The Fluent Self

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?

* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.

One Hundred Chickens.

by Havi Brooks | Jun 29, 2010 | updates & announcements

I like rituals. This is not a secret.

I like the way they can be tiny and silly and mysterious all at the same time.

How they cultivate mindfulness but not in some annoying “ooh I’m being mindful” way.

How they can be private and communal at the same time. How they mark time and encourage discernment and reflection.

How you can just make them up whenever you want to.

Two years. Almost.

Just about two years ago (August 8, 2008), I started doing this thing on Fridays where I listed the hard stuff and the good stuff in my week.

First it was called the Round-up. And then it was the Check-In. Which eventually (by Friday Chicken #59) became the Chicken.

The Friday Chicken!

Partly because of the extremely charming chicken graphic my designer made. And partly because the more it became apparent that this was only funny to me, the more I liked it.

And then we couldn’t stop.

I didn’t think I could keep it going for more than a few weeks. But people started joining me.

Pretty soon we had regulars.

And not just what you’d think: everyone chickening about whatever happened in his or her week.

People actively helping each other out, cheering each other’s good stuff, sending love for the hard stuff.

Kind of a weekly get-together. And always a mix of people who have never chickened before and people who do it every week. We care about each other.

I started getting over my “oh, nobody cares about the stupid stuff that happened in your week” monster-stories.

It started being fun.

Like most rituals, it just got kookier over time.

After about fifty-five of them, I was able to stop referring to each one as an “edition”.

Then we started collecting Stuisms.

And thanks to Stu, the meme beach house was born, which quickly became a venue for our Fake Band Of The Week (hint: it’s pretty much always just one guy).

Our Lucy (okay, so we have four commenters named Lucy, but definitely one of ours) came up with the brilliant phrase Chickeneers of the High Seas, which stuck.

Some people call it the Chick’m. And sometimes it’s chickening in, sometimes it’s chickening out.

That’s what happens.

And now we’re just about at one hundred chickens.

Fun Friday Chicken facts!

It was Chicken #8 when the Round-Up became a Check-in.
Apparently I am fabulously inconsistent about the structure and form of Chicken titles and I never know if I’m going to capitalize anything or not.
While I’ve never missed a week, I did accidentally label #41 as #40, so yes, we had #40 twice in a row. That’s corrected here.
I know this because I have a lot of readers who are Virgos.
Even though I talk about being a vegetarian kind of a lot, some people think that I am eating these chickens or making them into soup or things like that. Not even slightly.
For some reason I seem to put quotation marks in most of the early ones. Jazz hands!
But I’m also really inconsistent about that. Go me.
Chickens #15 and #32 actually have the same title, and I totally never noticed that until about five seconds ago.
It’s hard to say which one is better. Which one is good enough to deserve the title?
On the one hand, #15 has the Monty Python Lumberjack song in German, which is AWESOME.
But on the other hand, #32 has the Big Jew Frog. Come on!

Here they are: the first 100 chickens

(Because it’s crazy impressive seeing them all together, and because I want to pick my favorite titles and you can do it with me.)

Okay, here are my favorite titles.

an intrigue of spies
trombones
Moonshine Tailbeam Waterloo Jones

And here is what I like best about chickening every Friday.

The Chickens are about choosing connection over isolation. But also about connecting to yourself.

They’re about remembering what is important and about remembering what didn’t seem important at the time. And giving meaning to things you see and feel and experience.

They’re about making room for the good while not cutting ourselves off from things that are hard and challenging.

Also: I am officially declaring Chicken Amnesty!

Not that you have to leave a comment on a Friday Chicken or ever, because you don’t. I will like you just as much either way.

But if you’re one of the people who has thought that it’s somehow a closed group or that you’ll feel weird being there, I want to give you a loving invitation to chicken with us. Consider yourself welcome always.

Yay Chickens!

A couple weeks ago I was at Pistils on Mississippi watching the chickens do their thing. And they (the store, not the chickens) were selling baby chicks.

There was a girl who was probably three, holding a purple balloon. Her daddy was buying chicks.

And she was just beside herself with joy, running up to everyone in sight and shouting YAY CHICKENS at them. It was perfect. Anyway. Yay, Chickens.

And comment zen for today …

What I would love:

some of your most-loved things about the Friday Chicken or other rituals
some of your most-loved Friday Chicken titles
celebrating the unlikely event of one hundred chickens (assuming I don’t screw it up and we make it to Friday).

Love to all my readers, the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who has ever been a Chickeneer of the High Seas. You guys are the greatest.

Ringing the bell.

by Havi Brooks | Jun 28, 2010 | biggification

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, there’s a restaurant* called the Gandy Dancer.

I’d link to it but they play outstandingly annoying music on their website.**

Trust me.

Anyway.

The name is a slang term for early railroad workers. And the restaurant itself is right next to the railway station. In the restored Michigan train depot building from 1886.

This means:

During at least a couple different points during your meal, a train is going to go by.

Loudly. Because it’s pretty much right next to you.

Here’s what happens at the Gandy Dancer when a train goes by.

They ring this huge bell.

And then everyone applauds.

Every single time a train goes by.

You know what I can’t stop thinking about?

How completely freaking brilliant it is to turn something potentially annoying, disruptive and jolting into a ritual.

And not just a ritual, but one that’s communal. And fun.

They took something that people could (justifiably) complain about — “Sure, the food is good but a giant train rumbles by every twenty minutes or so.”

And drew attention to it. To turn it into something participatory, silly and joyful.

Unbelievable.

Applications.

Obviously I’m thinking about this in a business sense.

Specifically, how I would do something like this at the Playground.

But not just in a real live storefront space. In an online business too.

How many irritating aspects of Doing Business Online are there that are both predictable and unavoidable?

And which of those could be transformed into something that make my people laugh, conspiratorially, with me?

My mind. It is being blown.

But also outside of the world of having a business.

What things in my own life that cause disconnection and irritation could be turned into rituals?

What things that drive me crazy could be opportunities to ring a bell?

I love how this gives me the power to allow That Thing I Hate to morph into something that’s essentially a mindfulness practice.

And I love how much room for fun and play is in this.

Because there is no limit to how kooky your rituals could get.

Like?

Oh, I don’t know.

What if the next time my neighbor’s yappy-ass mini-doglet starts ruining my concentration, I didn’t shake my fist at the window?

What if I took that as a sign that it’s time to put on my feather boa and start doing jumping jacks?

Obviously, that doesn’t solve my “hey, I’m trying to record a teleclass” problem, but it solves something.

Or maybe my students will already know that whenever the barking starts, we all need to sing the Butt Monster song.***

But rituals. Silly, carefree rituals to turn distractions and horribleness into things that make us laugh.

And a possibly unrelated post-script.

We did this post-shivanautical exercise at Camp Biggification where we wandered around in our brain-altered state looking for clues.

And I kept getting this really clear message to Ring The Bell.

Which was getting on my nerves, because there wasn’t any other information after that. Just the same thing over and over again.

And also because then I couldn’t get that Anita Ward song out of my head. Disco!

Anyway, maybe this is one of the bells. At the very least, I need a new feather boa.

My goodness we have a lot of asterisks today.

* Yes, this is the second time I’ve written about places to eat in Ann Arbor.

** Yes, all music-that-starts-playing-when-you-go-to-a-non-musician-website is annoying but this is somehow especially annoying.

*** If you don’t know the butt-monster song yet, you should really come to one of my events at the Playground.

Play with me?

If you have ideas for ways this can be applied, or thoughts on where something like this might be useful in your own life, bring it on.

Any business or personal situation is fine.

Maybe we can brainstorm up some brilliant bits of something or other.

Worth a try.

Very Personal Ads #52: I’ve been doing this for a year, apparently.

by Havi Brooks | Jun 27, 2010 | stuff I think about

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’s do it.

Thing 1: super secret spy mission!

Here’s what I want:

I’ll be on Official Pirate Queen Holiday vacation this week.

And I want to be practicing things related to sovereignty and being the queen of my life. And being okay with serious biggification.

So I’m going on a super secret spy mission to practice some of that.

I have no idea how this works but here are some of the elements involved:

Glamour.
Seclusion.
Secretiveness.
Concealment.
Containment.
Mystery.
Scotch.

Ways this could work:

I can wear my ridiculously sexy shoes.

Sunglasses, obviously.

I might go for the “minor celebrity avoiding the paparazzi” look (baseball cap?).

Clandestine meetings with my duck.

Journaling. Taking notes.

And, of course, five minutes a day of Shiva Nata for some of those hot, hot, hot moments of oh that’s the thing I didn’t get before but now I know what to do next!

My commitment.

To be receptive to finding out what the missing pieces are.

To laugh. A lot.

To treat this self-investigative thing (aka Very Interior Design) with playfulness, love and STYLE.

Thing 2: Writing.

Here’s what I want:

Non-blog-related writing.

It can also be non-business related writing. In fact, I don’t actually care what gets written.

I just want time with pen and paper. And to be connected to Writer Me (she of the glasses and the maniacal laughter) and the fact that yeah, I write.

Ways this could work:

Uh, pack journal and notebooks, sweetie.

Without forcing. Without obligation.

Without a goal.

My commitment.

To stay curious.

To be willing to be surprised.

Thing 3: a peaceful resolution to a challenging situation

Here’s what I want:

What I really want is for this person to step up and do the right thing.

But since that’s apparently not going to happen, I want:

Patience. Faith. Trust. Sovereignty.

Stuff like that.

And (another) clear, strong ask. Or a clear, strong resolution. Or a perfect, simple solution.

Ways this could work:

I don’t know.

But I’m open to good things.

My commitment.

To be kind.

To keep reminding myself how different this situation is from the last time something similar happened.

To integrate the lesson: when someone proves themselves to be untrustworthy, get them out of your life immediately, instead of waiting to see what happens.

To remember everything I’ve learned about sunk costs, cutting your losses and the importance of surrounding yourself with people you can count on.

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.

I wanted support with balance and timing, which turned out to be extremely challenging.

And then (related) I was looking for movement with The Game. Which turned out to be the absolute best thing about my week.

I’ll try to write about The Game That Still Doesn’t Have A Name this week. But it was AWESOME. And I got crazy amounts of stuff done.

Then I put out the oh no there are only two seats left alert for Jennifer Louden’s amazing Luscious, Nurturing Get Your Writing Done While Laughing Your Butt Off and Maybe Crying a Little Too Writer’s Retreat in Taos.

And I have no idea what happened with that because I haven’t talked to Jen. But if you have a chance to be there, it’s the best. And I will hug you in person!

Last was Hiro’s Sovereignty Kindergarten, which I still highly recommend. She wrote some very useful posts about it this week.

Like what to do when you’re trying to establish boundaries but the other person resents it. Or what to do when you and your body are at war. Good stuff.

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”.
Shoulds. As in, “You should be doing it like this” or “That’s not the right way to ask for things — instead it should be like x, y and z”
To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given advices.

Wishing love and good things for your Very Personal Ads! Thank you for doing this with me.

Friday Chicken #99: bottles of beer

by Havi Brooks | Jun 25, 2010 | updates & announcements

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.

Yes, they’re on the wall. Why do you ask?

Seriously.

We’re at Ninety-nine Chickens. That is wild. Who would have thought?

* Note: I think we’re going to need a repeat of Friday Chicken #76: Trombones for this one because a bunch of the commenter mice won’t understand the title. Could someone please explain about the bottles of beer and what happens when you take one down and pass it around? Thanks, guys!

The hard stuff

Vacation not being even slightly vacation-ey.

So yeah, I didn’t have client calls this week or any classes to teach.

But between the piles of Doom and the massive amounts of catch-up and blah blah etc, it was still totally a working week.

Luckily, my gentleman friend and I are off to an actual place of vacationing this weekend, so I’m planning on turning that around. Still.

The Piles!

Related to the above.

See, I spent two weeks running around like a headless (non-Friday) Chicken preparing to open for the Playground.

And then a week teaching. And a week recovering. And a week teaching. And a week recovering.

So … that’s six weeks of stuff not getting done.

And while my First Mate is terrifically efficient, and the pirate ship that is my business is still sailing along merrily, interacting with the enormous doom-filled piles of stuff wanting my attention was completely hard.

But the thought of avoiding it until after pirate queen vacation was so overwhelming that I couldn’t put it off.

Gah. Scheduling.

So when I scheduled my best retreat ever — yeah, a week of mad hot biggification in Asheville, I was really careful about one thing:

When are the National WFTDA Roller Derby championship finals?

Well, they were going to be later. But now they are exactly when I scheduled my retreat.

Thanks, world.

Speaking of scheduling.

Stupid being on the west coast means waking up at dark-thirty to listen to World Cup games.

And since we don’t have a television and wanted to see the U.S. team play Algeria, we had to drag ourselves out of bed and get to a cafe.

Obviously it was totally worth it because ohmygod. But the getting up. Ugh.

This isn’t hard, it’s just bizarre.

It’s something called HAVI.

Yes, that’s my name.

Apparently it’s also an organization that promises horribly depressing things like this:

HAVI strives to provide quality, value-added services to its customers. We call this “Delivering the Promise.”

I’ll say it again. Thanks, world.

The good stuff

The Playground!

Turns out it’s also a great place to get stuff done.

This thing I’ve dreamed about for a really long time happened.

And I am overjoyed.

Something stressful ended up not being stressful.

And all the sweetest, funniest, most lovely people helped me do it.

Feeling lucky.

World Cup!

I love it.

We’re not in last place!

The Portland Rose City Roller Derby finals were awesome.

And our girls placed third! Out of four! But I really wasn’t sure we could do it!

There were two extremely stressful, extremely fun bouts. And I only sort of lost my voice.

Go Guns N Rollers!

Real vacation!

Starting soon.

More blueberries.

The Hoppy House garden is out of control.

But in a good way.

The great majority our meals have been care of the garden, at least partly. It’s wonderful.

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’s Fake Band Of The Week win goes to:

Efficient For Compliments

They dress funny and they’re kind of loud. What’s not to like? But it’s actually 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 weekend. And a happy week to come.

The Gracious No.

by Havi Brooks | Jun 24, 2010 | biggification

I’ve been working pretty much non-stop on this for a couple years now.

I’ve written about how stuckified I can get with saying NO. And composed so many Very Personal Ads asking for help finding that elusive, gracious NO.

Because that’s what I want:

To be able to give a gracious, sweet NO.

A NO that has kindness in it.

A clear, firm, loving, sovereign NO.

Anyway, I’ve recently gotten way better at it.

So here are a bunch of not very organized thoughts.

Note: this is all stuff that has worked for me.

I’m trying to isolate principles instead of giving you something prescriptive, but make it work for you. Take what appeals to you and throw the rest away.

–> One more thing. I’m sticking to business-related stuff here because that’s 99% of the things people ask me for, but you can extrapolate to other situations as well.

Reassurances.

The saying of the No. It is so fraught.

Not for everyone, because people vary — but for a lot of us.

It’s not like we learn how to do this in kindergarten. So the agonizing over but whyyyyyyyyy can’t I do this is not really all that relevant. If it’s hard, it’s hard.

Forgivable. Human.

The thing I never say.

This is a cheesy-sounding piece of advice that works like you would not believe. The number one thing I do is to avoid the word “but” at all costs.

Everything goes better without that “but”.

As soon as you say “Thanks for asking but …”, everything after the BUT is just [perceived] rejection rejection rejection.

The thing I always include.

I sincerely wish them luck with their thing.

Because I really do hope people will connect with whoever they need to connect with, even if I don’t happen to want to be a part of it.

“I won’t be able to join you for your event — I wish you lots of success with it, and hope you get all the right people for it.”

“This isn’t something I have the capacity for. I’m hoping that you enjoy every minute of it and that it’s a wonderful experience.”

The sequencing.

Generally my NOs are composed of the following elements, in the following order.

appreciation for being asked (“how sweet of you to think of me”)
a clear no (“this isn’t going to work for me” or “I won’t be able to participate”)
wishes for their success (good for them for wanting to make something happen)

You can skip that last one if what they’re doing seems evil or gross. Though really, if the ask is that unappealing, you could just ignore it.

Systems.

Oh how I love systems.

For example, I don’t do email, which means that my First Mate says the NO for me. Ahhhhhh, distance.

Part of that system is the criteria I’ve given for what kinds of things I’m excited about. Anything else gets a gracious NO.

Another useful system is having some FAQs. Or a policy page about what kinds of things you are interested in saying yes to.

These are things you can casually point people to in your NO.

“I don’t know if I’ve shared my systems page with you before — here’s where you’ll find my general guidelines for the kinds of projects I’m taking on right now. Again, so much luck with what you’re doing and all my best.”

Giving the kind of NO you want to receive.

This is my variation on what Paul Grilley (featured in my non-sucky yoga package) says in his yoga teacher trainings:

“Be the kind of student you want to teach.”

Asking is hard enough. Getting a NO makes it all that more painful.

Yeah, I know that the ask is the first win and that it’s a useful skill and that the NO doesn’t say anything about you. But it’s still hard to hear.

And I still remember every single “but what you do is not a good fit for us” that I’ve ever gotten.*

* The best part of biggification is that once you biggify enough for your people to find you, there’s no need to run around asking people to care about your thing.

Honestly, If I’m going to ask for something, I’d always really rather receive a loving, gracious NO. So that’s what I try to give.

Sometimes this is really challenging.

I probably feel so strongly about giving the gracious NO — maybe a little too strongly — because of all the times I’ve screwed this one up.

So many times that I have not been even slightly gracious or loving.

Especially when people ask for things that annoy me. Especially since I already have to say no to so many things. Especially since some pitches are so disastrously off-base.

I know they’re not trying to annoy me. They just don’t get what’s important to me.

And I know I’ll make my own mistakes as someone who asks.

So my practice is to try to get better at the NO that is kind and patient, while still establishing clear boundaries.

There’s way more stuff I want to say.

About being gracious with yourself.

About making room for not-having-to-do-things.

About how I make decisions.

But I’m still processing lots of things about what gracious is all about. And how it interacts with clear, firm, loving and sovereign .

So I’ll stop here.

And … comment zen for today.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a practice. We try to remember that people vary. We try to notice where our stuff is coming up and not get it mixed up with other people’s stuff. That’s it. Big love.

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