What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Friday Chicken #70: thrice brunched!
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.
Selma and I are in Sacramento because one never goes to Sacramento without a good reason we got flown out to teach a seminar.
And we’re also doing our Mad Biggification Day there today. Huzzah. We’re probably doing something goofy and transformational right this second. Awesome.
On to the week.
The hard stuff
Doing way too many things at once.
Having one new program (Biggification 2010), one old program (the Kitchen Table) and an enormous retreat all being announced at the same time is big.
A lot of big.
Every single element in the big is good. The combination of elements of big is hard. EXTREMELY hard.
I have been learning stuff. Oof. Stupid learning.
Luckily Hiro has helped me with the preserving sanity part, and reminding me to access the fun parts.
Because otherwise I would have torn my hair out instead of just chopping at it.
Oh, dear.
This is more funny-hard than hard-hard. I gave myself one of my patented Haircuts of Despair and chopped a few inches.
Now I’m wearing braids until I get used to this. And I look like I’m twelve years old.
For some reason I always do this right before a live teaching event — pretty much the worst time to do it. So yeah.
Conclusions.
Other people jumping to them. Blame and meanness.
Administrative nightmares.
So I suck at math. But even if I didn’t.
I have a hundred people on the waiting list for the Kitchen Table. And figuring out who’s staying and who’s going … is more complicated than I’d thought.
We ended up doing an anonymous survey (which was helpful) and making some Useful Procedures for next year, but that totally added to the hard.
I hate launching stuff almost as much as I hate the word ‘launch’.
From now on I’m calling it brunch instead of launch, like Tara the Blonde Chicken does.
Either way, it’s sooooooo much work.
I know I already put this in the hard, but it really belongs here twice. At least. Because I was brunching three different things at once.
Which is absurd.
All those tiny last minute details. Overwhelming and exhausting.
Travel! Again!
Grumble-grumble-busy-grumble.
The good stuff
Thrice brunched!
Despite the fact that as late as Sunday morning I wasn’t sure if we could pull any of it off this week, by Monday evening we were good to go.
Thanks to some Hiro magic and some Shivanautical epiphanies, I was in the zone.
Everything got done. Everything worked. It was brilliant.
Also thanks to Amna for much support, cheering, hand-holding and the delightful phrase “thrice brunched”, which really needs to go on a shirt or something.
Oh, how I love being right.
I especially like being foolhardy and right.
It’s such a pleasurable drug that someone should just go ahead and put it in pill form.
So part of my brunching madness has been related to me bucking conventional wisdom at every turn.
I kind of do that anyway, as my modus operandi, so I’m generally confident that it will work.
But it’s still really scary when every single person you know tells you that it takes 9–12 months to promote and fill a retreat. And you’re planning on announcing yours maybe six weeks before it happens.
I haven’t promoted anything. Just told my clients and briefly mentioned its existence in the Item post. And almost all the spots at the Destuckification Retreat are taken.
Or, for example, people said I needed to write copy explaining why someone would want to do Biggification 2010, since, you know, it’s a year-long program and a very substantial financial investment. Blah blah benefits.
I didn’t. Because I didn’t feel like it.
And because the whole point of using the stuff I teach to biggify yourself in a mindful way is that you get to the point where you don’t have to convince people of stuff.
And? We already have more applications than we know what to do with. Bombarded.
It’s not like I wouldn’t keep doing things my way anyway, because I would. But being justified in blowing off everyone’s advice is such a great feeling.
Best/weirdest promotion ever.
In addition to all the other weird things I did at the Kitchen Table, I promised a loaf of my famous no-sugar hand-made bread to the first ten people who renewed their membership.
Which means I got to have the best baking day ever.
I put on The Clash (London Calling). And I put on my skull and crossbones apron. And got absolutely covered in flour.
Fun!
Got a big project taken care of.
Completely rewrote the Kitchen Table member mice Guidebook, which took forever and a half, but still not as long as I was afraid it might.
And then made a 12-part Twitter-length version in case no one actually ends up reading it.
I amuse myself.
Foods. Again with the foods.
My gentleman friend made a green tomato salsa that is out of this world. Tomatoes courtesy of the Hoppy House garden. Yay!
He also made this crazy (but delicious) spicy yellow pita bread. Turmeric pita. With peppers. This later became the famous turmeric … rolls.*
*Ah, yes. See the fake band of the week at the bottom of the post for details.
Plus now we’re in Sacramento so we can eat sandwiches at Dad’s Cafe. Yum! Yes, I agreed to teach a seminar because of the sandwiches.
Slings & Arrows.
I met Marcie last year in Austin at SXSW at Sarah‘s party. I like Marcie.
And she recommended this short-lived Canadian television series called Slings & Arrows. Highly. Very.
And when Marcie recommends, I track that stuff down.
It is excellent. So completely to my tastes. My gentleman friend likes it too. This may even begin to rival our mysterious Black Books obsession.
This was nice.
Me: “Hey, someone on Twitter thinks I’m funny and sweet. See? See?”
The gentleman friend:
“Yeah, I like how you’re funny and sweet too, but I really like how you’re dark and mean.”
Oh, he totally gets it.
Derby banner! Derby banner!
I already told you guys that I’m sponsoring my favorite Roller Derby team, right?
Well, sponsoring it as a Shivanaut, hoping to promote mad coordination epiphany-generating techniques while I’m at it. But basically I just want to throw support at the self-proclaimed gayest team in Derby.
Because Selma and I love the Guns N Rollers!
Anyway, the banner arrived. You can’t tell how hot it is from the picture, but I’ll put it in anyway.
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 it’s all about …
The Turmeric Rolls
They are, of course, best known for their cover of that one song.
Oh. Worst. Pun. Ever.
And … STUISMS of the week.
Stu is my paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software who delights in torturing me misunderstanding me. I can’t stand him.
- “but the bird magnifiers or stop at an international start” instead of but the word biggifier is not without a dash of snark
- “it’s a 20 inch of explaining how Maine chokes” instead of it’s one big in-joke explaining all my in-jokes
- “I’m in a Henneman for kicks” instead of going to hate on me for this
- “he starred in a concerning landless trend” instead of I started a disturbing lentil list trend
- “Week stew zooms of the weak” instead of Stuisms of the week
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 Glossary! It makes your hair all shiny.
Right.
So Fizz — who is @relsqui on Twitter (you know, the neighborhood bar/cafe place where I’m pretty much always hanging out) — said a wonderfully true thing the other day:
“Reading @havi’s blog the first time is like reading a message in code.
It takes a couple of posts to internalize the vocabulary.”
Ahhhhhhhh. I totally loved this because … yes.
One of the fun things here is the shared language, and that you guys let me get away with all sorts of things without having to explain them. Eventually, you’re in on all the jokes and the wackiness anyway.
So why not have a glossary? I mean, what the hell. That way when you send people here, they can look up at least some of the weird stuff I say. Or see how many Fluent-Self-ified bits of Havi-speak they already know.
Asshat
This one isn’t mine, actually.
It’s a great word. Though not as good as webcock.
I generally use it to describe the kind of people who throw shoes (see also: Shoes, Throwing of).
And I probably got it from the Communicatrix.
Biggification
The art and science of growing your thing (the thing!).
And of getting your thing (the thing!) into the hands of your Right People without feeling icky or weird about it.
When I say I’m helping someone biggify, it might mean that my duck (see also: Selma) and I are helping them promote or get the word out about something, but in a non-gross way.
A person who is biggified is someone with platform. And reach. And sparkles.
Generally, biggification = good. I talk a lot about mindful biggification which is what happens when you biggify while working on your stuff. (see also: Stuff)
The word biggifier, on the other hand, has been known to come with a dash of snark.
Ooh. Dash of Snark! It’s just one guy! (See also: It’s just one guy).
Like the internet-ey biggifiers who try to get us to think big think big think big. Whatever. I think it’s okay to not have to think that big.
Dammit list
The dammit list is your list of things you stand for (see also: Sovereignty).
“I am going to wear excessively fuzzy socks, dammit!”
“I don’t have to explain why I need a dammit list, dammit!”
Other dammit list posts: revisiting the dammit list and more ways to use the dammit list.
Destuckification
Working through the stucknesses that get in the way of you doing your thing (you know, the thing!).
Destuckifying is what you’re doing when you’re learning about triggers. Or talking to the fog. Or giving yourself permission to not have to practice “transparency”.
Sometimes it’s figuring out how not to feel like dirt. Maybe because you don’t want anyone to look at you. Or you accidentally gave your monster a cookie and it was, weirdly, the wrongest thing to do, even though lots of other monsters like cookies.
Or using my wacky methods if you’re a Shivanaut (see also: Shivanaut), or if you own my emergency calming techniques package.
It’s applying the stuff that Selma and I teach so that you can have a conscious, intelligent relationship with yourself and the world around you. So that your stuff (see also: Stuff) doesn’t have to hurt so much.
Email sabbatical
The best thing that has ever happened to me. (See also: No, seriously. I don’t do email.)
Fake Band of the Week
This is something we do every Friday on the Chicken. (See also: Friday Chicken)
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.”
That’s it. It’s stupid but it’s addictive.
Stupid But Addictive. It’s just one guy. See? Like that. Only funnier. You’ll get used to it.
Friday Chicken
Our weekly check-in, which I started calling a Chicken. Mostly because my gentleman friend made me this awesome chicken graphic.
You know, because rituals are important.*
This is where I talk about the hard stuff and the good stuff in my week and people join in, and eventually the whole thing devolves into extreme goofiness.
* That might be the first post where I said “blame the Jews!” Ah, nostalgia. Also, I don’t eat the chicken. Selma and I are vegetarians.
So this, for example, is a Friday Chicken.
Fansocks
About a year and a half ago I bought some stockings for Naomi. From Sock Dreams. The joke was that we were so obsessed with each other that we were … stalking each other.
So these were … stalkings. Striped stalkings to wear on your legs. Yes, jokes are so much more funny when you explain them in elaborate detail to someone who doesn’t care, do you not find that to be so?
Anyway, we talked a lot about how fansocks (or fan-socks, if you prefer) are the coolest thing ever.
And then random people started knitting them for me. And making scarves for my duck because she doesn’t have feet. Never mind.
It’s just one guy
See also: Fake Band of the Week.
“You know that new venue that just opened up at the meme beach house? I heard Fake Band of the Week is playing. You know it’s just one guy, right?”
HSP
Highly Sensitive Person.
That would be me.
This term is also not mine. It comes from Elaine Aron‘s book The Highly Sensitive Person, which probably wasn’t meant to be a biography of me or anything.
But reading it was really helpful. And HSP has become a kind of short-hand for sensitive flower introvert-ey people.
It’s why I don’t go to (ew) networking events. And why that gets a place of honor on my dammit list.
NVC
I really don’t like acronyms. But I love NVC.
Nonviolent Communication (aka compassionate communication) has been a total freaking lifesaver.
Meme Beach House
The original reference is to when Stu (See also: Stuisms) translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to people will hang at my meme beach house.
Now it’s become (in my mind, yes?) the venue where my Fake Band of the Week plays its non-existent gigs. Except that it turns out it’s a real place.
My Gentleman Friend
That’s my partner in crime everything. There is backstory to why I call him that, but it’s not that interesting.
Right People
The people your thing is for. Even if they don’t know it yet.
People that you actually like. And they like you. A lot. This is totally not the hippie word for “target market” because blech. I kind of write about this all the time.
» Update: Right People re-explained
Selma
Selma is a rockstar. She is the only duck I know who can reasonably be described that way. She’s also my business partner.
Shivanauts
People who practice Dance of Shiva or Shiva Nata, in Sanskrit.
Shivanautical = anything that describes the process of Shiva-ing it up (aka doing Shiva Nata).
Example: “Man I had some crazy shivanautical epiphanies this week. Now I know why I flip out whenever that one asshat at work throws a shoe at me.”
Shoes, the throwing of (also known as shoe-throwing)
It’s what happens when people say hurtful things out of nowhere. It sucks.
Also, it’s really hard to destuckify when shoe-throwing is happening. Hence the sovereignty thing. (See also: Sovereignty)
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the state of not giving a damn what people think because you are the king or queen of your life. I got this from Hiro.
Smartnesses
The thoughtful, insightful things that we sometimes come up with, usually after some sort of … shivanautical epiphany.
Stuism
Stu is my stupid, paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software. His name is short for work, you Stupid piece of crap!
A Stuism is anything that he says. I collect the most egregious of these for your amusement and put them in the Friday Chicken.
Stuff, yours
You know, your stuff. Your issues.
The stuckified patterns that cause us to lose our sense of sovereignty and sometimes to think people are throwing shoes at us even when they aren’t. And yeah, sometimes they are.
Stucknesses
(See: Stuff)
Tfu tfu tfu
That’s me spitting three times to avoid the evil eye.
The Twitter Bar
Where you can buy me a drink. I’m @havi. Kazoo!
Very Personal Ads
Also known as the VPA. Though that wasn’t my idea, obviously, since you already know that I have a thing about not liking acronyms.
It’s where we practice getting more comfortable with asking for stuff.
Phew. That was the glossary.
I really need to stop making up words because this post is way too long.
Also: The meta. It hurts.
Ooh, and there are four words in the glossary that aren’t mine: let the guessing (or the counting) begin.
Item! I started a disturbing lentil list trend!
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.
Yep. Hi.
Item! Post No. 43 in a once-a-week series that makes more sense when you’ve been reading this blog for a while, or at least I hope it does.
Item! I’m not the only one who has issues with Thanksgiving.
You all know how I feel. And you read my list of 77 Things (that don’t completely suck).
Waverly Fitzgerald, favorite everything of mine, wrote a terrific, very thoughtful Thanksgiving Rant about seasons, family, meaning and other interesting things.
“If I say I have nothing planned, I am assumed to be an ‘orphan’ and in need of a family to take me in. If I say I am fixing dinner and my questioner has no plans, they will expect to be included.”
Worth reading.
Related:
The ever-hilarious Cairene wrote her own list of 77 lentils. And Christina wrote her list of 45 Things That Don’t Make Me Gnash My Teeth (based on how many pills there were in her bottle of Aleve).
And Amy from Barefoot Phoenix wrote a beautiful one too (and now I need to book it to Seattle to visit Helle which basically sounds like the best place in the entire world).
Awesome.
They’re on the Twitters: @waverlyfitz, @thirdhandworks, @toopretty4this, and @barefootphoenix.
Item! A marvelous interview
I am a fan of Susan Marie Swanson, who is a lovely, lovely person and who wrote The House In The Night, among other wonderful things.
This interview with her is a joy.
“Oh, let’s have Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) over to the house for a soup supper and local beer–and then have friends and neighbors stop by for cake. Yes, let’s do that.”
I love the internet for so many reasons, but that it brought me and Susan Marie together is definitely way up there on my list of happy.
She’s @susan_marie on Twitter.
Item! The Ninja Text Generator!
Speaking of happy.
I don’t have much to say about this other than ohmygod, there is a ninja text generator.
Of course there is.
And yet I am decidedly relieved to know that it exists. Huzzah!
I’m pretty sure I got to this through Susan Marie too, though I could be wrong.
Item! A most excellent Very Personal Ad.
My collection of Very Personal Ads inspired by my wacky Sunday tradition is growing.
This one is just sweet.
Since her Right People are basically like mine, except that they think I’m kind of nutty.
“You might be one of Havi’s right people. Or, if you’re not, you probably could be, if she came with a little less woo, or if you’d heard of her before.”
Nice!
She’s @williehewes on Twitter.
Item! Airport etiquette: is it a thing? I don’t know.
This stream-of-consciousness bit is from Karen, whom I met at Barbara Sher‘s retreat.
Karen is a total goofball, which is something I highly approve of. Reading this bit of slapstick puts her voice in my head again.
“I laughed (again – I seem to love to laugh on airplanes) and reminded him of the obvious: he hadn’t done a thing – I was the one who clumsily whacked my head.
Then I went to sit down – and whacked my head again. “
She’s @squarepegkaren on Twitter.
Item! To thine own self be true …
And other difficulties.
This is a piece about what happens when we let other people’s feedback decide what’s true for us.
“So I’ve been on a tear the last several months learning a tremendous amount of useful business information from a variety of experts, trying to learn and adapt and absorb as quickly as I can.
And suddenly, the other day, when I got so upset, I realized that somewhere along the way, I had relinquished my sovereignty, made my own opinion too secondary, and ended up looking for too much validation outside of me.”
Mmmmhmmmm.
She’s @Sarah_Bush on Twitter.
Item! Hurrah for the chicken. Hurrah for the egg.
A marvelous piece from Maira Kalman.
Hurrah for the egg indeed. Oh, this is beautiful.
Item! Tactical Nuclear Penguin!
That fabulously controversial Scottish brewery (BrewDog) has come out with what is apparently the world’s strongest beer. Alcohol content?
32%
I used to work in a homebrew store many, many years ago. On our breaks, this is the kind of stuff we used to imagine happening in a far-off universe.
That’s not the point.
The point is that it’s called Tactical Nuclear Penguin.*
*Uh … it’s just one guy?
If that doesn’t make you happy, I honestly don’t know what will.
Hat tip to @beervana.
Item! I must have this.
But where would I get one?
Via @sockwalker on Twitter.
Item! Update from the land of the Peculiar & Hilarious Shivanauts!
The “peculiar and hilarious” thing comes from Melynda’s sweet bit about Butterfly Wishes.
I wrote about some realizations and epiphanies. Of the shivanautical variety. Notes from my practice. Fragments. Stuff.
Item! The retreat I haven’t announced yet is more than half full.
At least take a look before it sells out and I take the page down.
Because mmmm, pretty. Seven days of mad destuckification. Worthy of exclamation points.
Item! Comments! Here’s what I want this time:
- Things you’re thinking about.
- What I should be reading on the plane to Sacramento.
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say, and I will interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
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. See you tomorrow.
We interrupt our scheduled programming.
Okay. We interrupt our scheduled programming because I absolutely have to share with you this conversation I had with my gentleman friend yesterday.
Man, I love it when someone asks a question that’s so completely reasonable to ask, but the answer is so completely … obvious (you know, to you) that it never even occurred to you that someone would be curious about this.
Blows my mind.
Context?
This came up because of the Destuckification Retreat I’m doing in Monterey.
This is something people have to apply for. I’m very picky about who gets in.
And, even though I haven’t even announced it yet and just sent one paragraph to my “Hey, I’m doing a thing” list last night, we’ve already received applications. For more than half the spots.
At this rate, we probably won’t even get around to announcing it.
My gentleman friend thought this was bizarre. Very, very bizarre. Dialogue loosely translated because we were probably drunk tired, and I can’t remember exactly how it went.
It went (kind of) like this.
Me: What?! What’s bizarre?
My gentleman friend: I don’t get it.
Me: What do you mean? You know my duck is a rockstar. People travel for hours — days — to be able to be near Selma. Remember when Sanders flew in from Nigeria for our weekend in North Carolina?
Selma: !
Me: See? Selma loves Sanders.
My gentleman friend: Oh, it’s not that. Clearly I’m not unaware of your awesomely insane pirate-ey cult following. I pick up your mail. I just don’t understand why people go on retreats. What’s up with that?
Me: Oh.
And that’s why there’s this post today instead of what I was planning on talking about.
It turns out there are all these things that people-who-don’t-retreat don’t get about retreats.
Things that are so important and that I completely take for granted. So I’m going to share some bits of our conversation, and hope that at least three things will surprise you.
Reasonable questions. That I never even think about.
This is super interesting.
Reasonable Question #1: What is it about being there?
My gentleman friend: It’s not like there’s a shortage of teleseminars in the world. You and your biggified friends are always doing them.
Me: And …?
My gentleman friend: So why would someone want to pack bags and book a plane ticket and have to actually go to a thing?
Me: You do realize that I just did that when I went to Barbara Sher‘s retreat, right?
My gentleman friend: Yeah, but you’re not like other people.
Me: Don’t I know it.
My gentleman friend: No, I mean, I totally get that you wanted to meet Barbara. You’re crazy about her. Justifiably.
Me: Yup!
My gentleman friend: And I know your sneakified brain. You knew that if you met her in person she’d write a blurb for your book, and happily biggify you.
Me: Okay. All that is true. Going to a retreat to make an impression on a beloved biggifier is a totally reasonable thing to do
But what I’m getting here is that you maybe haven’t experienced the difference between distance learning and in-person learning when the person you’re learning with is really good with … can I use a word neither of us will like?
My gentleman friend: Are you going to finish that sentence?
Me: I can’t think of a non-California way to say it. Oof. Stuff like “holding the space”, “creating the container”, “working with energy” … but I don’t like any of those phrases.
My gentleman friend: That thing you do when the room gets all buzzy and tingly? Like the crazy force field effect?
Me: Yeah.
Reasonable Question #2: But why is that so important?
My gentleman friend: Okay, so that’s a cool experience but I still don’t get why it’s so important that you would go on a retreat.
Me: I love how you say retreat the way I would say dead fish.
My gentleman friend: And you adore me for it.
Me: Right.
My gentleman friend: What I’m more curious about is … what is it about this experience that matters?
Me: Well, there’s something weirdly magical and transformational that happens when you go to a space with that kind of person.
It’s like a ritual of transition.
With a huge amount of power in it. If you put a week of your life to doing nothing but being in that transformational experience, and you’re doing it with someone who is brilliant and fun and has great material, you come out having shed a skin.
You’ve walked into this version of you who knows how to access more of your you-ness. It’s still you, but now you know what you need and how to get it.
My gentleman friend: Wow.
Me: Yeah.
Reasonable Question #3: But the money!
My gentleman friend: It’s still crazy how much of a financial investment it is, though.
Me: Mmm. Not really. And I’m saying that, even remembering all the years when I couldn’t even consider putting money towards anything that wasn’t food or rent.
My gentleman friend: What makes you say that?
Me: Two reasons. One is that the kind of transformation that happens in that kind of environment is really intense. Things happen quickly, so much more so than however many years of therapy or coaching are going to get you there.
My gentleman friend: And?
Me: The second thing is that you always make money from going on retreat, if you do it right?
My gentleman friend: ???
Me: You meet people. They either buy your stuff or help you create stuff or tell people about your stuff.
My gentleman friend: Really?
Me: Dude. You live with me. Alright. Examples.
Examples.
Me: Listen. Half the people at Barbara’s retreat ended up buying one of my products after we got home. And three of them are applying to the Kitchen Table.
My gentleman friend: How did you manage that?
Me: I didn’t. I have no idea how that happened. I didn’t go there planning to have people buy my stuff — I didn’t even talk about my stuff, other than mentioning that it existed when people asked me how my business works.
But yeah, I’ve more than made back what I spent on plane fare and the hotel.
My gentleman friend: And when you taught at Jen’s Writer’s Retreat, everyone there went home and bought the Shiva Nata Starter Kit. I guess that counts.
Me: Pffffffft. That’s nothing. One woman I met at a thing a few years ago has spent $13,000 in my business. The thing we met at cost $900. Remember?
My gentleman friend: No. But I remember that being a terrifying amount to spend on anything. Of course if I’d had any idea that the connections you made there, I probably would have insisted that you do it.
Me: You did insist.
My gentleman friend: I did?
Me: Yeah. You knew I really wanted to do it.
My gentleman friend: smiles
Me: The truth is that every product and every course I’ve done have come together because of the help of fabulous people I’ve met while taking someone else’s program. It’s like, the best bonding experience in the entire world.
My gentleman friend: And other people do this too? It’s not just you?
Fine. More examples.
Me: When I was at Jennifer Louden’s retreat, there were a bunch of my Kitchen Table people there. And when I taught my retreat in North Carolina, there were also a bunch of Kitcheners there.
And they’ve started joint-venture-ing up a storm, except they wouldn’t call it that. But they’re teaching programs together and promoting each other’s things in this really sweet, organic, beautiful way.
My gentleman friend: Okay. But they already kind of knew each other, through you.
Me: Right, but when they start doing this “hey, let’s biggify each other” thing at the retreat, other people see them do it. And then they start doing it. It’s stunning.
My gentleman friend: So you’re basically saying, don’t go to a retreat for the content. Instead, go to hook up with the biggified person teaching it and to make monies either from or with the other people in it.
Me: I’ve actually already made that point in a post a while back. But yeah. That’s a great reason to retreat.
Well, that and the insane transformational experience that makes everything in your life way, way better.
And the support network of people who really get you.
And the hilarity that happens when you’re an adult who gets to go to what’s basically a week long slumber party.
My gentleman friend: You are a very odd person and I like everything about you.
Selma: !
Me: !
That’s it.
I hope some of this was interesting. If not, then hey, you got a peek into my strange little life.
And a bit of my philosophy of retreating (not the same of my philosophy of run awaaaaaaaaaaaay! which is also a very good philosophy).
Comment zen for today?
Same as usual. We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We’re practicing.
Ooh. More ways to use the Dammit List.
Note: this may be the stupidest blog post title I’ve ever come up with.
Sure, I avoided the cliched (and highly recommended by nine out of ten experts, me being the tenth, obviously) of giving a number:
“8 ways to blah blah blippity blah”.
But only barely. It still sounds like an especially terrible book title.
“101 Ways To Use The Dammit List For Fun & Profit … On A Rainy Day.”
And yet, here we are. I’m not going to change it because this post really needs to go up already. But yes, the title is a disgrace.
Oh, right. An explanation.
The dammit list is … any and all of the things you stand for.
Things you care about enough to put a dammit on the end of the sentence.
When I was a bartender in Tel Aviv, I only had one thing on my dammit list* which was nobody gets to touch me — ever, dammit.
* I hadn’t come up with the concept of the dammit list, but dammit I would have had it on there.
Many of the people I worked with had significantly more rules and higher standards than I did.
(I don’t work double shifts, dammit. I don’t make coffee for the boss, dammit. I get to wear whatever I want, dammit.)
And I admired them for it. Even if I couldn’t take a stand myself.
It’s useful to know your dammit list. And I want to talk about why that is. Some points? I shall make some.**
** Some of these are business-related or biggification-related. And some completely aren’t. Anyway, you guys are smart. You can figure out how to apply this stuff.
Your dammit list helps you speak to your Right People.
Because it’s about who you really are.
I work with a duck, dammit.
I write ridiculously long posts, dammit. And that even though pretty much everyone I knew told me it was the blogging kiss of death back when I started. It’s not.
I do extremely wacky things, dammit. I won’t hit you on the head with woo, but yes, there will be a little. Dammit.
Bottom line:
Every time you share more of your fabulous you-ness, even when it totally doesn’t feel fabulous because it’s kind of embarrassing — the people who need to be around you are drawn to that.
Your dammit list can be part of what makes you irresistible to the people that will be the most fun for you to interact with.
Your dammit list forms the basis of your red velvet ropes.
And your red velvet ropes are everything that makes it easier for your Right People to say yes to your thing.
I only work with people I like, dammit.
If I want to teach Old Turkish Lady yoga at a biggification retreat, I’m going to, dammit.
Your dammit list is where you get your systems. And your policies.
Systems and policies are the bomb.
Because they’re all about healthy boundaries.
Systems let you grow and change. They let people know what to expect from you. They let you turn the thing you do into something that sustains you instead of something that drives you freaking batty.
My first real business policy showed up a couple years ago, straight from my as-yet-nonexistant dammit list, when I stopped doing freebie 20 minute consultations with potential clients.
I don’t remember what brought on the decision.
It could have been my time is extremely valuable, dammit. Or maybe more of an I don’t need to let people interview me, dammit thing.
Or something completely different.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to, dammit.
Your dammit list allows you to not do things that don’t feel right for you, without having to explain yourself.
Okay. I don’t put things on sale, dammit.
Not because I’m a diva.
But because I personally would feel annoyed if I bought a cool thing online, and then a few weeks later it was half the price because someone’s nephew had a birthday or something.
Because I believe that prices have resonance, dammit.
Because I have no patience for things that create additional admin work, dammit.
However, once I figure out that this is my rule, it is what it is. I don’t need to add a section to my store-like thing, saying that stuff isn’t going to go on sale. It just doesn’t.
Your dammit list does not need to impact anyone else’s dammit list.
If you choose to put stuff on sale? I will still love you.
If you choose to do freebie client intake sessions? Awesome. It’s your thing. Do what you need to do.
My dammit list is about me. Your dammit list is about you.
We can both be lovely people (and smart, quirky, goofballs! and friends!) even when stuff on our dammit list is radically different.
That’s because of the sovereignty thing. There is room for your you-ness and for mine. We don’t need to be in conflict.
Speaking of which …
Your dammit list is the basis for a Sovereignty practice.
Sovereignty, if you recall, is the concept I borrowed from Hiro.
It’s the spiritual quality of not giving a damn what other people think, dammit.
It’s owning your physical, mental and emotional space. Your body. Your time. Everything in your life that you get some sort of a say in.
When you put stuff on your dammit list, you are practicing sovereignty.
You are reminding yourself that the things you know and want are important. That there is room in the world for your needs.
Your dammit list is a work in progress.
One of my Kitchen Table people asked:
“Can we put things on our dammit list even if we don’t feel ready to actually enforce them yet?
Like, one of my personal manifesto points would be about never working for The Man again. But, umm, I’m not ready to walk out of my job now. But it still definitely belongs there.”
Absolutely.
You can even have a Transitional Dammit List if you want (and an Ideal Dammit List for later).
Or it can be more about principles:
“I get integrity, dammit! I get respect, dammit! And when I’m ready to do my thing, it will include not every having to work for the Man again! Dammit!”
You really don’t have to include stuff that doesn’t fit now. Or you can choose not to have to enforce some of your dammits yet.
Your dammit list is for you, so build it however you like and in whatever way helps you feel the most safe and supported in this.
Your dammit list in your personal life.
Your dammit list can help you find a partner, decide who gets to hang out with you, and what you choose to do with your “spare” time.
It can help you make decisions about how to handle family stuff.
It can help you make compromises or find middle ground.
For example, I know that not going to Thanksgiving or Christmas at the in-laws/un-laws needs to be on my dammit list.
But I also know that spending time with them in a non-stressful non-holiday setting is something that is really important to me and to my gentleman friend.
So we visit them in between the holidays, and it’s absolutely lovely. We get to compromise, dammit. We get to find a third way, dammit.
Your dammit list and conflict resolution?
This one definitely needs to get its own post. Because I know a lot of you are wondering what happens when your dammit list runs into someone else’s.
The thing is, there aren’t that many things that are so hugely, hugely important to us that we will not compromise on them.
So if you’re going to have to do some creative problem-solving with someone, it’s really useful for them to know which are the things that absolutely cannot budge.
Because everything else is negotiable.
Crap. Too much to say.
Okay. I was going to end with a list of some of the dammits that I love.
But I’m going to stop here instead and do that some other time.
In the meantime, if you need Dammit List inspiration, read some of the comments on the original post.
There are some excellent dammits there. Quality dammit-izing.
Comment zen for today.
You’re more than welcome to leave your dammits, transitional or otherwise in the comments.
And I want to say this: it’s a super hard topic. Lots of trigger-ey stuff.
Especially when there is stuff we want on our list that we can’t justify having there yet.
Or when we feel stifled and frustrated, because other people’s dammit lists have seemed to have more power than ours.
Or when we feel anxious that if we start having a serious dammit list, other people are going to get really pissed off.
So I want to acknowledge all that hard, and also to reassure you that this is all stuff we’ll be talking about in other posts.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We’re practicing.
That’s it!