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.
Ask Havi #31: Business advice? Okay.
Note: it is almost impossible to get on the Ask Havi list. This person got in by a. being one of my clients or students, b. flattering the hell out of my duck, and c. making life easy on me by being clear about what the question was and what details I could use.
Oh boy.
This delightfully incoherent question that I may have completely misunderstood totally made my day.
I like this person. You will too:
I kind of want to be you. I mean, I don’t want to be you (though a duck compatriot would be pretty awesome) — but I want a lot of your life.
You somehow manage to be completely insane (in a good way) and make money and everyone knows about you. But without actually like, doing all the marketing stuff that everyone else says there’s no getting out of.
I guess saying “what’s up with that” isn’t really a useful question.
But do you have some Wise And Helpful Things for someone starting out? Not motivational stuff. Most of the time I’m pretty sure I can do this. But where do I start?
Okay. I don’t know how to answer this yet. But some words of wisdom that could pass as business advice?
I’ll give it a shot.
10 possibly helpful things when you’re working on mindful biggification.
And no, I don’t always remember to do these myself. This is all wisdom gained the hard way, yes?
1. Work on your stuff.
And not just occasionally but as the main thing you do. Because:
There is no biggification without destuckification.
Well, there is but it isn’t much fun.
The biggest thing that helps you in business is a willingness to work on your stuff.
And the biggest impediment in business is internal resistance.
If you can work with the what-ifs, the doubt, the second-guessing, and the monsters, everything happens faster.
And when it does, you’ll be way better equipped to deal with it.
2. Be in your body.
Staying connected to your body makes everything easier.
You want your body to be your friend while you’re working.
Sometimes this doesn’t happen. So you come back to it again. And each time you apologize and bring it flowers and eventually it forgives you.
Yoga. Shiva Nata. Going for a walk. Legs up on the wall and breathing.
Massaging your feet. Rolling around on the floor. Putting on music and doing some Dork Dancing. Even for just a few minutes.
But movement. And stillness. With your body.
3. Learn about your patterns.
How they work. How you work when you’re in them.
The best way, in my experience, to learn about patterns and how to take them apart and build better ones is Dance of Shiva. It changes everything.
It’s also how I accidentally became a business savant. If you skip everything else on the list, do this.
4. Be as you as you can stand.
Let the wild rumpus of Deshouldifying begin!
Seriously. I know there’s crazy pressure out there to be “authentic” and “yourself” and other annoying things.
You don’t have to force anything. You don’t have to drag yourself kicking and screaming into the light.
But bring as much you-ness as you can safely handle. And take some excursions to the edge of that boundary to learn about how and when it moves.
Your people will come for the zany or for the quiet or for whatever it is that exists in your you-ness. Because they need it.
5. Trust in your Right People.
Even if you can’t see them yet, they exist.
And they will love it if you let them peek at the things you think.
Which means you don’t have to do stuff that makes you want to throw up.
Because your people, by definition, won’t like that stuff anyway. Speaking of which …
6. Don’t do stuff that feels crappy.
As a matter of principle.
Have a Dammit List. And keep adding to it.
Example:
I will never say anything motivational on Twitter, dammit. Not my style. So I don’t have to.
Makes everything easier.
7. Document the process.
Keep adding everything you learn to that big Book of You.
8. Know what your boundaries are. Even though they’ll change.
It’s a matter of being able to say: right now, in this moment, this is what I feel comfortable with.
9. Avoid being obnoxious to people who can help you.
I don’t mean that you have to suck up to anyone. Because you don’t.
It’s fine to completely avoid biggified people or colleagues who might otherwise be good connections if they don’t feel like your right people.
Just don’t be a jerk. If I have the power to tell thousands of smart, interesting people about how amazing your work is, don’t mess that up by actively convincing me that you’re someone whose work I don’t want to promote.
This should be fairly obvious, but you would not believe how often people screw this one up. Ask Sonia. Or Naomi. Build your own tower instead of trying to knock ours down.
Not that you would do that. Because you are lovely.
10. Let your people in on what’s going on behind the curtain.
In my case, this involves things like:
- talking about when things are hard and what I do when that happens.
- letting you peek at my internal process, even when it’s wacky and bizarre.
- explaining about different aspects of what I do and why and how I do it.
- doing stuff like the Fake Band of The Week in the Friday Chicken, even though it’s funny pretty much only to me.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
The things that have helped me most in business are — weirdly — mostly the ones that seemed like really bad ideas at the time.
Like dumping the noozletter because I didn’t like writing it.
Like going on email sabbatical.
Or turning down opportunities to work with super famous people because I just didn’t want to.
So I guess the real advice is more about the value of developing a sense of trust that what you need is important.
And even though you’re not always going to get things right, you’re learning about what it means to bring your you-ness into the world so that surprising, unlikely, wonderful things can happen.
Whoops. Sorry. Got motivational there for a second. Sometimes you kind of have to.
Comment zen for today.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
People vary. So use what you can and discard the rest. Try things.
And my wish for you is this:
May your tiny, sweet thing receive all the love and support it needs. And may you break all the rules, do some damage, laugh your head off and dance, dance, dance!
Internal courtroom drama.
Note: If this post makes no sense, which it probably won’t, go read this one.
That post also makes no sense but it kind of sets the stage for this one. No pun intended. Since it also has a deus ex machina and confetti, it’s fairly awesome.
One more thing. “Senegor” = defense attorney.
The trial.
I got a summons the other day.
To the internal court of working-stuff-out.
As usual, I was being called into the division of unresolved resentment, hurt and related stuckification.
I didn’t want to go.
In fact, I may have thrown a smallish hissy fit because you know what, I didn’t really have time for it.
But one of the longest bits in the Book of Me is pretty emphatic about how taking time for destuckifying makes everything else go more smoothly.
So what are you gonna do?
Procrastinate for a while. Screw around at the Twitter bar. And then show up.
The way inner trials work isn’t really what you’d expect.
For one thing, no one’s on trial.
That’s because there’s no such thing as being guilty. Because guilt is not allowed at court.
I mean, you can’t forcibly keep it out. Obviously. But when it shows up, everyone at court drops everything to acknowledge and consciously interact with it until it dissolves into nothingness.
And then the janitor mouse comes and sweeps up any guilty residue and we all applaud.
Not having guilt or having to worry about being judged makes the whole thing better.
Yup. There’s no judge. Not really. And no one you could properly call a defendant.
Just the two sides. Or however many sides are involved. And the witnesses.
Seriously. What’s this about?
I sat myself down in the gigantic throne, smoothed my skirts, adjusted my tiara.
Me: Your Honor.
The Senegor: Your Honor.
We all call each other Your Honor here. It’s fun, most of the time, but it also makes things completely confusing.
Me: So. Who are you defending today? Aside from me, of course.
The Senegor: Who do you see right here?
I look.
It’s me. I’m twenty six years old. On the red couch in my tiny apartment in Florentin. Putting out a cigarette. Trying not to cry.
Me: Aw. Poor thing. That was a hard time. What are you defending her from?
The Senegor: Is it true, Your Honor, that lately you have been telling your various internal parts-and-aspects of yourself that things are going to be okay?
Me: I’ve been trying. Yeah. I mean, that’s correct, Your Honor. Is there a problem?
Things will be okay.
The Senegor: My client feels very strongly about this. We cannot have you or anyone else making this kind of assurance to the future selves of my client, Your Honor.
Me: What’s this about?
The Senegor: Do you or do you not remember telling her at the time that things would be okay?
Me: I did say that, probably. I wasn’t really sure what to say.
The Senegor: And were things “okay”? I mean, I love you, Your Honor. I’m just not convinced that this was necessarily the correct strategy to have taken. She’s feeling really upset because she thinks you lied to her.
Me: Ohmygod. I was just trying to help her get through the hard.
The Senegor: What I understand is that things did not get better. I mean, they did —eventually — but for the next six months or so, they just got progressively worse.
She doesn’t get the job. She loses the apartment. She loses all her money. She loses her friends. She ends up with nowhere to live and no place to go. And that’s just the beginning. Can we really call that “things being okay?”
Me: You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Things were not okay.
Faith. Honor. Trust. Stuff like that.
Me: May I remind you, Your Honor, that this was an especially shitty time? And that you and I were both unable to provide comfort or reassurance in any form?
The Senegor: You’re right. You’re absolutely right. We didn’t know what to do.
Me: And things are different now.
The Senegor: Things are different now.
Me: You know what me-from-then needs? A sense of what things are changing for the better.
The Senegor: You know, I think that might help.
I think about it for a while.
Me: Maybe we can infuse her life with things like faith, honor, trust, love, comfort … so that when she’s ready for them, they can be there waiting for her. That way we don’t have to make promises we can’t keep.
The Senegor: It’s worth a shot, Your Honor.
Me: You rock, Your Honor.
I talk to myself. A lot.
Me: Permission to approach the bench. Granting it to myself. And permission to address myself. I mean, my past self. Granted. Good.
And then I talk to me-from-then, who won’t look at me. Just like then-me who was surrounded by icicles.
Me: Oh, sweetpea. I wish so much I could wave a magic wand and make stuff better for you. Can I tell you some things?
Me-from-then doesn’t say yes. But she doesn’t say no, either.
So I go on:
My love. I was wrong to say that things were going to be okay. Your hopes were raised and dashed so many times. So much hard.
And you turn into someone who is tough as nails from all that hard. I’m not saying it’s worth it. Just that you get a lot of strength from it.
And later on, there comes a time when you need to add things to those resources of strength.
The time will come to learn about stuff like faith. And safety. And trust. And timing.
Because you will have a different relationship with yourself and your stuff. And you will know in a deep, grounded, beautiful way that things are going to be okay. And they will.
This knowing does not negate your pain. It does not contradict your experience. It is a new thing that gets to co-exist with what you know.
You are allowed to have your pain. And you are allowed to have your anger and resentment and hurt. And we can still have this new thing of knowing and trusting and belonging.
Things get loud. And then quiet. And then there’s popcorn.
The Senegor: Your Honor, can you offer my client some more reassurance that she was doing the best she could with the tools she had at the time?
Me: Certainly, Your Honor. That is the opinion of this court.
The Senegor: Then I think we’re done here. Are you going to write about this?
Me: Well, I guess I could turn it into a blog post …
Silence.
Shout-ey voice: Why would you do that? What’s wrong with you? Why would you write about this? This is all a waste of time. And anyway, there’s no point. Nothing can ever really change.
Me: Objection! That’s one of my monsters speaking. It’s trying to make me feel guilty, Your Honor.
Everyone: Hub hub hub hub hub.
Me: There will be no guilt in the court! We need to go talk to it and find out what it needs.
And so we did. And then the janitor mouse came. And then there was much rejoicing. And popcorn.
Calling all Heinzelmännchen!
One of the lovely people in my Kitchen Table program was having a serious hard. She was dealing with too many iguanas at once and everything was starting to be the crazy.
So I said something like awwww sweetie, that sucks.
And then I said:
Sending love and Heinzelmännchen.
And then someone else asked who my Heinzelmännchen supplier is, and if they ship internationally.
I though: whoah, why am I not in the Heinzelmännchen business?!
Because that would be the best.
Heinzelmännchen in the houuuuuse!
Quick explanation.
The Heinzelmännchen are these awesome little gnome guys. Not like the cranky house gnomes in the Harry Potter books.
No. The Heinzelmännchen do all your work for you at night so that you can relax during the day.
Except that they don’t like it when you try to catch them. And then they disappear.
So where do I get me some Heinzelmännchen?
Here’s the plan.
Notice what I need. Ask for what I need.
Write Very Personal Ads.
And long, gooey love letters to things I want.
Find out as much as I can about my relationship to time. And to rest. And to waiting. And to patience.
Because what the Heinzelmännchen do is take care of what you need, and I need to learn more about what that is.
Look for the qualities.
Figure out what qualities I receive when my life is full of Heinzelmännchen taking care of me.
Because that’s what will give me the effect of having them around.
It’s obvious stuff like ease and effortlessness.
But there is also something there about being cared for. About support. About nourishment.
Rest. Appreciation. Love. There might be some love in there too.
So if these are the missing ingredients, how do I bring more of them into my life?
By asking for them. By giving them to myself. By giving them to others. Or wishing them for others.
Become a Heinzelmännchen.
This involves a couple of different things.
I could:
Remember that, as Andrey says, “Morning begins at night”.
In other words: setting things up now to make them easier for when you actually do them.
Like putting a folded blanket on the floor now so that I can’t put off yoga in the morning because it’s too cold outside and I’m too sleepy to come up with a solution for that.
Like writing a list tonight of what I’m going to do tomorrow.
Like what Cairene talks about when she says “create a container”.
It also means doing just one thing instead of falling apart in the face of all those things.
Play!
The Heinzelmännchen get through their work so quickly because they have to be done before you wake up.
So there’s a little bit of that hide-and-seek thing going on.
Playing. And probably dancing too.
In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s also fun music and bouncing and maybe some fist-pumping.
Because Heinzelmännchen are tiny and elusive. Which means they’re kind of like trolls. Or at least related to them. And everyone knows that trolls love trance music. Doonsk doonsk doonsk!
Rest follows work.
The whole point of having Heinzelmännchen is not to do more, but to rest more.
To have cycles. To have a going in and a coming back out.
So there’s no point to my Heinzelmännchen import-export business or to getting stuff done if I’m just headed into that endless cycle of doing.
Stopping = just as important as starting.
You can’t just go.
And there is something inherently valuable in the act of pausing. Of not-doing. Of saying you know what, I’m done here.
Or I’m done for now.
In fact …
The way you come out of something is important.
I saved my yoga teacher “salary” and my bartending tips for months and months to take a training with Dharma Mittra when he came to Israel.
And I learned all sorts of useful and surprising things. But what I always think of when I think of him, aside from his beaming smile, was what he said about coming out of a pose.
He said:
The way you come out of a yoga posture tells you how you were in it.
This was a distressing thing to think about, especially since the exiting of most of my own postures involved flopping, grunting and crashing. Or relief to be done with that horrible thing. Or without much attention to anything.
This teaching was about mindfulness, of course. And grace. But it was also about endings being as important as beginnings.
And about the way you finish work. This is (for me) about finding a way to get stuff done without ending up in a bleary-eyed puddle of internet hangover and thank god it’s over.
I’m putting myself through Heinzelmännchen training.
It involves:
Noticing. Asking. Caring. Loving. Stopping. Breathing. Resting. Remembering. Playing.
And planting surprises for people.
Also for myself.
Play with me? Because I think I’m going to need a … collective.
Also a collective noun.
Because … what do you call it?
An army of Heinzelmännchen? No. Too violent.
A hammering of Heinzelmännchen? A whisking of Heinzelmännchen? A band? A colony? A troop? A consortium? A helter-skelter? A party?
You know, I kind of think it might be a party.
p.s. We should totally start a band called A Helter Skelter of Heinzelmännchen. But of course it would have to be just one guy. Possibly a former member of THRASHED.
A mess of iguanas
So. Background.
The official definition of an “iguana” (as used here) refers to whatever thing you really don’t feel like doing.
Stupid, crappy, annoying things that refuse to stop being things.
I’ve written about my iguanaccountability days. And, most recently, about my gigantic scary pile of iguanas and doom.
And then Holly told me (yes, on Twitter, that’s how people tell me things) that she had recently learned that the proper name for a group of iguanas is a mess.
How ridiculously perfect is that? I love Holly.
A mess. Of iguanas. Yes.
Which sent me on the most delightful wild internet goose chase to find out more.
Note about goose-chasing versus geese-chasing: As soon as you get into collective nouns, we’re talking about a gaggle of geese if they’re on the ground, but it’s a skein of geese if they’re in flight.
I don’t know what the collective noun situation for “wild goose chase” is but I’m going to refer to it as a whispering. A whispering of wild goose chases. Oh yes.
Anyway.
I can’t not share this, of course.
Here are some of the extremely awesome things that happen to perfectly ordinary creatures when they gang up in groups.
It reads like a children’s book. Or the best accidental poem ever.
A rhumba of rattlesnakes
A dissimulation of birdsAn audience of squids
A rumpus of baboonsA knot of toads
A battery of barracudaA streak of tigers
An array of hedgehogsA sneak of weasels
A squirm of wormsA file of civil servants
An army of caterpillarsA conspiracy of ravens
A convocation of eaglesA murmuration of starlings
A badling of ducksA blaze of dragons
You realize where this is going, I assume.
Remember when we named the moons? And then we named the rain?
That was fun.
So of course now I have to come up with collective nouns for everything in my business.
Because I will not be able to get any work done ever again unless I do this.
Shall we?
Yallah.
A gaggle of Glossaries
A flailing of Shivanauts
A whooshing of epiphanies
A scramble of Friday Chickens
A congregation of Chickeneers
A trumpeting of Fake Bands of the Week
An assembling of Helper Mice
A calvacade of Commenter Mice
A den of Destuckification
A swooping of Fairy Godmothers
An invisibility cloak of Beloved Lurkers
Play with me!
I know I’ve probably missed a bunch of things that totally deserve naming.
And you can probably come up with alternative names that beat the hell out of everything I’ve got so far.
Or maybe you want to invent collective nouns for stuff in your own life. Works for me.
A coolness of collective nouns, if you will. A smattering of silliness. A preponderance of puns. A waterloo of wordishness.
Stopping. Now.
I would love it if you would play with me.
p.s. Among other things I’ve learned today? A castrated male sheep or goat is a wether.
Happy Monday, guys.
Very Personal Ads #45: Timing. And simplicity. And elegant solutions.
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. Yay, ritual!
Let’s do it.
Thing 1: to be able to TRUST THE TIMING OF THINGS.
Here’s what I want:
There’s a lot that’s undecided right now. And not really up to me. Waiting on other people’s decisions.
I’m ready to get better at actually believing that things are going to work out, and that whatever way that is will be okay. Somehow.
Ways this could work:
It just could.
I could do Dance of Shiva on it.
I could cry some more.
Or I could wake up feeling mysteriously hopeful like I did this morning.
My commitment.
To notice where I am with this.
To not be impressed by the fact that yeah, we’re still working on it.
To be genuinely curious when my monsters show up.
To breathe and write and dance until I know that the right thing is coming.
And if that doesn’t happen, until I remember something else that is reassuring and beautiful and true.
Thing 2: to close the doors to Camp Biggification.
Here’s what I want:
I’m doing work on The Playground this week. We have all sorts of fabulous fun-brewing things going on.
I want to let four more people into the wacky adventure that is Camp Biggification and then close it down.
This week is crazy with teaching and other developments, so I won’t have time to do anything promotional.
So I need the last four lovely people to come find me in the next day or two.
Ways this could work:
It just could.
I could send a letter to my private list of people who are awesome (aka the Hey I’m Doing A Thing list from the events page).
Perfect timing.
My commitment.
An outrageously great experience that changes everything. But in a good way.
To make sure that each person who comes feels welcomed and loved. To be joyful about us finding each other.
To laugh and play and be happy. To find out what kind of pie we’ll be having.
Thing 3: more movement with the Shiva Nata website.
Here’s what I want:
We already made a bunch of changes to the Shiva Nata site.
It’s time for more.
I’d like to write some FAQs without going crazy. And to add a page about the new studio.
To put in updates about the teacher training being full. Stuff like that.
Ways this could work:
I could magically get in the mood.
Or find a window or two this week.
I could dance on it and get some Shivanautical epiphanies about why I’m in resistance.
My commitment.
To put this here as a reminder that it’s important to me.
And then to give myself permission to let things percolate for a while.
Thing 4: a perfect, simple solution
Here’s what I want:
A perfect, simple, elegant solution to this issue that has been costing me sleep.
Ways this could work:
Breathing. Hoping. Wishing. Loving. Waiting. Trusting.
I don’t know.
My commitment.
To keep returning to the possibility that this perfect, simple solution exists, whatever it is, and that it will find me. Maybe it is finding me right now.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I asked for faith, and help maintaining it. And that’s definitely been the theme of the week, for sure.
With ups and downs. But always the focus.
Then I asked for a new way to be in the state of waiting for things. And that has been really interesting. I get it in flashes. And then it’s gone. And then it’s back.
Very cool. Will wait and see how this develops.
I needed a name for Camp Biggification (and I got one). Whew. And now it’s time for the next part of that ask to get some attention. Useful stuff.
Comments. Since I’m already asking …
I am adding to my practice of asking for stuff by being more specific about what I would like to receive in the comments.
Here’s what I want (just leave them in the comments):
- 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 would rather not have:
- Reality theories (can we avoid words like “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.
My commitment.
I am committing to getting better at asking for things even when asking feels weird.
Thanks for doing this with me!