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.
Item! Jam. Lists. Iguanas. Things that rock.
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.
Seriously? 59 Wednesdays?
Let’s do this one a bit differently.
Item! Post No. 59 in a sometimes-on-a-Wednesday series that is occasionally delightful and, more often, both a cause and a cure for Internet Hangover.
Item! Things that are sweet.
I was following an assortment of rabbit holes, and wound up on some completely gorgeous food blogs.
Because last week’s fix of Ezra Pound Cake was not enough, apparently.
And yes, I get that it’s odd for someone who doesn’t eat meat or sugar to spend time on food blogs drooling over pictures of things she doesn’t want and can’t have.
But there’s just something about the presentation and the pretty.
So. My latest obsession is Kylie and Adriana’s Thin Crust Deep Dish.
I like that they self-identify in lists. Oh how I love lists.
The writing is terrific. The pictures are stunning. Plus slug mud pies and lavender-scented strawberry jam.
- “fried eggs
- homemade mayonnaise
- roasted kale
- anything in a wine sauce
- blackberry kefir”
And through them I also ended up at on a bunch of other sites, my favorite of which was this beautiful and entertaining romp of a recipe for ice cream flower pot worm things.
The pictures! The phrase “Oreo topsoil”! Joy.
Adriana and Kylie are @TCrustDDish on Twitter.
Item! Things I’m brunching that are exciting.
Aside from the monster coloring book that was just announced, big things are … well, brewing for the Playground Fun Brewing project.
The biggest right now is a non-retreat. A 4+ day thing in Portland of Punk Rock Shivanauttery.
It’s brain-changing destuckification and it’s awesome and considerably less expensive than my regular retreats.
With music from the Playlist of Inappropriateness. So be warned. There will be Old Turkish Lady yoga too, just to mix things up.
I just told some people yesterday and right now there are seven seats left.
Seriously. The fun and the breakthroughs. Will be epic. Here’s the page with all the details.
Item! Things other people are brunching that are exciting.
Naomi Dunford, love of my life, abuser of my duck’s reputation and general sayer-of-inappropriate-things, is also doing a thing that probably rocks.
I say probably because (disclosure):
- I
am kind of lazyhave been getting really into my napping thing - I have not actually read the sales page for her class yet so I do not know what it is about other than that it helps with money drama.
- But I do know about money drama and how it is not fun and makes for intense stuckification.
- And that Naomi’s probably not charging enough.
- And that any class whose alternate title is ” What Kind Of A Moron Pees On Their Own Boot?” has to be pretty entertaining.
She’s @IttyBiz on Twitter.
Item! Lists.
I adore naming things.
As you know from my Metaphor Mouse posts. And my Fake Band of the Week in the Friday Chickens. And from the fact that my blog has its own glossary (The Glossary: it makes your hair all shiny!).
And from that time we named the moons. And then we named the rain too.
Well. I have been naming my lists.
Specifically lists of iguanas (things that I don’t really feel like doing) and Chickens (reports on things I’m working on).
Actually, this has kind of inspired a trend at our Kitchen Table program of people giving their lists wonderful, silly, inspiring names. And if they ever give me permission I might reprint some of those brilliant titles here.
But in the meantime, I was just enjoying this list of some of my lists:
- Six impossible iguanas before brunch? With extra ketchup?
- Oh this iguana needs a fancypants HAT box!
- Watch out, this iguana is putting on the rhinestone gloves
- Metaphor Mouse, meet Iguana and Chicken.
- “I’d gladly pay you Toozday for a (veggie) Iguanaburger today” chicken
- Crazed Iguana Bedrest Chicken
- Havi’s Cranky 45 Minute Iguana (Doesn’t Like The Monday)
- Havi’s monster wonders why even bother chicken
- Zen chicken is not feeling very zen
- Mapping chicken (not a chicken map though because that would be weird)
- Havi spotted doing the macarena with a Crazed Iguana. Reports to follow!
- Stuckified iguanability: I am baby steps mcgee
- Havi’s shivanautical roller derby writing iguana crap crap crap
- Havi’s chicken crosses the road and makes a pass at an iguana
Yes.
I get that it shouldn’t make it easier to get stuff done just because you gave your list of things-in-progress a funny name. But it does.
Item! Three things I’m working on this week.
From my journal.
- Saying no so lovingly and graciously that it doesn’t feel like there is something being lost on either side.
- Recognizing how hard it is for me to trust that this time will be different than last time.
- Using Shiva Nata to untangle an old narrative that interprets situations as betrayal when they aren’t.
And that’s my week.
Item! Comments! Here’s what I want this time:
- Things you’re thinking about.
- Good names for lists! Like George. Or Stella. Or Baby Steps McGee.
- What you would like to know, if anything, in a class/program/thing about writing Very Personal Ads
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say. Even though asking for what I want still feels awkward for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.
That is all.
Happy reading.
And happy Blustery Windsday. But a balmy one if you’re Claire. See you tomorrow.
A coloring book. For your monsters.
Why yes, I have been talking about monsters kind of a lot.
But only because I obsess over them.
And today I wanted to clear some stuff up. Because a number of people (not you guys) seem to be under the impression that I’m into slaying monsters (I’m not).
Or — and oh god this is so much worse — they think that I advocate “embracing” monsters (uh, I can’t even say “embracing” without air quotes, possibly also air italics).
A wee bit of background.
A monster = ?
A stuckness. A block. Internal (or internalized) criticism. Thought patterns. Anything you say to yourself that hurts. Sometimes called “the critic”. Bleargh.
So. Just to be clear on stuff:
Why I don’t think we should be pacifying our monsters.
I’ve never advocated this. In fact, I wrote an entire post called don’t give your monster cookies.
Pacifying is another form of avoidance. It’s basically saying “I’ll do whatever you want, just shut up so I can go on pretending you’re not there.”
What I’m trying to accomplish with talking to monsters is finding out what they need and making sure they know what I need. It’s not passive. It’s active.
And it’s not about treating the monster as a thing that has supreme power over me.
Because it’s actually about experiencing sovereignty, while still giving my fear and my stuck the legitimacy to exist (see Destuckification 101).
Why I don’t think we should be “embracing” our monsters.
First of all, because even though I’m a yoga teacher, I’m not that much of a yoga teacher it kind of makes me want to throw up.
But mostly because, in my experience, most of us aren’t ready to be all lovey-dovey shmoo shmoo with with our monsters.
So that language isn’t helpful because it triggers resistance. And when you’re in resistance, everything stays stuckified.
It is true that when you have conversations with the stuck, it invariably turns out that they’re on your side. And sometimes you even end up feeling kind of schnuggly towards them. And that’s great.
If you’re there, awesome. Embrace away. It’s just that it’s not the goal.
And I’m not going to encourage something that will just create more resistance in the people I want to help.
Why I don’t think we should be kicking the crap out of our monsters.
Because it’s violent.
Because our monsters are part of us (we created them), and being violent towards them is practicing violence on ourselves. See, yoga teacher here.
Because your monsters’ supreme monster mission is to protect you from harm and humiliation. And even if they’re doing a really crappy job of it by causing paralyzing fear … trying to destroy them doesn’t actually work.
The more you try to slay them, the louder and more insistent they get.
So instead of training them to get more creatively insidious with the ways they keep us stuck, it’s useful to stop that cycle and get them to change their approach to something that doesn’t suck so much.
What I do know that helps with monsters.
Acknowledging that they exist. And that it makes sense that they exist.
Being genuinely curious about them.
Negotiating firmly and compassionately.
Putting them to work doing something that’s actually useful.
And the most important part of all this?
Having a conscious relationship with your stuff.
Knowing what your monsters are saying and why, so you don’t have to be impressed by them.
Finding creative, intelligent ways to navigate their world, without perpetrating violence towards ourselves.
And I know this stuff not because I wrote a couple dozen posts about it but from working regularly with these techniques on my own monsters.*
* And practicing with thousands of people in my coaching and consulting practice over the past five years. Ooh, remind me to tell you about the Baptist conventioneers we freaked out at the last retreat.
The actual point (or: why do I write so much about monsters?)
What I’ve given — or tried to give — in all of my many posts about monsters is an approach.
A thoughtful, intelligent approach that’s about figuring out what you need to stay safe, as well as what your monsters need (in order for them to know that their mission of keeping you safe has not been compromised).
So that you can really have a conscious, intelligent relationship with your stuff, as well as a real sense of sanctuary when you enter into these difficult internal negotiations.
Because the approach is the important thing, as you already know if you’ve been working with this stuff.
But what I haven’t done is give actual tactics.
And now there will also be tactics.
I’ve tried to model how I talk to monsters. My conversations with walls. And stucknesses. And fog. And blocks.
Just not in any kind of organized here-is-exactly-what-to-try-when way. Until now. With (excuse me while I say squuueeeee) the Monster Manual & Coloring Book. So yeah, I made a thing. And I hope you adore it. Well, I hope your monsters do.
Because, you know, monsters love coloring books.
Comment zen.
Part 1: We all have stuff. Double especially when it comes to monsters. We tread lightly with other people’s stuff. And we take responsibility for our own stuff.
Part 2: Celebrate with me. I made a thing!
p.s. I’ve written a leetle love letter to your loudest monster on the Monster coloring book page. So let your monster know that you’re not going to read it and then just casually leave the page open …
My year without email. Part 2.
Yes. This is the follow-up to Part 1 which was all about the things that were hard, challenging, stressful and annoying about being on email sabbatical.
This time it’s about the good parts. And yeah, there are good parts. I mean, there must have been, since it’s been fifteen months I’m never going back.
So in case I depressed the hell out of you last time, here’s where things start to look up.
The good, the reassuring, the stuff that — amazingly, eventually — worked.
Email sabbatical solves inbox zero.
It takes you off the rollercoaster of crazy because for you, there is no inbox. Wrap your head around that.
Anyway, it deguiltified my life by about 90%.
It makes you get your systems down. You nail them.
When you are paying someone vast sums of money to respond to everything that comes in, you find yourself doing everything in your power to make sure stuff doesn’t come in.
You make sure that your FAQ pages answer every possible question. You find the holes. You fill the holes. Everything has to work.
Smartest thing I ever did was to hire Cairene to help me with this. She’s a genius at transforming scary, boring (or kind of non-existent) systems into ones that are organic, supportive, loving and fun. Systems!
It took a while but it was totally worth it. Crap was sorted. Miracles happened.
We went from getting hundreds and hundreds of requests a day to … really not that many at all.
The snail mail!
So many people send me actual letters now. And cards. And fan-socks. Real things. It’s brilliant.
The new generation.
Now that it’s been more than a year, there are so many people in my Fluent Self-ey world who just completely take the sabbatical for granted.
They know. I don’t do email. That’s just how it is. They aren’t even slightly offended. It’s wonderful.
A lot of people were really understanding.
For every person who threw a fit or “had a growth period” about not being able to reach me (as Hiro so sweetly put it), there were many other people who really got it.
They understood that this was something I needed to do for me, and that it wasn’t at all about me not adoring them.
And we worked on finding other ways to stay connected.
Having an extra two hours in your day.
It’s a little like always having cash in your pocket after you quit smoking.
Whenever I go for a afternoon walk or take a nap or mess around on a project, it’s because of Email Sabbatical. I love email sabbatical.
No shoes.
Shoes, if you’re not familiar with the term, refers to people saying mean things about you.
It still happens. But I don’t have to deal with it because I don’t see it.
Not interacting with people throwing shoes at me means not having to build all that processing-and-recovery time into my schedule. Because even if you delete a shoe, it still hurts.
Less taking on of other people’s stuff = less stress.
Indeed.
Having to clarify what you do and don’t want to see is useful and interesting.
Normally you don’t get a chance to think about what kinds of things you want to see during the day.
And the thing is, as soon as you have to make decisions on stuff, email sabbatical stops being email sabbatical.
Everything got better once I got clear on what I don’t need to see.
Most things.
At first we had ten thousand rules about how to evaluate things and what to do in different situations.
Trying to keep track was exhausting, so eventually we threw them all out and made one general Do Not Disturb Sign Havi Doesn’t Really Want To Be Asked About Things Rule, which is basically this:
If people are happy, thank them and put it in the Folder of Appreciation and Wonderfulness where I’ll see it later, when I’m in the mood for it. If people are unhappy, acknowledge their pain.
If someone wants to have dinner with me and it’s not Johnny Depp, I can’t.
Setting boundaries is healthy.
It’s also painful, scary and hard — but once you do it, you have all this room for you.
Boundaries exist for a reason. To create space. And safety. And quiet. And establish those areas that are yours and where you have sovereignty.
The thing I keep learning the hard way is that respecting your own boundaries is — weirdly — also a way of respecting other people’s boundaries.
I’m still really new at this one, so all I can say is that it’s a good thing that’s also a challenging thing.
Conclusions?
That was my year without email.
Which has basically turned into my life without email.
It’s a lot like when I quit sugar ten years ago.
That first month? Torture. Hell on wheels. After six months, though, there was no going back.
And here we are.
Comment zen for today …
Touchy topic, I know. And this is not in any way meant to be a “this is how you should do things” post.
Here’s what I’d love:
- your thoughts on process, systems, capacity, interacting with making changes.
- other things about transitioning and boundaries.
- support for doing something challenging and hard.
Here’s what I’d rather not have:
- Explanations of why email actually is really great or why it’s necessary. I’m not anti-email. I’m not anti-you-doing-email. I’m just anti-situations-in-which-Havi-has-to-do-email.
- Shoulds about how I really ought to have handled things differently.
Love, as always, to the commenter mice and all my Beloved Lurkers. And thanks for the fan socks!
Very Personal Ads #40: the brewing of fun begins
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. Yay, ritual!
Let’s do it.
Thing 1: support with FUNBREWING
Here’s what I want:
The great fun-brewing project starts this week!
Fun-brewing is what I call “fund-raising”, because everything about fund-raising makes me want to throw up.
So we are brewing fun. And we are brewing it for the new Playground. Yes, Selma and I are opening a studio to give this work a home in physical space.
As part of the fun-brewing, we will be brunching (yes, that’s what we call “launching” — borrowed that lovely turn of phrase from the blonde chicken) many things.
In fact, nine different wonderful things will be brunched.
So it’s kind of a busy, semi-crazed time here at the pirate queen headquarters. Understatement.
What I’d like is support, in as many forms as possible.
Support in the sense of staying connected to myself and my fabulously bizarre mission.
And in accessing the qualities I need (grounding, peace of mind, sovereignty).
The support of my friends, colleagues, students, clients, blog readers, commenter mice and Beloved Lurkers cheering for me, and helping me to biggify the hell out of this.
The support of knowing and trusting that this is an extremely awesome thing to do, that will help so many of my right people do important, beautiful and surprising things in the world.
And I’d like to be able to rest into this sense of support so I don’t get overwhelmed.
Ways this could work:
Lots and lots of Shiva Nata to keep me centered and to keep the epiphanies rolling.
I can book an extra session with the magical Hiro. That always does the most amazing things.
I can work on asking for help. And share what I’m working on, which I don’t always remember to do.
And I can stay in touch with the essence of what I’m trying to do here.
My commitment.
To let myself have a meltdown if I need one.
To breathe. To dance. To walk. To move. To stretch. To cry. To laugh.
To not try and go it alone.
To be patient with myself when I can, and remember that patience isn’t always going to happen when I can’t.
Thing 2: Iguanas.
Here’s what I want:
Iguanas are things I don’t feel like doing.
There are kind of a lot of them this week.
Ways this could work:
Talk to my monsters.
Make lists.
Call an emergency Drunk Pirate Council to make some decisions (even though stupid passover means we can only drink wine, which is totally ruining Drunk Pirate Council, for the record).
More Dance of Shiva. More asking for help. More staying focused.
Plus a bunch of other things I can’t think of right now because aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
Is there an iguana fairy? Because I could kind of use one.
My commitment.
To keep coming back to why I’m doing this.
To keep asking what I need to stay grounded.
To get creative. To ask for help.
Thing 3: Vancouver.
Here’s what I want:
Selma and I are going to be in Vancouver next week for a couple days.
We have pretty much zero time to plan anything because of the fun-brewing madness going on.
So I need stuff to kind of fall into place.
And, every time I go somewhere, everyone I know there wants to meet up with me and I either go into hiding or have an emotional breakdown.
Ways this could work:
We’ve already gotten a ton of hotel recommendations from the Twitter bar.
I could ask Karen to come hang out with me at the best cafe in the world (of glorrrrrious day fame), and then we could announce a casual meet-up with whoever wanted to drop by and say hi.
Magic.
My commitment.
To give myself permission to not have to worry about this (not that this has ever worked before, but what the hell).
To activate my network, as my lovely friend Pam says.
To state my wish for things to go as smoothly and comfortably as they can. And then to come back to the stuff that needs my attention right now.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I asked for help keeping up with the napping. And — astonishingly — it mostly happened. Some days it couldn’t because of client calls and such.
But just about every day I was able to at least close my eyes for half an hour. And that was brilliant.
I needed help catching up with all the mad piles of work that accumulated during Non-Emergency Vacation. And that worked too.
My First Mate and I plowed through the biggest, scariest pile. There are still a couple of unfinished things, but feeling okay about this.
And I needed pesach to not be the biggest pain in the ass ever, and yay. My gentleman friend set up the seder plate and cooked the entire meal for the seder.
It was beautiful and delicious and all I had to do was show up.
And he’s been spoiling me all week with kneidelach and other yum things. I feel enormously lucky. Thank you!
Comments. Since I’m already asking …
I am adding to my practice of asking 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.
- 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 or psychoanalyzed.
- Advices.
My commitment.
I am committing to getting better at asking for things even when asking feels weird.
Thanks for doing this with me!
Friday Chicken #87: I’m not saying it out loud though
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.
Seriously? I’m pretty sure it was just Friday last week.
Is it more or less embarrassing when your mindfulness practice bites you on the ass?
Let’s do this!
The hard stuff
Projects!
I mean, treasure hunts.
Yes, that does make them sound more fun.
But it was still a lot.
Ketchup.
Being back after my Non-Emergency-Vacation was full of here are all the things that need to be done right this second.
And I wasn’t in the mood. And didn’t have time because of pesach and clients and and and.
Nightmares!
Stupid PMS.
Stop waking me up!
Possibly related: aaaaaaaaaaaagh.
Oh, the hyper-sensitivity is getting even more stabby.
It’s also that season when people reach for their lawnmowers and hedge-trimmers, and I go a little crazy.
The farfel crisis, round 2.
Last year, if you will recall, there was no farfel to be had in all of Portland. And it was slightly tragic. In a pitiful, unimportant way. Which only made things worse.
This year, we stocked up early.
But it’s been repackaged. And all wrong. And now the farfel tubes are full of farfel dust.
The good stuff
Things are moving!
Three big HATs are written.*
And edited decorated.
Which means that my big thing will probably actually go live mostly according to schedule. Oddly enough.
* HAT = Havi Announces a Thing. This is what other people call “sales pages”.
My designer is a GENIUS.
But you know that already.
Seriously, every time I look at the Monster Coloring Book, I have to stop everything and just laugh delightedly for ten minutes.
Everything blooms.
Cherry blossoms! Apple blossoms! Magnolia! Lilacs!
It is unbelievably gorgeous here.
Favorite time of year!
The seder. Was gorgeous.
As much as I bitch about pesach, I actually really like it.
Skhug.
There are all sorts of things I miss about living in Israel.
You know, like all my friends. And family. And my neighborhood. And my life.
But mostly it’s the skhug.
Got some this week. Tongue: on fire. Rest of me: deliriously happy.
Yes, I realize I could just make it. But it’s one of those things.
Lucky me.
I got to see Dick Carlson (that’s @techherding to you) who stalks my duck.
And he brought her a book. About pirates and swashbuckling and ghosts. It was pretty awesome.
Referring to people as “dirty-jawed crotchcake”. In my head.
That’s thanks to this extremely handy, extremely disturbing funny mean names generator (uh, not safe for work?) which is exactly what it sounds like comes to you care of Jenny the inimitable Bloggess (not really safe for anything but I love her).
It also came up with twinkie-livered snizzwiper and camel-bearded fruitsmoker. Oh, bless that internet.
And yes, anyone who doesn’t think this is awesome is a dirty-jawed crotchcake. See how much fun?
Got some more of these.
Flannel handkerchiefs that don’t make your nose red.
And … playing live at the meme beach house!
Yes, that’s a Stuism.
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?
WOMBAT HAT
Weirdly, it’s 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.