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.
Very Personal Ads #49: speaking of “wah!”
Personal ads! They’re … personal! Very.
So my itty bitty personal ads made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.
Even when the asking thing feels weird and conflicted.
Ever since I posted the first one asking my perfect house to find me, which united me with Hoppy House, I have been a fan of the madness that is personal ads.
And now it’s my weekly ritual for clarity and remembering and stuff like that. Yay, ritual!
Let’s do it.
Thing 1: rest.
Here’s what I want:
I am completely wiped out from the madness of opening the Playground plus teaching all weekend plus I’ll be teaching all week.
So: all things restorative are of vital importance at the moment.
Ways this could work:
Go back to the “in bed at nine, lights out at ten” thing that was so helpful the last time this happened.
It is time for some Old Turkish Lady yoga. Oh yes.
Also: bed. And more bed.
Related: I have an official Pirate Queen Holiday (aka non-Emergency Vacation) coming up in a few weeks. Spending some time mentally and emotionally preparing for that could be useful.
And maybe I can cancel or move around some things this week. My little monsters are not loving this suggestion but we’ll see.
My commitment.
I will take this seriously.
Shavasana.
Being with water. In many possible forms. Tea. Mineral pool. Hot tub. Long bath.
I will peek at the Book of Me to see if there’s other stuff like this that I’m forgetting.
Thing 2: movement with a pattern.
Here’s what I want:
There’s a particular pattern in my life that needs some attention right now.
It has to do with sovereignty. And with containment. And with making choices.
And I can’t tell you a whole lot more than that right now because my head is full and the clarity isn’t happening.
Ways this could work:
Regular Shiva Nata, of course.
It is time to resume flailing.
My commitment.
Ten minutes a day.
Tp be followed by writing down whatever comes up in response to the question, “What do I need to know about this?”
Thing 3: help implementing some shivanautical epiphanies!
Here’s what I want:
This weekend of teaching at the Playground was awesome.
I had about nineteen thousand amazing ideas. And some pretty outrageous and astonishing realizations.
And now I want to do stuff with them. And am kind of afraid I won’t.
Ways this could work:
I could set some time aside to review what came up and decide which baby ideas need the most love.
They could just sort themselves out.
I don’t know.
My commitment.
To read over my notes.
To tread gently with whatever tiny, sweet things are being born or imagined there.
To ask: what is needed here?
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
The really big thing I wanted was a solution to the floor problem, and we ended up just putting down a bunch of rugs. So it wasn’t really that big of a problem after all.
And we’ll get the wood floor in there in a few weeks.
I also asked for more wondrous brunching excitement for the Playground, and lots of Fun Brewing specialness. And I feel good about that.
Hiro posted a conversation with me (in which I wax incoherent about my love for this fabulous, kooky space). My Bitchy Boozy Coaching class filled up and now I have to remember to set up a new one at some point.
But the main thing is: you guys have been so happy for me. I feel really loved and supported. Thank you.
Other than that, I just wanted “to maintain calm and steadiness and a sense of fun”. And that totally happened.
So that’s brilliant. Well asked, me-from-last-week!
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 #96: let us say wah!
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.
Ohmygod.
This week.
Was the crazy.
To the point that by Toozday afternoon, we were already pretty sure that the week was over already because of how much tired. Yeeeees.
The hard stuff
The busy.
Oh, the insanity of running a business while opening a studio while preparing to teach a retreat while meeting deadlines while having repairs done to Hoppy House.
What?!
But so busy.
I think the last time I had a week this intense was when I was working at two bars at the same time, but at the wrongest times.
So I’d close out one place at six a.m. and be at the other one at noon to open.
This was kind of like that but without alcohol or caffeine.
Speaking of busy, have you seen my calendar? Good grief.
Remember how last week bizarre circumstances lead to two canceled client calls?
Well, the earliest calendar opening to re-book them was end of August.
So even though I’d cleared out this week for Playground-ing, I just didn’t want anyone to have to wait three months for an hour of my time.
That’s why I have to hide my Hire Me page. I’m not even kidding. Somehow people still find it.
For the record, I adore my clients and they are super fun to work with. So it wasn’t the sessions that was the hard. It was looking at my calendar that was the hard.
No drunk pirate council for two weeks already.
Because we’re doing stuff.
But I miss Drunk Pirate Council (that’s what we call our “meetings” because otherwise I’ll find an excuse not to show up).
I don’t even want to know how much stuff is piling up there. Don’t tell me.
Various Playground-sustained injuries.
Mostly from getting in and out of tightly packed cars, carrying things up flights of stairs, moving heavy furniture.
And yes, the irony does not escape me.
This lovely place of relaxation and Old Turkish Lady yoga making me hurt. Ow.
Someone trying to bully me.
Which is stupid, because here’s what happens when people try to bully me.
I switch from sweet yoga teacher mode to bartender in south Tel Aviv mode.
And that is not fun for the people wanting to push me around.
You see, I know what it’s like to have a vodka bottle thrown at my head. I am good at ducking. And I am good at throwing things back. And I’m not afraid to get in a fight. Annoying.
The good stuff
Coming up with the perfect thing to say.
So as we know, I really dislike being asked what I do.
And since we’ve been running around all week picking up bizarre things (pirate chest! juice glasses with mustaches on them!) for the Playground, we’ve gotten all kinds of questions.
Here’s what I don’t want to have to say:
“Well, my duck is kind of an internet celebrity. And I write a blog? About personal development stuff? Kind of like, non-cheesy not-embarrassing self-help that also doubles as business advice?
“Anyway, Selma and I lead retreats and workshops and whatnot. And so we’re opening a studio so that we can stop traveling all the time. Also, there are pirates involved. And monsters. Never mind. It’s complicated.”
So then my gentleman friend started explaining that we’re opening a pirate-themed yoga studio.
Which is awesome because then people just go, Oh.
Also, my business cards say pirate queen, so it works.
It’s still kind of a terrible explanation since I personally would be appalled by the thought of a pirate-themed yoga studio. But it’s also hilarious. And cuts down on conversation. Whew.
Speaking of pirates. Pirate me! In German!
Timm wrote this awesome piece about me. Well, about metaphors. But using my whole pirate queen thing as the primary example.
If you read German, you should read it. And if not, you should go look at the extremely hot photo of some woman who is not me.
I need to dye my hair red immediately.
Everyone is so great!
The help with the Fun Brewing! The love and sweet wishes! The way so many people have volunteered to help in so many different ways!
My people are the best. You guys are amazing. It’s out of control.
Playground!
It’s ready.
After five months of singing it lullabies, we finally get to be together.
And I am over-the-top happy about it.
Today!
The first ever workshop at the Playground starts today at noon-thirty and ends Sunday afternoon.
And you won’t find it on the events page or the main fun-brewing page, because it’s a private retreat for one of my ongoing programs.
I am so completely excited.
These are some of my favorite people in the world. And we are going to do some serious damage this weekend. But in a good way. Yay!
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?
Jungle Jim Jay Walking Suspicious Lee
Sometimes known as The Jungle Jim Jay Walking Suspicious Lee Trio.
It does sound like three people, yes. But it really is … just one guy.
(Though I really did want to call this band Peter Doubt and Rock Doubt. Tee hee.)
* Thanks to Tara the Blonde Chicken for letting me borrow her husband’s fake name too.
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.
The Day Before.
Background?
Back in January. I was in Monterey, teaching a six day Destuckification Retreat, having a ridiculously good time, and also getting pounded by some hardcore shivanautical epiphanies.
Anyway. I knew we needed a Playground. And so I wrote it a love letter.
And we were off!
And now it’s the day before.
This whole time, whenever things got a little insane, I’d tell Selma and my gentleman friend that it’s just like putting on a play.
It never seems like it will be ready. And then boom last minute dress rehearsal opening night curtain goes up and all of a sudden you have a play.
But honestly? I was still not completely convinced it would happen for us.
We open tomorrow. Yesterday morning we still didn’t have lighting, rugs, or a finished stage.
And still. Somehow, it’s all coming together.
At the last minute, exactly as it should.
We magically found the exact right number of eco-friendly carpet remnants to cover the stage.
Which saved us $160. And that turned out to be perfect because that was exactly how much we needed for the ancient, fabulous, insane floor lamps.
Then my gentleman friend found the most perfect pirate-ey chest at a consignment shop.
The right tablecloth turned up in a grocery store, of all places.
The beverage dispenser thing-ey needed to be raised and there was nothing to put it on. But then I found the exact right sized box.
And remembered that half yard of goofy sailing ship cloth that I bought just in case of something something. And it worked.
We oozed our fair share of blood, sweat and tears, but by late last night we had something that looked more or less like a Playground.
We’ve done the hard part.
All the internal and external stuff to prepare for the arrival of something you really want.
All the things you have to make safe for a tiny, sweet thing with tiny, sweet toes.
I had to make room for the part of me who thinks that if something good happens, something bad must follow.
We invoked some serious protection.
Then there was the first welcoming. The almost-baby shower.
And the pirate monkey barn-raising that turned into a fun-brewing party.
And everyone has been helping.
Our sweet Willie illustrated monsters!
And Malwina made us pirate-ey cushions and is sending them from The Netherlands.
Tara the Blonde Chicken is teaching a class on pricing to raise fun and funds for us.
You guys have sent love and wishes and jumped up and down with happiness for me. You’ve sent monies and cards and sometimes even sock monkeys.
Plus extraordinary help from Hiro (whose clairvoyant abilities also helped us find the space to begin with).
I thought I knew what grateful felt like.
But it’s like discovering a new color. The warmth in my heart is so … huge. Thank you.
Also my gentleman friend.
Thank you, my love. For many things. But especially for:
- going along with my hare-brained schemes, often even enthusiastically.
- painting and scrubbing and lifting and arranging and doing mysterious things with power tools.
- building the most beautiful stage a Shiva Nata teacher could ever want.
- talking me down from some scary places.
- appreciating my kooky ideas and for making me laugh.
- believing in me and my work.
Tomorrow at noon we begin.
There’s still a lot to do. Cue hysterical laughter. Yeeeeees.
The ship’s wheel arrives today. The meditation cushions are late. We have to drive around the city picking stuff up from PDX etsy-ites.
And buy curtains. And put up shelves.
Also, at this point I could probably write volumes about the difference between an internet business and having a live space.
So many things you need that I hadn’t even thought of. Like a vacuum cleaner and a really tall ladder.
And seventeen thousand pairs of scissors because somehow you can never find one when you need it.
So there’s a lot to happen before collapsing in bed tonight.
So it’s not about being done.
Because hahahahahaha. And also because we still need to put in the yoga floor before the next group arrives.
And get more supplies.
So yes. There is still much raising of fun and funds to be done, and so the fun brewing extravaganza continues.
But this feeling of hey this is really and truly working is here. It showed up last night around 9:00 pm, and I still felt it this morning when I got up.
I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow or Sunday. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of this with me.
Whenever things got hard or weird or overwhelming, I thought about the crazy great thing that is this space.
How much I adore you guys.
And what a safe, comfortable, loving place we’ve built here. And that if it’s possible to do something like that online, whatever would happen in person would be incredible.
That’s it.
I have to go do a thing with Hope the realtor of hopefulness. And decorate the Refueling Station.
And pick up juice glasses and buy lemons and clean clean clean clean clean.
Oh, and I’m also teaching a teleclass today for some reason. So yes, that’s hilarious.
In the meantime, I will be here too.
Thank you for being with me while I do this. It means everything to me.
You guys!
Tiny bits of wisdom, revisited.
I have been thinking a lot lately about what I know. Examining the edges of it.
And also about the relationship between knowing that something is true (or true for you), and actually knowing it.
You know, getting it in a visceral, powerful, spine-tingly way so that it’s rooted in your consciousness and you cannot unknow it even if sometimes you forget.
Writing about this kind of wisdom is, of course, hugely problematic because most epiphanies sound embarrassingly obvious when you put them into words.
Still. It seemed like a useful exercise to take stock of some important things I’ve learned (mostly the hard way). And remember when these bits of wisdom found me.*
* The title refers to a something I wrote when my friend died.
What I know from Svevo, my favorite uncle.
There is nothing wrong with taking two naps a day.
Work is greatly overrated.
Your own way? Is actually a perfectly good way.
Going around things and going through things are both options. There is choice.
It is possible to do radically subversive things in a way that’s playful and lighthearted.
And what I know from yoga.
Speak truth. Have compassion.
And: It is not only possible, but desirable for both of these things to take place at the same time.
Anything that seems like a paradox is not. Including this.
Nonviolence trumps everything.
My body is my home.
From Andrey, my teacher.
Experiment.
Wisdom is to be shared.
Always be learning, reading, asking, innovating, re-imagining, turning things upside down.
Everything I thought was a sign of crazy was actually a sign of gifts.
My mind is my home.
From Paul.
People vary.
It is worth asking what the functional reason is for everything you do.
My spine is my home.
From Orna.
Any emotion is legitimate.
Letting yourself be where you are is what lets you move out of it.
If someone throws a shoe at you, it’s about them, not you.
But you still get to say, hey throwing shoes is not okay.
You cannot feel at home in the world if you do not feel at home in yourself.
My actual job is learning to be at home. To be welcoming towards myself so I can do that with other people.
From my very first business mentor.
Rest.
No, really. Rest.
When things aren’t working, get on the dance floor or the yoga floor or any floor and move your body.
Fun is a legitimate thing to value in business.
My business is also a place where I get to feel at home.
From my monsters.
Everything in my life wants me to be safe.
Even the hardest, most painful things have some kind of kernel of love in them.
That doesn’t mean I have to like them though.
Acknowledging pain and giving it legitimacy is the best way to get it to move.
That includes legitimacy for the part of me that doesn’t want to give my pain attention and love.
From Shiva Nata.
Anything can be taken apart into its elements and turned into something else.
Everything you know is wrong.
Chaos is useful.
Giving yourself permission to be terrible at something is as liberating as it is challenging.
There is tremendous power inside of you.
My brain is my home. My neurons are home. I am the eye of the storm.
From Hiro
You can’t get milk from a stone, sweetie.
It’s up to you to take responsibility for the ecology of your life.
That’s what sovereignty is about.
Not giving a damn about what other people think is totally a spiritual practice.
Related: humor is one of the most unappreciated and most valuable spiritual qualities there is. Worth remembering.
My life is my home.
Miscellaneous conclusion-ey stuff.
This is not by any means a complete list.
And really, the important part is not the bits of wisdom themselves, but how to take those crazy flashes of knowing and integrate them into the rest of your life.
Why this is on my mind:
I created the Playground so that Selma and I could teach in person. So it could be a home for this work.
Because in person we can implement the stuff we talk about here. We can use physical practice and delightfully wacky things to ground the knowing so that we can act on it and live it and all that good stuff.
Here’s the dilemma.
First, it’s hard to explain in words that something like Camp Biggification isn’t about giving you information, but about getting your body and brain onboard with the stuff you already know.
So you can go home and trust that you’re going to be approaching everything differently.
Second, it’s driving me crazy that I haven’t found a way to teach the implementation/integration part on the blog. There are just some things that need a designated time and space and tools for a certain kind of magic to happen.
Still pondering that one.
And comment zen for today …
The wisdom here is all stuff that is true for me.
It doesn’t mean that it has to be true for you or that you have to adopt it. Or that I won’t like you just as much if you don’t want it to be yours.
People vary, as Paul says. We need different things at different times.
If you want to share bits of your own acquired wisdom in the comments, that would be lovely. I would like that.
p.s. Two more sleeps until Playground! Come do fun-brewing with me and send love!
Item! Three days! Playground!
A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.
Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.
Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.
So. Way too much is happening right now. Business stuff. Personal stuff. Stuff-stuff.
Fun-brewing! Opening the Playground! In three days!
My pirate crew and I are running around like crazed chickens. So if I seem a little woozly, it’s only because I am.
Item! Post No. 60 in an occasional series that indulges my occasional need for excessive exclamation points.
Item! Finally!
I have been bugging my friend Amna to start a blog ever since we met in November at Barbara Sher’s retreat.
We were already Twitter-friends, so I knew she was bright, fun, delightfully inappropriate and generally my kind of person.
But in person I just fell madly in love with her. And it was driving me up the wall to not be able to read her smartnesses every day.
I even let her borrow my designer. That’s how badly I wanted this blog to happen.
And now it’s here! Yay!
She’s already written about sovereignty (brilliant!) and about the inevitability that isn’t. And you will like her.
“If you’re authority-addled like me, it is SO MUCH easier to do self-care if someone is making me do it. Even if that someone is a construct who lives in the throne room of my brain.
I am using this reflexive impulse to obedience to my advantage. I have no choice but to be in bed by midnight – it is by order of the King!”
She’s @Germinational on Twitter.
Item! Noise!
Garret Keizer’s book about noise, The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want, was just published.
Super smart guy. Very interesting topic. And I’m in the acknowledgents! Whee! I love being in the acknowedgments. Worth reading.
Item! Hooray for Lucy!
There is an exceptionally high number (five) of fabulous people named Lucy who comment on this blog.
And one I have met in person! Twice! Almost thrice! Because she comes from London to take my programs.
She is extremely intelligent, very curious about the world, and has a seriously low tolerance for bullshit.
So it was an outrageous surprise to discover she’s a secret astrologer, because most astrologers I’ve met tend to be waaay into the wacky. Not in a bad way, necessarily. Just not people like Lucy.
For Lucy, though, it’s all about the patterns and the play and the useful things you can discover about yourself. She made something that had no pull for me seem fascinating and approachable and somehow completely practical.
And she was convinced that no one would want help from a non-woo astrologer and I was like, what are you talking about this is brilliant.
And this week? She outed herself. Yay! YAY!
She’s @lucyviret on Twitter.
Item! God bless Tara the Blonde Chicken!
Seriously. I love that woman.
And not just because she feeds me every time I’m on the east coast.
I love her kooky personality. I love her gorgeous yarn. And her blog. And her dog. And the way she does things.
Like this!
She’s teaching a class on how to price stuff in your business, which is basically the most useful thing in the entire world. It’s for craft-ey people, but really this stuff is useful for everyone.
And, because she’s a total sweetheart, she’s also donating part of the proceeds to my fun brewing project to help the Playground.
Here’s the class. It’s called pricing your handmade awesomeness.
Anything Tara does is going to be smart, interesting and helpful. That’s just how she is.
She’s @blondechicken on Twitter.
Item! Playground updates!
Speaking of the brewing of fun, here’s what we’re up to at the Playground, as of this morning:
- the floor has gone from industrial beige to deep chocolate brown
- we’re still waiting on the wooden yoga floor but are making do for now with rugs
- two walls are red
- juice glasses have been purchased
- half a batch of pirate monkey meditation cushions are on their way.
- signs are up in the building
- pirate wheel is being delivered Thursday!
And today I’m off to get lamps and curtains. Eeeeeeee!
Item! Bitchy Boozy Coaching!
It’s a week from today (Toozday June 8th) and it’s almost full.
You can read all about it on the Bitchy Boozy Coaching page but don’t buy it there.
Go to the Phase 2 Fun-Brewing page instead because if you make a donation of the class tuition, you’ll get not only the class but the other cool things as well.
I think there are six spots left.
Item! Comments!
- Things you’re thinking about.
- Wishes for the Playground!
- A man’s name (first and last) where the first name is also a verb. Anything? I need it for Friday.
That is all.
Happy reading.
And happy Almost Blustery Windsday. That’s Almost-Windsday, not Almost-Blustery. I’m kind of hoping for sun today. Ahem, Portland. See you tomorrow.