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.
Friday Chicken #110: breadcrumbs 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.
An odd-shaped little week.
Between Labour Day (which I forgot about, as usual) and Rosh HaShana, the week has been so far removed from its typical forms and structures to be almost unrecognizable as such.
But I suppose that’s kind of fitting for this whole Moon of New Beginnings thing. Yes, I name the moons. It is fun.
The hard stuff
Overwhelm again.
And of the annoying existential kind.
As in, how is it possibly September? It was only just May.
And all the things not done and undone and partially done. “Stupid taking account of things. Be less depressing!”
And that kind of thing. Not for too long, but not fun while it shows up.
Things taking so much longer than you estimate for.
Really.
So of course it turned out that decorating (what I call “editing”) the Processing the Process ebook took five hours longer than what I’d scheduled for it.
Oh yes.
It also turned out to be nearly two hundred pages.
Anyway. Five hours of high-concentration brain time that I hadn’t reckoned with.
Some other things had to go. It happens.
No, everything taking longer.
Even blog posts. Usually if I take forever to write a post, it’s because:
a) I’m stuckified related to some aspect of the topic and I need to work through it
b) I can’t find my notes
c) I’m getting distracted.
But I had no distractions, excellent notes and really wanted to write it. Plus I was in the zone. Nothing about it was a struggle. And still it took two hours.
Just this general slowness. Not foggy. Not tired. Not anything. Just slow.
But then impatience with the slowness. And then impatience with the impatience. And then impatience with the people telling me I shouldn’t be impatient.
Does that work?
Random nosy guy: “Oh, buying PMS Tea, huh? Does that stuff work?”
Me (out loud): “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Me: (in my head): “I don’t know. Let’s find out if I still want to grab you by your stupid shirt and bash your head into this wall after I’ve had some. Who knows. Maybe by that point I’ll also want to do more with my life than eat potato chips all day and hate people. Hey, anything’s possible, right?”
And, in case you’re wondering, no that stuff totally doesn’t work. Not on me, at least.
Interruptions.
Yes, I love the holidays.
And also I forgot how much they knock everything else over and make things impossible.
Time crunch. Argh.
Not being able to find things.
So many times this week I’d be messing around with a post or a piece of copy, remember that I’d already done a bunch of writing on this topic … nothing.
My system of where things go generally works great, but this week all sorts of things fell through the cracks.
Breaking the only rule I have.
This week I managed — not once but every single day — to break what’s really the only hard, fast “absolutely absolutely” rule in the giant Book of Me, otherwise known as the Book of Me Not Going Batshit Crazy.
And that is:
Eat lunch.
Preferably before you crash and burn, and turn into a completely nonfunctioning shell of a zombie podperson.
Not only did I break the rule, but then — immediately following the oh what the hell I can wait a little bit, chaos ensued, things went weird, unable to change course.
Completely screwed up each afternoon. Which might have something to do with all the other bits of hard this week.
The good stuff
Closing doors.
Getting rid of things.
Ending things.
Moving things.
It’s time. It’s good.
Shockingly, got all sorts of things done.
Including editing the nearly-two-hundred-pages of my Processing the Process ebook.
That wasn’t crazy.
Beginnings.
I really do love Rosh Hashana.
And tashlich is probably my favorite practice in the world. Still.
It’s nice watching everything you no longer need sink to the bottom of a river and dissolve.
And I made round raisin challah.
It it too gorgeous to eat but we’re eating it anyway.
Delicious.
More ideas than I know what to do with.
Including some ideas about where to put the ideas while they’re in percolation/gestation mode.
Some of them are really, really, really good.
Lots of anticipation and tingliness and peeking at what is possible through my fingers.
Ohmygod. The costumery! It is growing.
Remember a couple weeks ago when I had a Very Personal Ad asking for new costumes for the treasure room at the Playground?
Well. Lovely people offered lovely things. And among them was the fabulous and amazing Simone, fellow Friday Chickeneer and beautiful person.
Little did I suspect that “a few things” was to be a giant box stuffed with goodness and pirate booty.
A pirate cutlass! Wings and crowns and horns and boas and fans and shawls and chapeaux aplenty! Also what appears to be an enormous wreath made of bright yellow feathers.
The Playground is now significantly more full of weird than it was before, and this makes me exceedingly happy. Now cannot wait for the next Rally (Rally!).
Two exceedingly great Shivanautical epiphanies.
That of course make no sense when you write them down.
Because epiphanies are stupid.
But they felt like giant understandings deep in my body. So they were awesome:
- To be able to fly, you have to stop running first.
- Those aren’t barriers. Those are gates. All of them. Your perceived barriers are gates. Again, stop running. And just approach.
The Shiva Nata. It is the bomb.
This just made me laugh.
Maybe you had to be there.
My gentleman friend, with a surprising amount of affection: “I love you, you psychopath.”
(Unrelated but also amusing: He made me tweet my threat to open a shop across from Virginia Woof Doggy Care and call it James Juice — saying “come on, you’ll only lose like a hundred followers! Totally worth it.”).
And … playing live at the meme beach house!
Yes, that’s a Stuism too.
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?
Babushka Chicken
Not related to the Friday Chicken. And they kick ass. They’re playing at the Portland music festival. Except of course that it’s really just one guy.
And lovely things I read or found this week.
Joy, who is @thoughtsofjoy on Twitter and one of my favorite people, has written some terrific stuff.
Right now just really enjoying her new page about her take on marketing sotto voce, which I find brilliant and perfect
Bas wrote about how identity shapes projects.
This? This is the guitar I would be buying right this second for my friend who is dead. You know, if he weren’t dead. He’d appreciate this.
And I just read this piece on Heidi Go Seek, one of the Portland roller derby all-star skaters on the Wheels of Justice. Even though she’s not on the team we sponsor, she is still completely amazing.
Someone get my gentleman friend (or anyone, really) to measure my fingers so they can get me this ring. (Kiss to @darxyanne)
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.
More pomegranates. More shelter.
Yesterday we thought about containers, which is a word I dislike but a concept I love.
So we actually talked about shelter (and about blanket forts and ship voyages).
And building a sukkah (conceptual or otherwise) to symbolically hold us while we go through whatever it is we’re needing to go through.
…. and I said I’d share more from our time at the Rally (Rally!). Talk about containers. That was a blanket fort of total wild rumpusry of a container.
We had Shiva Nata each morning to challenge the brain because how could we not.
And then — post-brain-scramble — we did these stone skipping exercises where we asked questions and elicited smart answers from somewhere deep within that lovely state of chaos.
Here it is in two parts. If any of it makes sense, I will be astonished. But there are some marvelous bits of true hidden in there.
Part 1: Talking to the slightly-in-the-future version of you.
The idea: Talking to the me who has already worked on this. Say, me in a few days from now, post-Rally. And who now has a more loving relationship with herself and with the project.
What reassurances does she have to offer you?
Everything you might work on here is useful! And equally valuable. Equally!
That’s because each one feeds and strengthens the other.
This is not a house that needs to have one part done before the next one can be built.
As long as you are in your space with clear boundaries, and you have good rituals for transitions, it doesn’t matter where or with what you begin.
What advice would she like to give you?
Create spaces and space around you.
Boundaries around the boundaries.
Make them visible and invisible. Build them with blocks and markers.
What does she wish you knew?
How to make separations. And also to see how things are connected.
Invocations are not just symbolic. They define the space.
Writing about what you want to write instead of just writing is a valuable use of your time.
The best projectizing is all about setting it up for the magic crazy wonderful things to happen.
And that’s why you need big designated chunks of time, for transitioning in and out.
A fort of protection!
Seriously, honey. A blanket fort in your room is a marvelous idea.
Okay. Do you have something to give me as a resource, me-who-has-done-this?
Endless permission slips! Also: blocks to start making your fort.
A Playground that is supposed to be played in. Costumes!
The reminder that you are the Pirate Queen.
Play play play play play play play!
You are learning to make everything fun and full of playfulness and ease. That is why this is a Rally (Rally!) and not a retreat or a seminar.
How far away are you?
I am not far at all. The more you talk to me, the closer we are.
I am hiding in the trees. I can see you but you can’t see me. When you can see me, I will come to you.
Anything else you want to tell me?
Yes! About the Week of Biggification (pickles). This is important.
You are headed in the right direction. And it’s time for you to really truly know and understand that this is the exact right thing to be doing.
You did not just pick Grove Park Inn as the right place because the Playground hadn’t been born.
You picked it because specific things need to happen there. There is a purpose to being there. It’s about redefining luxury, comfort, ease and growth. This week will be more magical because it’s there.
The setting will be a sukkah for you. It will hold all of you and be a canopy of peace. And through all the hilarity and goofing off and laughing until you cry, it will be the ship that cares for you.
Part 2: A bunch of questions. But to me.
This is from the last day of the Rally. Extremely general exploratory questions.
What is true?
I am ready.
I am READY.
There is in fact no project that is too big for me.
All that process-process-process I’ve had to go through in order to have a Playground … I am done with things being so process-ey (even though I will of course keep processing things).
But there are no obstacles. There are NO obstacles.
I am learning how to remember to be a queen and how to rest and how to have supportive structures all around me. And this is all possible. Everything I want: doable.
This is messing with my head. I didn’t even know I wanted things. But now apparently they’re doable.
What am I wrong about?
How much of me people need. Really it’s the essence. The frame.
With those structures, I am not needed. Just for my me-ness to be present as a quality.
I don’t need to do as much. All I need to do is provide these forms and containers (see
I’m also wrong about how much time it takes for things to change.
There is deep internal experience/programming that says (quite emphatically): “But things have to take a long time”.
And there is a kernel of truth in that.
The truth is: germination and gestation is a process, and an ongoing one.
But it is also true that some things happen unbelievably fast. What if the qualities of germination and gestation can somehow combine with speed and safety? What if …?
I need maps and a wishroom STAT! Also to mark out the next stations in that crazy labyrinth.
What do I know?
The map I made from the labyrinth. That could totally be the thing that lets me know what to spend time on each day.
REST times lead to IDEA CAVE DREAM SEED times lead to RALLY TIMES and they all actually lead to each other.
I can do rest-dream-rally or rest-rally-dream or dream-rest-rally or dream-rally-rest or rally-dream-rest or rally-rest-dream!
Just like in Dance of Shiva. All points connect in all ways. Anything can be arranged into a new pattern.
Map this. Paint it. Make it true. Have actual real-life stations where you go in order to do and experience these things.
Three different types of blanket fort for three different types of experiences. Ask what they are and imagine them.
Design a safe room or sanctuary for you.
It’s a sukkah. And very … lavish somehow.
There are these huge pomegranates. Ripe fruit. Glowing gourds. Goblets. Embroidered cushions.
Gold threads in the red and white fabric that makes up the “walls”.
It is both sumptuous and temporary. It is a place I am going to in order to be cared for while certain processes are in place. In that way it is also like a mikveh.
Design a safe room or sanctuary for your project.
It’s a round room. Small, like in a turret.
And there are vine-like things to climb on. It’s like a crazy climbing gym, and my project is doing really fun strength-training exercises.
It is in training to be strong, flexible, speedy in its reactions. Calm under all circumstances. Healthy, happy.
It has the glow of exertion and power. It knows what to do and it’s doing it.
What do I know about closure?
That things are always opening and closing. It’s what they do.
That transitions and rituals are hugely important.
That taking time to turn away from something has meaning.
That I am tangled up with X partly because of no closings, and these traditions of lines being kept open, through dreams and hopes and memories.
That closure is like curtains closing. It is brief and temporary and a symbol.
Some things need to close to be closed. This is what makes room for the next door.
It’s not that one door closes and another one opens. It’s more that one closes so the next one can open. Sometimes.
What does my project know about transitions?
They happen in space and in time.
They have a symbolic importance that then translates into the real world. And even if you can’t see the stages, they’re happening.
Cubbies! Why do we not have cubbies? Also we need a phone booth or something to change costumes in. Oh yes.
Play with me! And comment zen for today.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their stuff and their own experience. And we don’t give advice (unless someone specifically asks).
What I’d love today: play with me play with me play with me!
Even if you’re not a Shivanaut yet, if you want to put any of these questions to yourself and answer them, awesome. Or if you just want to think out loud (or not) about any aspect of this. Shana Tova.
*blows kiss to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads*
Structures and shelter.
There’s this thing in the world of self-help (self-helpishness? self-helpery?) where I kind of live — people are always talking about containers. About creating containers for things to happen in.
I love the concept. Love it! I don’t love the word.
So. My plan. To examine where I get stuck, expand on the concept, uncover some of the good stuff hidden in the possibilities. To rewrite the vocabulary.
And possibly share some of the bizarre things I wrote while rallying at the last Rally (Rally!) a few weeks ago.
What people are talking about when they talk about “containers”.
The concept is basically this:
Having safe, clearly-defined spaces make it easier to create. Like when you’re at a workshop. Or if you have a morning writing ritual.
Once you’re inside a space like this, there is this gorgeous interplay between freedom on the one hand, and safety on the other.
Between sovereignty and containment. Between endless possibility and complete sanctuary. And these are not opposites.
Each feeds the other. The more containment, the more freedom to explore.
The more safety you have, the easier it is to mess around, take risks, play with being king or queen of your world.
And the easier it then becomes to experience and process all the vulnerability and flailing and falling apart that happens when you’re in a period of deep creativity.
When you have strong, clear, healthy, flexible boundaries for an experience, the most amazing things can happen within that …. that thing that needs a word.
A “field of safety”?
Anyway. This is generally referred to as a “container”. I get it. I just don’t connect.
Hiro sometimes calls it a playpen (ooh, playing!) — still not my right word. So what is the right word for me?
Unsurprisingly, I got Metaphor Mouse to help me sort out my positive and less-than-positive associations with this, and to build something new.
The elements of container that I liked were: safety, stability, support, portable, makes space, exists to help me.
The less-appealing associations — again, just for me — were: bland, boring, box, plastic-ey, opaque, too snug. And while playpen has my favorite word — play! — right in the name, I also found “constrained” and “powerless” hiding in my personal definition.
So my ideal non-container thing that would hold this function had to include: spaciousness, freedom, power, fun, open sky, adventure, silliness, coziness and sanctuary.
For me, this is my pirate ship. For you, your non-container of a container might be something else.
Containers do something else too: they shelter you while you go through a big change.
There is no shortage of turning points in life. They’re happening all the time. It’s a flow and a continuum and all of that.
And, at the same time, if we’re lucky, there are certain distinct and special periods in our lives when we do a thing or go through a process. We transition.
We enter the cocoon and emerge from it changed. We walk the length. We climb the mountain. We venture into the tunnel at one end, and come out the other side another person.
Not a different person. Just the next version of you. You with more of your you-ness. A more present and full you than before.
This is why we say yes to certain experiences that will be this change for us. This is also why these things terrify us. This is why we need safety and sanctuary and blanket forts to facilitate these periods of moving through.
One of the reasons I like having a ship instead of a container is that ship holds the quality of [+ voyage].
You embark. And when you return, it is a different version of you who returns. More comfortable in your you-ness. The you who has known sky and sea and time and other places.
Spaces of safety exist on a variety of levels.
Jen’s amazing Writer’s Retreat in Taos where I taught the past two summers is a safe space in several senses.
In a very literal, physical sense — the setting, which is very contained and cozy and sweet.
Also in the sense of having a designated time and space to work through a series of processes, and come through the other side
Also in the sense of emotional space: you have the structure of the retreat to hold your project, and you have the culture of the retreat to support you emotionally (Jen, like me, builds cultures where you don’t ever have to deal with unsolicited advice).
Jen puts a lot of time into establishing and bringing awareness to these containers, these fields of safety … what I might call the world of the ship.
They are powerful because they are temporary. They move you through the passages. They hold you when you’re scared. They make it possible to discover the next piece without falling apart.
And these temporary structures support you for much longer than their actual life span.
That’s part of why they exist. To come into form and to be taken apart.
Just like the patterns that we build and deconstruct in the Dance of Shiva.
We build forms and take them apart. We build shelters and structures and take them apart. How to do this is one of the things I’ll be teaching in Asheville this November.
Here’s something interesting.
At the Rally, we did Shiva Nata and asked questions to help come into a better relationship with the projects we were projectizing. My own project for the Rally was to plan the schedule, content and HAT* for my Week of Biggification**.
* HAT = Havi Announces a Thing page
** The word you’re looking for is pickles
Anyway, questions and answers. To my surprise, I ended up writing about these containers-that-aren’t containers. It was neat. The first questions:
“What do I need?”
In what context? Wait, in any context?
Better structures. Structures to help me make sure I get time for the things that support me. For transitioning in and out.
Structures that are composed of transition and ritual, so that everything is accompanied by ritual.
Structures that make life more like being on Rally (Rally!).
Actually, “life imitates rally” is totally better than “life imitating retreat”, but I still want to have play and rest in equal parts.
To have transitions between Ship mode and Port mode. Between pedaling and cruising. Between construction and deconstruction. To not have to rebuild each time.
Think poles and platforms. Like the tribe taking their poles with them but leaving the platforms to return to. Temporary structures.
“What do I know?”
How to build structures and these … “container”-like things. How to establish cultures of love and sanctuary and no-shoe-throwing.
Oh! OH! Sukkot!
These spaces are like sukkot!
And what is a sukkah if not a ritualized blanket fort? It is.
A container of the same mysterious kind. An intentional and temporary structure that exists to support you.
It’s a portable, temporary canopy of piece that holds a certain form for you for a specific period of time while you go through a process of metamorphosis.
Yes.
“What’s next?”
Finding shelter. Claiming sanctuary. Asking questions.
Labyrinthing. Mapping. Acquiring more costumes.
Oh! We will have a Pomegranate Rally and let our projects sleep under the stars!
And at the Week of Biggification (pickles), we’ll teach about how to build shelters, how to move from one transition to the next, how to carry this wisdom with you so that it lives in your cells and your bones and your brain.
Talk about these themes on the blog. So your people know it’s possible to move from shelter to shelter. To know the freedom and spaciousness that comes from safety and containment. Draw a map. And then another one.
And comment zen for today.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their stuff and their own experience. Without advice (unless someone specifically asks for it).
What I’d love today: more thoughts on these container-like things and what you might like to call them and different ways we can use them.
I have a bunch of other (semi-related and not-even-slightly-related) things that I wrote during the Rally. Maybe some of them will show up tomorrow. In the meantime, internet kisses to all.
And, as Mariko says, Happy New Year to those of the apples and honey persuasion.
The month of new beginnings.
Or better: the month of newness and beginnings, since most beginnings are new anyway. This newness is special. You can just tell.
So all of a sudden it’s September. And not just September but now.
It was kind of … dark-ish when I climbed out of bed at six am yesterday. And almost chilly while I was drawing the bath. It’s here. And then …
Last year when we named the moons? I also devised a system based on that exercise to help keep track of my writing and blog postings.
I’ve been completing the transition from Porch Swing Moon (aka Taos Moon) into the Moon of Beginnings, just in time for Rosh Hashana, and it’s started me thinking about my relationship with newness and starting points and marking time.
Of course, it’s pretty much new year’s all year round in these parts.
One of the things I so hugely appreciate about Judaism is the absurd number of times (four) throughout the year that we get to call New Year’s, including the birthday of the trees and the actual beginning of the new year (Gah! Wednesday night!).
And yeah, I do this in my business too.
Selma and I always celebrate towards the end of August, marking the birthday of this beautiful website (five years, darlings).
And then there is great rejoicing on the 7th of March, which marks the day we walked into City Hall in San Francisco and declared this thing we do to be a business. Except it was a sole proprietorship because apparently ducks aren’t allowed to be co-owners. Bastards.
Anyway. And then of course mid-June marks the anniversary of this whole blogging thing, something that turned out to be kind of a big deal for us. And January and Sylvester and the moving into a year with a new number at the end.
The point:
Time to reflect is pretty much always useful, and I figure, the more opportunities for noticing, remembering, merriment and drinking, the better.
Things I love about this time of new beginnings.
Layers! Wearing them.
Stripy socks.
Pirate boots.
Haircut.
Chestnut trees.
Long walks with Selma.
Notebooks everywhere!
Things I love about Rosh Hashana in particular.
Apples.
Pomegranates.
New clothes.
Crisp wind.
Standing by the water.
Releasing regret.
Standing.
Sitting.
Autumn.
Newness.
Making plans for the sukkah.
Everything smells good.
For more on Rosh Hashana — this post of mine from two years ago, and this hilarious bit from the Onion.
Things I love about this time of year in my business.
This is the time when I map out the upcoming pirate ship voyages for the next business year.
Seriously? 2011? What!?
So … another run of improvements to the Kitchen Table program and considering all the crazy experiments I’d like to try with the next year of my secret and wonderful Mindful Biggification group.
Setting the dates for Rallies and Shivanauttery and various other wild-rumpus-like things. Updating the events page … (soon!)
This time of creating and brewing with my tiny, sweet things is full of mystery and fun. And it definitely didn’t used to be like that, so I am enjoying this new way.
Oh. And the end of the slow season.
Like magic. Every year, and each time I am still not convinced it will happen again.
My style of “marketing” is pretty quiet. Quiet bordering on non-existent. What I do:
Hang out here, work on my stucknesses out loud so my people can observe and apply things themselves. Go to the Twitter bar to goof around and blow off steam. That’s it.
I don’t have an email list (other than the please tell me if something is coming one). I don’t do noozletters. Very rarely do I mention products. You pretty much have to take yourself to the shop or come to the Playground if you want to throw monies at us.*
* My coaching services page is completely hidden, because I’m booking private clients four months in advance, and that’s insane and wrong.
During the year our stuff just gets bought, without me reminding anyone that this is a possible thing to do. Come summer, though, not as much.
My people still sign up for programs, of course. But actual product sales slow. I suppose I could change that by actually telling people that we sell things. But meh.
Then — every September 1st — the need for Shivanautical epiphanies or a Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic returns. This is helping me get better at trusting.
Rituals and doings for the new year.
Oh, I like the symbolic-marking-of-things so much. You know this.
My friend Sivan is doing a really beautiful one. It’s like this:
You go through your living space and make sure you only have things that belong to you.
So if there are books or things you’ve borrowed, you make a point of returning them.
And if other people have borrowed things from you, it’s the time when you get them back.**
** Having a ritual for this makes it easier, because then you can say, “Hey, I’m doing my new year ritual of making sure that my space is full of me-ness, and collecting everything I have lent out.”
You examine what is yours. Literally.
If there are clothes that don’t fit, dishes that you don’t like, things you never use, these move out of your space.
If there are things you want in your space and there isn’t money for them yet, you write these down. You fill your life with things and qualities you want in it. It’s brilliant.
I’m trying to come up with some other things as well.
And who knows, maybe some of them will stick.
I usually have a word for the year. Or a theme.
But what about a color? Or a daily practice that doesn’t have to continue forever, but that will hold me for a month …
For my birthday in March, I had Hiro do a series of special birthday sessions for me, and one of the wacky and great things she had me do was stand in the future (a year from that day) and walk my year backwards.
Literally. In my office. And also in my mind. Walking the patterns of the year, stepping stone by stepping stone. It was awesome.
And the things we saw for January and June were so completely unlikely and impossible to imagine, I knew they couldn’t happen. But imagining them: amazing.
The June thing totally came to pass. Still blowing my mind. We’ll see about January.
But the thing that’s so powerful about spending time with what you want in your year is that it builds clarity, awareness, noticing and the ability to recognize what you want (and work through your stuff about wanting it).
Good stuff. Worth doing.
Anyway. There is no point to this post.
Just thinking about pulling out the fuzzy socks. And reflecting on another year.
And thinking about time and how we mark it and boundaries and distinctions and doing things to say this is where I am now.
And hoping to invent a fun new something or other to bring into the new year while we’re at it.
Comment zen for today…
So. Not everyone likes to mix business stuff and cultural/spiritual stuff and mindfulness stuff. For me, it kind of all goes together. If this isn’t your way, do it another way.
We’re all trying things. And we let people have their own experience and their own way.
Also, you know what would be nice? Could we possibly brainstorm some good rituals of beginnings? Or — if “rituals” weird you out — just some Symbolic Things To Do that encourage mindfulness or elicit a smile or both?
And of course chag sameach and a shana tova u’metuka to you if you are celebrating the new year this week too.
May it be a happy, healthy, sweet, supportive year, full of the best kind of surprises.
Very Personal Ads #62: and I didn’t even ask for that!
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: more wishes please
Here’s what I want:
I feel awkward. Like a kid granted three wishes who wants to wish for more wishes.
But here’s the thing. Each Sunday I put out three asks. Generally the focus is on the qualities I’d like to have more of in my life:
Things like … support, stability, silliness, sovereignty. There are more (even ones that don’t start with S), but I can’t think of them.
And sometimes my ask is related to an actual thing.
So last week I wanted someone driving from San Francisco to Portland who could deliver some boxes of costumes for my Playground — both the costumes and the Playground being results of previous Very Personal Ads.
And yeah. Turns out a friend of mine can do it. Neat!
Short version: I pretty much always get what I want, or the support and comfort that I need in my relationship with those three things. So why not ask more often? Why is this a weekly practice (62 weeks old) and not a daily one?
Ways this could work:
Not sure. I could work this into my daily journaling and process the process.
Maybe I’ll teach a class on this. Maybe there is a fun, kooky, daily ritual to be easily folded into my routine. Or you guys could remind me (in loving deguiltified ways).
My commitment.
To do Shiva Nata on this and see what comes up.
To plan a wishing party.
To talk to whatever fuzzy monsters show up and want love and attention.
(Already noticing the “what the hell kind of greedy person wants more good things?!” and the “you should be more grateful” monsters, so I can definitely have a chat with them to find out what would help them feel more safe with this.)
Thing 2: to welcome my people for the Week of Biggification.
Here’s what I want:
So ridiculously excited about the Week of Biggification.* Actually, I’m constantly running off to some secret sexy rendezvous with the content. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever been so passionate about content.
Geeky about it, yes. Passionate, I don’t know. This is hot.
Anyway. Where we stand with who gets to come:
Someone just had to drop out so and now there are four spots left. Three singles, one shared room.
I would like to meet these four wonderful people this week. I mean, not meet in person yet, but for them to send in their pickle submissions and for me to recognize them as people who definitely should be a part of this.
* password = pickles
Ways this could work:
I could tell my people about what’s going to happen there.
And I could stop being so obsessively secretive about what the bonuses are (one of them is that I’m waiving tuition to one Rally this year for Week of Biggification participants — if that’s not the best thing ever, I don’t know what is).
Of course! Love letters! Like this. I will write them love letters.
My commitment.
To keep loving the people who are coming, loving the people who might come, loving the people for whom it’s not the right time or the right thing.
To really truly welcome the lovely people for this, so they feel adored and filled with a sense of belonging and excitement.
To keep the adoration alive in my semi-steamy relationship with the Week of Biggification itself (the program, yes?).
To spend time at the Playground feeling the whimsy and the silliness and the depth of what is my new tiny, sweet thing.
To do some hardcore Dance of Shiva on it. To laugh and dance and play and eat a fried egg sandwich, and generally enjoy this time.
Thing 3: spending more time with my body.
Here’s what I want:
Well, in and with my body.
Last week was long and hard and didn’t have nearly as much movement as I would have liked.
More walking. More dancing. More napping. More yoga nidra. Yes, please.
Ways this could work:
I’m putting it here.
My commitment.
To pay attention, ask good questions, remember that this is a) a practice, and b) a way to be sweet with myself, not another way to be mean to myself.
To be patient with myself when I can. To remember how hard being patient is when I can’t.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted to be ready to go live with the Week of Biggification (pickles) and it happened. In very good timing.
Then (ooh, I totally forgot about this one) there was an ask about becoming immune to other people’s angst. And weirdly? I think we nailed that.
Because there was angst all over the place this week (and not just angst but some considerably more toxic things than that) and I wasn’t feeling it. Aware it was there but not feeling it.
Wow. Can I renew that wish please?
And I wanted progress on something I’m currently projectizing, and that didn’t so much happen, but actually I got more done on it than I might have, considering.
Also, this isn’t something I asked for out loud, but I have been really, really wanting shelves to outfit the Library & Toy Shop at the Playground, and that was going to go into this week’s VPA. But then Dana gave us three bookshelves and a dresser. Nice!
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.