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.
Rally the 2nd. Who let the iguanas out?
I miss the world of Rally (Rally!)
If you do not know what a Rally is, this is the idea that gave birth to the Rally.
It is a word — and concept — worthy of being enthusiastically exclaimed. And repeated. Rally!
Here is what I’m missing.
Everything that happened here at Sally the Rally the 1st.
Oh, the feather boas and the dancing around and the hilarity and the drinking of tea.
But mainly the massive getting done of stuff needing to be done.
Because the point of the Projectizing Rally is ridiculous amounts of done.
And not the done that emerges from guilt, stress or panic. It’s the doing that comes from feeling grounded, supported, excited, curious and inspired.
And zippy! Not forced zippiness, though. The kind of zip that shows up when you’re in the right place or wearing the right costume.
Aside from getting crazy amounts of stuff done:
It’s about the good parts of isolation: quiet, spaciousness, purpose, intention, clarity.
But without having to be in isolation, which, as Barbara so wisely says, is the dreamkiller.
The good parts of community: collaboration, shared goals, the power of a group.
But without having to be in the group, because you get your own time and do your own thing.
Anyway, I really, really want to be rallying again. Rally! Okay. I’m a little obsessed.
So I made up a list.
Of everything I’m working on that could really use a Rally right about now.
It is long.
The top two things, though, are these:
- Create a DIY Rally Kit-like-thing: so you guys will have the provisions and skills to rig your own Rally (Rally!), even when you can’t be with us at the Playground.
- Editing my 2011 and 2012 (tentative) schedules, based on needs and numbers.
Needs meaning everything that’s in the book of me. And numbers not necessarily being financial numbers. Just, you know, numbers.
Like this: I spend 45 minutes preparing for each client call, and another 20 minutes clearing out after. Or this: we spend a few thousand dollars a year on postage.
Anyway, numbers. I need to do some processing. Plus it’s been almost a year since I’ve had a round of giant sweeping changes in the business. Now seems good.
Here’s how this is going to work.
I’m going to make crazy progress on both of these at the next Rally. In the meantime, I’ll meditate on which of these gets rallied first. Or possibly flip a coin.
Either way, there is going to be a Rally and it is going to be fabulous.
Here are the dates:
Monday, October 11 at 5pm through Thursday, October 14 at 5pm
The next Rally (or, at least, the next Rally that is longer than just one day) will not be happening until end of January.
So. Sequence.
I’m telling you this now.
This afternoon I’m going to rewrite the page where you sign up, because I wrote most of it before I knew just how ridiculously effective rallying would be.
Then it goes to my designer to make it pretty. And then at Drunk Pirate Council, the First Mate and I will likely move the prices up to something not quite as symbolic.
If you can make it, it would be so very lovely to Rally with you.
Reminders.
- If you’ve signed up for the Week of Biggification (password: pickles), you get one Rally as a bonus. You can come to this one or you can come to one next year.
- We will keep the rallying small.
- You don’t have to know what your project to be projectized is yet.
- Obviously, everyone who comes will get the DIY Kit too when it’s ready.
I think that’s it.
Consider this the official shovel in the dirt for Rally the 2nd: Who Let the Iguanas Out. Or whatever I’m calling it tomorrow.
I’m headed to the Playground. But first I have to buy a bunch of gourds.
Here’s the pre-gorgeousness Rally page again.
If you would like, aside from celebrating and waving checkered flags for Rally (Rally!), I would love to get some help in the comments with:
- ideas for good schwag
- names for the next Rally (January)
Can’t wait to meet the next group of Rallions (or was it Rallyscallions?) and to get the DIY Rally-Rig thing done so everyone else can play too. Big love to everyone. Wild zen rumpus!
Side effects.
Interesting phenomenon. There’s this thing that happens while on your way to figuring something out.
Or: on your way to getting something you want.
It’s all the incredibly useful, unlikely and surprising things you manage to learn, discover, untangle, trip over while you’re in the process.
Like this.
At the end of our week-long Destuckification Retreat that Selma and I taught last January in California, Kelly started blogging. All the time.
Before that, she’d been blogging maybe once a month, and hating it.
In the nine months since then, she’s been posting regularly. And loving it. To the point of kind of being addicted. Like I am with posting here.
But it’s not just that. Her posts are also way more fun than they used to be.
She used to write about copywriting. Now she writes about gobstoppers and how to get a truck driver to trust you, and monster puppets eating spaghetti.
Is this good for her business? Obviously. Because in addition to being crazy talented, Kelly is a delightfully kooky individual. Now she’s hooking up with all her right people, and enjoying the hell out of it.
Here’s THE ACTUAL POINT, though.
Kelly didn’t come to the Destuckification Retreat to destuckify her blogging. That wasn’t the point. It wasn’t even on her mind.
When you destuckify one thing, everything else starts falling into place.
That’s just how it works.
It’s like Frank’s hugely inspiring epiphany, which happened during that same week of surprises. It changed the way he looks at everything in his life.
When you get clear on one thing, all sorts of other things — that you didn’t even know you needed clarity on — start moving and shifting. And not in scary ways. In good ways.
It’s like you have more support. More insight and more comfort when you need it.
And then: the new things that grow when you take apart the old.
You know how Eileen and Briana launched the amazing Hopscotch Distillery? With extreme silliness and fabulous shivanautical dance parties where you get work done?
They met and hit it off at my Day of Biggification in Sacramento last December.
I’m pretty sure neither of them showed up thinking, man wouldn’t it be cool if I met an amazing person and we created the best business in the entire world together.
Side effect.
But a really good one.
And it was able to happen, in part, because Eileen and Briana were there to figure out what was getting in the way. They were there to learn about biggifying. Mindfully.
And whenever you actively work on deactivating those Things Getting In The Way, there is so much … spaciousness.
I don’t really know how to describe this accurately but it’s kind of like discovering new rooms in your space.
An entire new floor. That exists just for you. For discovery and creating and being surprised.
Oh, the surprises.
I came to the Destuckification week to teach.
But I was actively using everything I was teaching.
And that’s when I had the vision for the Playground, which has completely altered my business. In really, really good ways.
There are other surprises too.
Like pretty much everything that happened at the Rally (Rally!).
Or the creative collaborations. Maryann and Jacquelyn (who also met at the Destuckification week) are teaching a class together. And advising each other on projects. And making stuff happen.
I admire both of those women so much. But I had no idea what they’d be able to do for each other. It’s completely inspiring I can hardly stand it.
But this is what happens when you work on your stuff.
Obviously, there’s a lot to be said for working with an intention.
And if you’ve ever done the Sunday Very Personal Ads with us, you know that there’s so much clarity that can show up just from trying to figure out what you want and why you want it.
But really, what happens around the intention is so much more interesting.
Because — and this happens a lot — so often the side effects are even cooler and more impressive than the actual original hoped-for results.
The actual point.
Working on your stuff in a conscious, intentional, loving, mindful, gentle way is always good.
And it’s also good for all sorts of things you didn’t even know you needed help with.
It’s something we get to do in small doses here, on the blog. All the time. That’s what we do.
And if you’re one of the people coming to my Week of Biggification (password: pickles) or to the next Rally (October 11-14!), please know this:
The side effects will be more outrageous and wonderful than anything you actually imagine will happen there.
Because that’s how it works.
Ten thousand sparklepoints for side effects.
And yeah, there are ways to access these and intensify them in a more active way too, but for now I really just want to think about the ones that have shown up by accident.
And to look around and wonder what mysterious, glowing, goofy, beautiful side effects might be on their way right now.
May we recognize them when they show up. But you know what? Even if we don’t, I’m pretty sure they’ll end up finding us anyway.
Amnesty.
A few weeks ago I talked about establishing culture, and my sense of what that means.
No one has yet written the Lonely Planet guide to The Fluent Self, Inc. — pirate ship at large, but when I think about the qualities that come together to make this space what it is, one of the hugely important ones is freedom.
But not just freedom. Independence. And not just independence, but amnesty.
Amnesty for guilt.
One of the things that’s big when we work on stuck things is the clearing out of guilt, which also involves working with permission.
Permission to be where we are — in the guilt, if that’s what is going on.
Granting ourselves permission to not want to be in it. Giving permission to not know how to move through it, and permission in the form of the reminder that we do not have to stay there forever.
Guilt really sticks up the works, and keeps us from seeing what is real, what is needed, what would help.
And, so often, this isn’t deep existential guilt over Something We Regret. It’s habitual guilt. Discomfort as a way of being.
Oh, just some of the things people feel guilty about, pretty much all the time:
(Not everyone, of course — a lot of us, though.)
Not joining in on the Friday Chicken. Or being gone for a while. Saying too much, saying too little, saying it wrong, whatever that means.
Not writing Very Personal Ads. Or forgetting to. Or not wanting to. Or not knowing what to say. Having too many wishes or too few.
For having possibly thrown a shoe or for being upset that someone else threw a shoe, or for not being over it already.
For not doing a practice, or not enough, or not getting it right enough or for forgetting that it works.
In a group context, people worry about not checking in enough or too much. Or being too lengthy or too terse. Or being too something and not enough something else.
For being outsiders or resenting being outsiders.
With my clients, it’s about not having made enough progress on that one thing or not having implemented the other one.
It’s all okay, though.
It’s all okay by me.
It’s always acceptable in this community to not know what to say or how to say it. We are where we are, in the hard or the stuck or not at all.
Sometimes we doubt ourselves or second-guess. It’s all fine.
How amnesty works in the culture of this blog and my business in general.
My guilt-free email policy.
Back when I still did email, I had something called my guilt-free email policy, which I was pretty much constantly referencing.
The basic idea:
Unless you’re my bookkeeper or attorney, you don’t ever have to apologize for not getting back to me. If I need a response, I’ll ask for one.
You’ll respond when you respond. I’ll respond when I respond. No apologizing necessary. And anyway, not everything requires a response.
Creating space for me.
In fact, my email sabbatical itself is a form of amnesty for me.
It allows me to not have to interact with the hundreds of daily wants, requests, complaints, needs of everyone who encounters my world.
It gives me spaciousness to create, and to take care of myself.
Space to give lovingly of my time here on the blog each day instead of constantly ranting here and everywhere about how much I hate everything. (Now I just do that on Fridays, which is totally better).
Birthday amnesty.
This isn’t mine, it’s Kelly’s.
She gives herself — and you — Birthday Amnesty!
You never have to remember anyone’s birthday again. Or feel bad about forgetting hers. It’s brilliant.
Amnesty doesn’t mean not taking responsibility.
It’s not a get-out-of-responsibility pass.
It’s a get-out-of-stuck pass, which is totally different.
We still own what’s ours. We still have to stop and say, “Wow. My stuff is coming up. And it’s mine. Still working on that.”
But we do get to put down the heaviness, the guilt, the unending wondering if we’re doing it wrong.
Amnesty is yours as a citizen of this space.
It’s an inherent quality of this particular world — the one that exists here on the blog, and at the Playground and everywhere I teach.
It is always there. You can always claim it. You can assume it’s there for you. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. It’s yours.
And you don’t need me to give this permission to you, either. Because you have sovereignty and this is part of your birthright.
Amnesty is built into the culture of this place. You get to grant amnesty to yourself or to anybody in your life, whenever you want to. Or all the time.
Hiro said, about amnesty: “It means we can all come home.” That’s exactly what it is.
Permission!
And comment zen for today …
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people be where they are, which means not giving advice unless someone asks for it.
And yes, this amnesty thing applies to commenting too.
Whether it’s permission to say something (if you’re a Beloved Lurker who wants to say something).
Or permission to not have to engage (if you’re a Beloved Lurker who doesn’t need to say anything). Or to hide, if saying things feels scary.
Permission to come back whenever without guilt.
Permission to not have to check in ever, if you don’t feel like it.
All of it. Is okay. By me. Always. It just is.
p.s. Tomorrow is the once-a-year bohemian salon — fun will be had.
Very Personal Ads #64: trust, pirates, surprises
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!
Let us dooo eeeet.
Thing 1: Seeking a new Tech Pirate!
Here’s what I want:
My business, The Fluent Self, Inc, pirate ship at large, needs a new Tech Pirate.
Oh my dear potential new Tech Pirate!
You are a patient explainer. You laugh at gremlins. You have a good heart. You are an independent contractor.
You will monitor, backup, and provide “Oh my god everything just exploded” service for our dedicated web server slice (hosted at slicehost.com).
Basically, if one of our sites vanishes or breaks, we want you to be on call to diagnose/fix the server problem, and (if necessary) reinstall our sites from the backed-up files.
You know how to work with MySQL databases, and PHP doesn’t scare you.
You know how to install, modify and upgrade Moodle (very important) and WordPress (less important) installations.
You care about the work we do here. You care about clear communication with us. You are familiar — at least conceptually — with NVC and compassionate communication. You respect our trust.
Ways this could work:
I’m really hoping that one of my lovely blog readers will know who this person is (or maybe even will be this person).
Open to recommendations.
If this is you, please get in touch with the First Mate by sending an email or filling out a form and let him know what you can do for us.
My commitment.
Same as the last time I asked for this (wow, fourteen months ago) — just more specific.
I am patient. I am fair. I am appreciative of work well-done. Also of trying. And of communicating honestly and openly.
Thing 2: Trust.
Here’s what I want:
So I’m really noticing how hard for me it is to ask for support in the business.
And also those contracted places of heartbreak. Of once burned twice shy.
That place where you’re ready for the new but the old still shows up occasionally when you don’t expect it.
Noticing how much I wanted to jump in and over-emphasize. To say no really the “honestly and openly” part is so important to me.
Noticing the pockets of regret about how long I’ve allowed a state of not good and not loving to exist in my business in various places.
So I don’t know what my ask is but it has to do with trust and faith, and experiences that are peaceful and supportive.
Ways this could work:
I can ask.
I can do Dance of Shiva on this in order to find out what is tangled and how it needs untangling.
I can write and walk and meditate and breathe and color in my monsters.
My commitment.
One thing I am certain of. My company is a truly beautiful place.
And it’s time that I changed my approach: I am going to care for it. Actively, not passively.
Walking the grounds. Removing everything that is not harmonious or that doesn’t match the culture that I love so much. Not from frustration but from love.
And if this means taking my time to find capable, strong, kind, caring people to sail with me, then so be it.
Thing 3: Oof. Facebook.
Here’s what I want:
So I have been avoiding having a Facebook page for the company.
For various reasons.
And now Maryann and Jacquelyn are teaching a class and I adore both of them and want to take it.
But first we should probably put something up on that stupid page.
Or, alternately, figure out why so much resistance.
Ways this could work:
This could get worked on at Drunk Pirate Council on Thursday.
Again, more Shiva Nata to destuckify.
Maybe if I write about this some more and process the process, I’ll figure out where the resistance lives and what kind of reassurances it wants.
My commitment.
To pay attention.
To forgive myself for having so little interest in doing things that I think I’m “supposed to”.
To release as many “supposed to” rules as I can.
To blow bubbles and laugh and wear a silly hat and dance with my duck and twirl my invisible mustaches whenever I start to take any of this too seriously.
To find out when I’m using worry as a distraction. To find out when I am making mountains out of … things that are not mountains.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Let’s see. I wanted insights on evening rituals. And yes. The fact that I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow does seem to imply that they need to happen before I get into bed.
It’s actually pretty hilarious that I hadn’t factored that into things. So. Slowly slowly. But I have some ideas, and we’re practicing.
Then I wanted to tell people about my bohemian salon of a yearly freebie class. Which I forgot about. But a ton of people signed up anyway. And I am almost decided on the theme. Will say for sure tomorrow.
I wanted progress with my office-that-is-not-an-office (and in the process of becoming a Wish Room, whatever that is).
And my gentleman friend found me the most perfect shelves ever — at the Rebuilding Center, and also picked up some other gorgeous things at a vintage furniture store. Progress!
No idea about Dana’s house yet, but I am still wishing good things for her too.
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!
What I’d rather not have:
- The word “manifest”.
- To be told how I should be asking for things.
- To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given advices.
Wishing love and good things for your Very Personal Ads! So glad for everyone doing this with me.
Friday Chicken #111: iguanas everywhere
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.
This was a ridiculously hard week. And I’m not even sure why. It just was.
All I know is I ran into a bunch of walls.
And it was not fun.
The hard stuff
Brain fog.
Things that would normally be slightly heavy were heavier.
Things that would normally be kind of fun, like choosing colors for painting Hoppy House were stressful and confusing.
Lots of Inowanna Iguana. Inowanna!
General crappiness.
Things being in between.
Things breaking and falling apart.
Things that didn’t need fixing now needing fixing.
Not being in the mood for any of it.
Systems fixes taking forever.
Man. Still dealing with fallout from all the time I spent last year not being on the bridge.
Making systems changes and then finding all sorts of ridiculousness in the systems. I have been putting this off for months because it bores the hell out of me.
But not as much as it stresses me out to have complicated systems.
Much of this week was spent editing stuff in the Pirate Ship Log to turn ten step processes into five step ones. Which might be why my brain is so miserable.
From this:
STEP 10:. To view the upcoming charges in shopping cart, click Orders –> Recurring Orders. That will bring up a list of scheduled charges & will show you the date the next charge will occur. If you want to change that date for any of those orders, click the “Edit” link in that order’s row. Then on the next screen, enter whatever date you want the charge ot occur in the “Date Next” box, and scroll to the bottom of the page and click “save changes.”
… to this:
STEP 5. To view upcoming charges + dates: Orders –> Recurring Orders. “Edit” to change dates. Next screen: enter new date, scroll to bottom + select “save changes.”
Yes. I know none of this makes sense to you. But for me, heaven.
Especially since these are just reminders to people who already use the systems and know how they work.
You know? I don’t even know why I’m chickening.
This week just kind of sucked. And I’m not sure why.
And now it’s over. Let’s find the good.
The good stuff
It’s Friday. Which means this ridiculous week is over.
It’s about damn time.
Changes.
While the spending of several hours making changes to systems and sequences was not pleasant for my head …
Having that done feels really, really good.
It’s as if there are parts of my ship that I avoid. Which is not good for a pirate queen.
So now I’m back on the bridge. And things are clean and clear.
My clients. I adore them.
We are both having fun and cooking up the most brilliant things together.
Very exciting.
And last Friday I had a client in town for a whole day with me (something I only do a few times a year) and it was extremely sparkly and great. We neutralized hundreds of monsters, came up with a spectacular and extremely unconventional business plan, and problem-solved like crazy.
I cannot put into words the amount of kooky impossible-to-explain magical untangling that happened. But I can say this: when amazing things are happening for people I care about, that really does change things for me as well.
The napping.
Very much the napping.
It was good.
And the tramping.
Now that it’s not a million degrees outside anymore, I am back on the tramp.
Bounce bounce bounce!
Speaking of iguanas…
I finally posted something on the Shiva Nata blog to answer the What’s a Shivanaut?
question.
And ended up letting myself fall down that rabbit hole for a while. Which was good.
Because I wrote six posts.
Including one which was just the most massive iguana ever, and had been weighing on me for months. Sigh of relief.
New things. Like The Slants! And some old things.
Obsessively listening to The Slants.
And by “listening”, I mean “doing Shiva Nata at top speed until my brain falls out”
And then I watched Mumford (which I hadn’t seen since it came out), and it was even more of a lovely film than I’d remembered.
What a sweet, perfect meditation on identity. And in so many forms. How we identify with roles, pain, place. How we hide from ourselves or aspects of ourselves. Imposter syndrome. Pleasure.
Recommended.
And … live from the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background: 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.”
Portland had its big music festival last week (MFNW), and there were plenty of fabulously named bands — real ones. As well as all sorts of visitors to town (who are all these skinny people who look as if they care about their eyebrows?).
Anyway. I didn’t go, but I read the Willamette Week reviews and my god did they come up with some awesome categories to describe the types of music being played. Really, each one of those should be a band. My hat. It comes off.
So. I have to share some of these delightful names that should be bands. That are each just one guy. Obviously.
Cast your vote for the new Fake Band of The Week!
Fake Bands I’m pretty sure I would like: Rock and Lull, Chillwave, Mexican Ramones, Smartass Punk, Appalachian Hellfire, George Division
Fake Bands I am … intrigued by: Melody Freaks, Everything Is Ruined, Farmhouse Gospel, Glitch Hop
Fake Bands that kind of scare me. Or would, if they existed: Modest Mouseketeers, Brat Rock, Thrash Compactor, Meshugge Pop
And my personal favorite:
Minstrel of the Apocalypse
I would totally go to see them. Except that it’s really just one guy. Voting starts now.
And … stuff I read this week week.
This post about Shivapiphanies. Awesome. She’s @EleanorWragg on Twitter.
Go read this guy’s blog. It’s called Poor Impulse Control, it’s got a great tagline, and I’m afraid he’s going to stop. So leave him a comment and say hey. Thanks.
Also, I pretty much never read coaching blogs but one of my people sent me to this and so then I had to get a bunch of red sponge noses for the Playground.
I’m not crazy but I’ll be crazy for you. Hilarious. As if I weren’t a big enough Ryan North fan already. I love this way too much.
And my beloved Chris Zydel wrote about radical self acceptance and turnips.
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. And of course also a tzom kal if you’re into that kind of thing. And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HIRO (tomorrow)! xox