Grace. Excitement. Possibility. Appreciation.
And all the right people.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Let’s see. I wanted tools. Tools! That was a great ask, because I got to play with my crayons, and I also hired cleaning people for the Playground, and I wrote about what my tools are. Ohmygod. Did you read the comments on that? So inspiring.
I wanted to find people for the March Rally, and I did not do any of my commitments. So I am going to re-think and re-commit.
The next ask was for birthday rituals, and I have a couple of ideas. Nothing solid yet. But feeling more hopeful about the fact that it could actually happen.
We’ll see what comes out of this week of rallying the rally, and I will report back.
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 #133: it’s all about the pockets
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.
I’m not sure at all how I feel about this week.
Just that it was really challenging for me, and I kept wanting to just run away and hide.
Which I would totally have done too, if I knew how.
Or where.
But then it got better. Yay. Anyway, cheers to being done.
The hard stuff
This low background hum of anxious and not good.
Not the kind where it’s loud enough to really get to you, but it just chips away at things.
I’ve been feeling kind of mildly worried. Not about anything specific. Which is in itself… well, there you go, mildly worrisome.
Probably there are all sorts of good reasons for it, as there pretty much always are, but nothing especially obvious.
Ready for this to be done.
Could things please stop breaking?.
So we’re about to start the Shiva Nata teacher training.
And the heat didn’t get fixed in time because it turns out that the entire ancient heating vent at the Playground needs to be replaced.
Which means it needs to be brought in with a crane. And that can’t happen until a part gets ordered from the east coast. And that can’t happen until the weather out there clears up.
And the weather here, because they have to get up on the roof to install it.
So we have a million space heaters, which is taking up a) way too much space and b) all the outlets.
And (surprise!) shorting the circuit breakers. Oh, and the circuit breakers in the Playground apparently aren’t relevant — we need to wait until our neighbors are around so we can use their box.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
And maybe they could also stop being so expensive too, because that would be nice.
We had to buy a massive amount of additional blankets for everyone coming to the lovely heat-deprived Playground. Plus new outlet thingies and extension cords.
This week was ridiculous.
Sales are down.
Yes, this is in part my doing because I haven’t been posting and I totally forget to tell people about stuff we’re doing. Stuff! We’re doing it!
But it’s weird. And depressing. February is usually a really good month for us. Adaptation grumbles.
Inowanna! Inowanna!
The number of things I didn’t want to do this week was out of control
It’s iguana city over here.
Nothing to wear. Because I am six.
I was so out of sorts that the gentleman friend suggested we do something different.
Yay! Going somewhere! Dressing up! Booze!
But then it turned out that the neglected half of my closet which — in my head — is always full of all the gorgeous glamorous things that I never get a chance to wear…
…is actually full of stupid things that I look terrible in.
Pretty sure this is just my annual birthday crisis arriving early.
But it sucks.
The good stuff
Sun. Beautiful wonderful sun and its sunniness.
Thank you.
I took a WEEKEND last weekend.
For the second time in a row! Amazing.
It definitely is taking big bites out of the burnout. And even though I don’t get a weekend this weekend, I am taking that learning with me into everything I schedule from now on.
In unlikely Roller Derby news… Rat City lost to Montreal.
Well done, most awesome ladies in the world. I tip my hat to Montreal!
Even in a week of everything-sucks, at least I can be cheered up thinking about Seattle’s spectacularly embarrassing failure to win a bout that really probably should have been a sure thing.
It’s a small thing and I am a terrible person, but this definitely made me feel better.
See the video at the end, even though there isn’t skating in it. You’ll feel better too.
The Kitchen Table.
Watching my smart, creative, loving people help each other out in all sorts of beautiful ways.
It is so inspiring.
Love letter from Taylor.
It arrived just in time.
And if you haven’t ever gotten a love letter from Taylor, know that they are even better than they sound.
I really, really, really needed that.
It made me want to write love letters too. Except than when I love someone, I get all weird and start speaking in awkward, clipped sentences, so I’m pretty sure any love letter from me would probably just make the bewildered recipient feel baffled and uncomfortable.
Thank you, Taylor.
Thursday!
The day in which I miraculously found my way back into the zone and just fractal-flowered the hell out of everything.
Things got done. Things that didn’t have a chance at done got done. Also my hair looked great.
Hooray for Thursday because without that? This would be a messy, messy Friday.
Friends. And support.
So much help from Hiro.
A hilarious meeting with my Board of Surprisers, who all help me see what is working.
Looking forward to Maryann’s wonderful Society of the Secret Playdate (if you haven’t signed up yet, I am highly recommending this — be there!).
And hugely excited both about the Rally (Rally!) coming up this week and the one in March where Jillian will be doing blog photo shots for everyone. Yay!
I get to spend the next two days having epiphanies!
At the last Shiva Nata teacher training, I had so many moments of bing that my head nearly exploded.
In a really good way. It fueled so many good things. Also my arms got such a workout I was practically Suzy Hotrod hot.
Now I get to do this again. Today, tomorrow and Sunday. With twenty smart, fun, capable, talented people. And it is going to be incredible. I can’t even tell you how delighted I am.
Yay.
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?
Collapsible Kangaroo
A very Portland band, of course. Eco-friendly and scruffy. You can see them all week while we’re on Rally. Except that it’s actually 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.
Fractal Flowers
Everything is connected. At least, theoretically.
And even if it isn’t, we can pretend (or assume) that within the world of you and your you-ness:
Connections are everywhere.
This comes in handy whenever things get overwhelming. Or when your to-do list is seventeen million miles long.
Look at the garden.
It’s a beautiful garden. It’s the place where all your projects, hopes, possibilities, things that might happen and gwishes are growing.
But there are way more things growing in this space than you could ever possibly tend to.
Sometimes it seems like there isn’t any point in taking care of any of these flowers, when taking care of one means abandoning all the others.
Luckily, these are fractal flowers.
Also possibly magical. I’m not really sure how it works.
Here’s what happens.
You just decide.
Every time you lovingly, intentionally do one caring thing for one flower, something about that act and the process is secretly working to nurture and support the other ones.
Even the most sloppy, half-assed splashing of water in one corner counts. Fractal magic.
And so you keep doing just one thing.
Any thing at all, really. Just one thing.
Today I will not be able to accomplish the shocking number of things that are asking for my attention.
But each piece will count. And somehow it is helping the entire garden.
Getting the Playground ready for the cleaning crew will somehow — symbolically or otherwise — help clear out my head as well.
Buying a toothbrush will somehow do something for the upcoming Rally (Rally!).
Walking briskly around the block will somehow lead me to a clue which will reveal the insight that will make this weekend’s workshops better than they ever could have been.
Time with clients will activate underground creative processes and I have no idea what that will lead to but for sure it will end up being good for everything else in the garden.
So I don’t have to do everything.
Even though the urgency monsters say that actually I do.
One thing at a time.
Each thing activating, untangling, supporting and helping all the other things.
Even if I can’t see it or feel it. Even if it’s underground.
I’m going to let the fractal flowers do the real work, and I will do what I can, in the way that I can. Trying to trust that every piece counts.
Play with me? Thank you.
The Piling and the Depiling: Part II
Follow-up! To this bit I wrote about my relationship with making piles of things.
It’s part of an ongoing process/investigation:
Figuring out why I create these giant piles of iguanas and doom, what their purpose is, and what needs to happen next.
So I’m documenting both the piles themselves and everything I know about them, as well as everything that I’m trying/learning/noticing/perceiving/experiencing in the investigation.
And I’m also documenting the variety of experiments that I’m using in this destuckification practice. And letting you peek.
Hey, piles. What do I know about you?
Oh, piles! Piles of paper, piles of information in my head, piles of Direct Messages on Twitter, piles of messages at the Frolicsome Bar, collections of things.
Why I make them
To not forget what is important.
To keep projects in view (even though I know from experience that the second one lands in the pile, it’s gone). But there is something calming about knowing that at least I will stumble onto it eventually. The security of knowing that it’s there.
So that’s the mission. Does it work?
No. Because knowing that it’s there also stresses me the hell out. And the only time I consistently look at piles is while depiling every other month or so.
Then what will help me remember what is important? Hmmmm.
How I make them
Everywhere. On my computer. In my documents. At the Playground. In the bedroom. In the gwish room.
I make them because the pattern says build.
The purpose they serve is…
Aside from reminders that don’t work? Hopefulness.
Oh! To hide iguanas.*
* Translation! Iguana = anything you don’t feel like doing.
Like that letter from X. I didn’t want to look at it because looking at it was reminding me that I had to deal with it, and that was depressing. Since I wasn’t ready to deal yet, I stuck it in a pile.
Ha! I am like the Witness Protection Program for iguanas.
I protect iguanas. I’m trying to protect me from them, but in effect what happens (bing! shivanautical epiphany!) is that I am protecting them from me.
On one level, there’s this beautiful attempt to be helpful: solidify, structure, keep everything together. I am compiling to create more order. Because better a pile than 70,000 papers all over the place.
On another level, obfuscation and hiding: keep the iguana away from me. But not too far away.
Really, I should thank my psyche for being so creative and for coming up with the best possible solution it could. That’s kind of sweet.
What I know about them, me and our relationship
Apparently I still need them. Both the piles and the iguanas.
I need safety. And the iguanas need safety.
Also needed are systems and forms to emerge that will hold things differently.
So this is about need, and releasing all these symbolic pieces that are not working.
I want to be able to say YES to needing things like support, creativity, order, freedom, hiding places.
And to identify the part of me who desperately needs worry, fear, iguanas, something hanging over my head what’s that called, dread. Ah, the dread.
Where the pain is
Monsters, iguanas and deadlines, oh my!
But really? Why am I keeping an iguana compound in my space? That isn’t helpful to anyone.
So I need:
- structures and containers for things to flow into so the piles pile less frequently.
- And when there is a pile, it still needs a box to live in. A home! And that box needs a date and a plan. And rituals that can be fun.
Ooh! Idea! International Iguana Depiling Day. I.I.D.D. Once a month. And time to work on the Book of Me.
Also the home for the Pile could be like a dollhouse. Or a Cardboard Box that is a house, with a door and a chimney. Oh, adorable. I want to make it a home.
Oh! My piles are pieces of me that are homeless. I identify with them. Just like there are safe rooms for my various selves, of course there is a safe room for my pile. But not to keep it safe from me. To keep us all in a general state of safety.
Oh! And I can spray the pile with the magical spray-bottle-of-making-things-better. And other rituals for it that can be fun.
What they symbolize
The parts of me that need containers, boundaries, a home. Lost little orphans who need love, support and acknowledgment.
Why I need them
To remind me of my creativity. To remember that I am the queen.
Why I’m done with them
Because the queen needs spaciousness to create. And piles are not conducive to spaciousness.
What is the connection between my past and piles:
There are people in my life who need boulders. Friction. They choose the way of friction.
Not out of intention but because they are disconnected.
This new thing is about committing to this new way of EASE and FLOW instead of living in friction.
The version of me who is done with them.
Ah. The me who knows about this ease and flow thing.
There is spaciousness. Support. Structure. Shiva Nata.
Sweetie, you are moving into the world where that old way cannot exist anymore. One day piles will really truly be like cigarettes. Or sugar. You just won’t need them anymore.
And you won’t even remember why you did.
What I don’t know yet.
How. But I’m closer to finding out than I realize. And that’s what the next Rally is for. Rally!
Playing. And the comment zen blanket fort.
My goodness. I have no idea if any of this makes sense to anyone who isn’t me. I was pretty spectacularly brain-melty from all the awesome Shiva Nata we’d been doing before writing this. God I love Rally.
What I would love:
If you wanted to think out loud about any of those questions, investigate your own relationship with piling, or do some of the super-speedy word association thing too.
If you would say Vhoooooosh! Which is the sound of stuckness dissolving and all the right spaces opening up.
What I would not love:
Please no advice, recommendations or pep talks. I am sharing a really personal and intimate process in my own way and in my own timing, and I need lots of spaciousness with that.
As always, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.
Love to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.