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.
I am red. Wishcraft-ing it up.
Second post in a short series …
But first I need to be all disclaimer-ey …
- So I find most non-Jennifer-Louden-written self-help-ey books to be pretty insipid — but I adore Wishcraft by Barbara Sher (she’s @barbarasher on Twitter).
- You can download the ebook version at no cost on her website — If you do, you’ll probably want to print it out so you can scribble all over it.
- Personally, I’d say: buy the book. Totally worth it.
- My duck and I went through Barbara’s wacky exercises while teaching at guest-teaching at Jen Louden’s fabulous Writer’s Retreat and now we’re sharing that process with you. That makes this is a pretty atypical blog post, but what the hell.
- Last time we did the Five Lives exercise.
Barbara Sher’s smart question:
In Chapter Three.
“Choose a color that appeals to you. It doesn’t have to be your all-time favorite, or a color you especially like to wear — though it may be …
Now I would like you to role-play that color. That means you are going to pretend you are that color and speak for it, since it cannot speak for itself.
Now, in a few words to a few sentences, tell what qualities you have as that color — not as yourself.”
*And no, I’m not the world’s biggest plagiarizing asshat for giving away her content. She lets you download the entire book for free.
So you become that color.
And you’re allowed contradictions. You’re allowed to put down whatever comes up.
It’s not important if your vision of “I am azure” is different from someone else’s. It’s not important if you-as-you can’t own the qualities that your color does.
You just become the color. And you let it do the writing.
Pick a color! Step right up! Pick a color, any color …
Here’s what came up when I did it:
I am red.
I am strong and tough.
I can be aggressive if I want to.
I am confident.
I leave my mark.
I am noticeable. Ha!
I am ready. (hee, pun)
I don’t get tired.
I mix well.
I stand for things.
What I’m learning/noticing from doing this ….
Huh.
This was actually (while I’m being all honest and stuff since that also seems to be part of owning my newly discovered red-ness) the exercise that I had least wanted to do.
It just seemed kind of … I don’t know, transparent.
I definitely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much (it’s fun being red!)
So it was actually surprisingly empowering. In fact, now that I think of it, I don’t normally let myself be any of those things, so that was … pretty outstanding.
What I’m thinking now is:
What can I do to bring more of these strong, tough, unashamed qualities into my life?
And is there a way I can do it without pretending to be red? Can I own these qualities as me?
And are there some other colors I need to play with in order to bring more aspects of the whole of who I am into play? Or even … into existence?
Also, the more pun-centric part of my brain couldn’t help finding a parallel between “I am red” and “I am read“, which relates so well to my Very Personal Ad this week where I asked for an agent for my unborn book.
I am red. I am read.
Do you want to play with me? Yay.
Because that would be awesome.
So … give it a shot. Again, it probably helps if you have her amazing book for context, but I think the exercise works pretty well on its own too.
And then if you want to share some (or all) of your results here, that would be really interesting! And fun!
And then I won’t be being all self-help-ey all by myself.
In terms of “comment zen” for these posts? I’m thinking … less of the “when are you going to get back to writing real posts” (ow, my stuff is coming up!) and more of the “this is what I’m noticing and experiencing” (aaaaaaaah, much better).
Wheee! Toys!
Very Personal Ads #5: Represent!
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.
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!
Alright. Let’s do it.
Thing 1: Representation.
Here’s what I want:
An agent.
Not for my Shivanaut Manual — for the next book I’m going to write.
It will have some combination of my self-help-ey bits and biggification genius and it will be brilliant.
Yes, I know that a few weeks ago I couldn’t even get Writer Me to stop cackling and last week I couldn’t say in a voice louder than a whisper that I was a writer, but I’m ready now.
My agent is kind, sensible, knowledgeable, creative, goofy and has a wicked sense of humor. And is, at least in some ways, one of my Right People.
We will have the best time ever working together and it will be a fabulously successful collaboration of kookiness and wonder.
Ways this could come to me:
One of my smart book-writing author-ey friends (like Jen or Pam or Chris or Jonathan) could hook me up with the perfect connection.
Or maybe … through this blog.
Or through my network of connector mice. Or at my favorite bar (yes, Twitter).
Or in some way I haven’t thought of yet which will manage to be so completely, ridiculously laugh-out-loud perfect that it will become a beautiful tiny little story of its own.
Anything else. I’m staying open to surprises.
Here’s how I want to get it:
I would like a sign. Or a sign-like thing. That would work too.
And, ideally, the right person will contact Marissa through my lovely, lovely contact page.
My commitment.
I will give time, love and attention to Writer Me and to the book (books?) that are growing inside of me.
I will try to be all loving and nurturing with myself during the process (or to at least notice when I’m not and when I can’t and try to let that be okay).
And we will laugh together. Me and this wonderful agent and the book that gets to be born.
Thing 2: Quiet time to decompress.
Here’s what I want:
I’m really, really needing recovery time after the Retreat.
So I want:
Help gently reminding myself to spend more time in my Angel Refueling Station.
Patience and love from my Kitchen Table people when it takes me a little longer to respond to things.
Naps.
Ways this could work:
It could just be kind of a quiet week.
Maybe the little reminders I plant all over my website that say hey, I’m still on email sabbatical will have some sort of magical effect.
Maybe my beautiful week of Retreat-ing and retreating with Jen will make it easier for me to say no to things that aren’t soothing and quiet.
Maybe I will go on a writer’s date with Shannon.
My commitment.
I will remind myself that quiet is a value.
And I will take time to check in with myself and make sure I’m getting enough of it.
More permission to work on reaching a higher level of Naptitude (can’t remember who said that on Twitter, but boy is it ever sticky).
Oh, and I will ask my brother and my gentleman friend to remind me to go to bed extra-early.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Still no word on the day I am looking for to honor my friend who is dead. But I’m feeling less anxious about it and am trusting that I will know what to do when it is time.
And, moving to other things I have asked for, I have two pretty amazing things to report:
Two weeks ago I asked for a tech wizard for my pirate ship.
And the person we ended up working with was so immensely capable, so astonishingly good at doing the thing that I am in awe.
Not only did she fix the big, huge, awful problem that we had been throwing time and money at for a couple of months, but she fixed a bunch of other things we didn’t even know needed fixing.
I cannot even express how grateful I feel for this Very Personal Ad space, for bringing this exactly-right person to my business.
And last week I asked for help with getting in the zone and working on my Shivanaut Manual, so I could give my dear, sweet, abandoned book the love it deserved.
It was awesome. I dance of Shiva-ed it up. I worked on my book every day at the Writer’s Retreat when I wasn’t teaching. I broke up with my table of contents.
I let it be fun.
So now it’s a totally different thing than it used to be. Also than I thought it was going to be. And it’s so close to being done that I can taste it. Joy!
Comments. Since I’m already asking …
I am adding to my practice of asking for stuff by being more specific about I would like to receive in the comments. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of this experiment too. 🙂
Here’s what I want:
- Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for.
- Thoughts or ideas about ways any of the personal ads listed here could come true.
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.
My commitment.
I am committing to getting better at asking for things even when asking feels weird. I’m committing 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.
So happy that you guys do this with me! Yay, Very Personal Ads.
Friday Check-in #52: special anniversary edition
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.
A year of chickens! A year of chickens!*
I know I said last week I wouldn’t remember, but I did.
To be honest, of all the various little series-type things that I’ve done on the blog, like the Item! posts or the blogging therapy series or my Very Personal Ads … the chickens seemed like the stupidest idea of them all.
But somehow, despite my being convinced that the Friday Chickens are boring, excessively self-indulgent (yes, even for blogging) and kind of ridiculous, they’re still here.
And the reason for that is a. I’m completely addicted to doing them and b. it is so completely inspiring to read about everyone else’s week in the comments. To commiserate over the hard and jump around about the good.
It’s like, we’re in it together, and getting to be present for everyone else’s is helping me be more present with my own stuff. So thanks, guys. Chickens! Whooo. Chickens!
*Remember the first one? Remember when it stopped being a round-up? Oh, the nostalgia!
The hard stuff
Feeling nervous about a whole entire week of retreating.
That kind of sums it up.
My nervousness turned out to be entirely unjustified, but you know how it is.
The bit of good in that hard was that I was not even slightly nervous about teaching two classes each day, which is a nice improvement from a few years ago when it would have been highly stressful.
The busy. Oy, the busy.
So between planning and teaching two classes a day at Jennifer Louden’s Writer’s Retreat and talking to people and sitting in on Jen’s classes and working on my Shiva Nata manual …
Pretty exhausted.
I would fall into bed each night wondering how on earth the time had manage to whiz by so impressively since six in the morning.
I missed my Angel Refueling Station in my office where I can sneak off to meditate. I missed my gentleman friend. I missed Hoppy House. And I didn’t even have time to miss any of it.
Not wanting to catch up on any of the work that’s piled up since I’ve been gone.
Ugh.
I am just not in the mood.
That is all.
The good stuff
Retreat! Retreeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaat!
I freaking love being on Retreat.
I love having designated writing time each day. I love sitting in the circle with this group of bright, thoughtful, sweet-hearted women.
Being away from routine. Having a place to create rituals and dissolve stucknesses. It’s bliss.
Plus, Jen’s classes are phenomenal, and I have many happy notes and scribblings.
Teaching!
First of all, getting to teach Shiva Nata every single day was the coolest thing ever.
Plus I got to teach about so many of my favorite destuckification-related topics. And then I also taught a super-gentle yoga class every day (what I call Old Turkish Lady Yoga), which was yummy.
So. Much. Fun.
The people? Oh my god.
I genuinely liked every single woman from the Retreat. Which kind of surprised me.
But it was just amazing this group that came together.
I got to share a room with Lisa Pijuan-Nomura, who is my new Favoritest Person Ever. I got to hang out for hours and hours with my beloved fellow-goofball Molly Gordon.
And then several of my Kitchen Table program participants were there and getting to spend time with them in person was so much fun I can’t even tell you.
I got to have dinner with Gail (you might remember her from an Item! post a few weeks ago), and to spend lovely, lovely time with Josiane and Wendy and Shannon.
Ooh! And I got to finally meet Marissa, my wonderful First Mate on the Fluent Self pirate ship. I’ve been wanting to give her a hug for oh, a year? And yay!
Taos is so gorgeous I can hardly stand it.
The sky! The clouds! The air! The light!
I could marry this place.
It’s just breathtakingly lovely. And the food is ridiculously great. And the place we Retreat-ed in has a pebbled labyrinth to walk.
And I don’t want to leave.
I finally realized that yes, I am a writer.
It took a while, but it sunk in.
It just occurred to me a few days into the Retreat that of course I am a writer.
I’ve written three full-length ebooks and a number of smaller ones. Over 400 posts for this blog and there’s the Shivanaut blog too.
Oh, and I rejoice in getting a two-hour chunk to write in. And if I don’t write I go crazy. I think that covers it. Nice.
Also, I am so close to finishing my new and greatly improved version of the Shivanaut Manual that I want to jump around and dance dance dance dance dance!
Wendy’s Green Chili Stew!
I could stay in New Mexico forever. Just saying.
Young! Lady!
“This way, young lady!” sang out the guy at the Portland airport, unknowingly making my day.
I have been ma’am-ed far too often in the past few months. Really starting to get to me.
It may have been the sunglasses obscuring the bags under my eyes but I don’t care. Young lady = me. Ha!
And … new 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.”
So this week, I bring you:
The Udnish Initiative
It’s … just one guy.
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.
Stu had an awesome a Harry Potter moment this week:
to beat our house elves and our habits to death with venomous stakes instead of “to beat ourselves and our habits to death with enormous sticks”
Obviously house elves = genius, but it also cracked me up that I just could not get him to say enormous. Venomous was his favorite, but he also came up with anonymous and animus … weird.
Okay, here are the rest.
- Anne fallen to the Mayor instead of “and fall into the mirror”
- that too can suddenly before instead of “that two can suddenly be four”
- challenging her patter is good for the prey instead of “challenging our patterns is good for the brain”
- a cup for coffee in the moors instead of “a cup of coffee in the morning”
- an inertia ass instead of “and nourish us”
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.
Five lives. Wishcraft-ing it up.
First post in what might end up being a short series …
But first I need to be all disclaimer-ey …
- So I find most non-Jennifer-Louden-written self-help-ey books to be pretty insipid — but I adore Wishcraft by Barbara Sher.
- You can download the ebook version at no cost on her website — If you do, you’ll probably want to print it out so you can scribble all over it.
- Personally, I’d say: buy the book. Totally worth it.
- My duck and I are going through Barbara’s wacky exercises and sharing that process with you. That makes this is a pretty atypical blog post, but what the hell.
- We’re in Taos this week guest-teaching at Jen Louden’s fabulous Writer’s Retreat but I’m trying to check in here when I can.
Barbara Sher’s smart question:
Oh, how I love her. She says things like “Goals exist only to serve you and make you happy. You don’t exist to serve them.” She reminds us that goals can change. Even a lot.
Or that we’re allowed to yearn for many different, even conflicting things at the same time. And to bring in at least some aspects of these parts-of-who-we-might-be into daily life.
Anyway, in Chapter 4* she gives this terrific exercise called Five Lives And How To Live Them All:
“Think about it: if you had five lives, what would you do with each one?
I don’t mean if you were five different people. I mean if you could be you five times over and explore a different talent, interest or lifestyle to the fullest each time …
… If you could manage nicely with three lives, take three. If you need ten, help yourself. I just picked five because it’s a nice round number.”
*And no, I’m not the world’s biggest plagiarizing asshat for giving away her content. She lets you download the entire book for free.
So that’s the exercise.
You’re allowed contradictions. You’re allowed to put down whatever comes up. You don’t have to figure out how you’d be able to support yourself with it. These are just your ideal lives.
My five lives. (Okay, six.)
- Exactly what I’m doing right now.
- Full-time writer. Like, I get up and write for an hour the way I do now. But then the rest of the day is about writing too.
- Full-time yoga educator / yoga professional. I’d be teaching pretty much exactly the same stuff I do now, but in the yoga world instead of … right here.
- Dancer. Not the kind that performs. Not interested in that. But I would spend my days stretching and moving and creating choreographies and being with my body. Taking movement classes. Teaching movement classes. Turning on the radio and going crazy.
- A monk? I don’t really know what to call this, but a life of seclusion and retreat.
- World traveler.
What I’m learning/noticing from doing this ….
I actually do manage to incorporate more elements from my “ideal life” (whatever that means) into the one I’m actually living right now than I ever would have guessed.
That surprised the hell out of me, and it’s really, really reassuring somehow.
I know what’s important to me: writing, movement, working-on-my stuff, being quiet. But I don’t really give these things a lot of thought.
So … are there ways I can have more of this? Ways that I can make more time for it? Give it more conscious attention?
And I also have the strong sense that the more I bring in aspects from these different lives, the more whole I will feel right now.
So even though I’m noticing that there is a part of me who doesn’t believe that Writer Me and Dancer Me and Angel Refueling Station Me can co-exist … there is also another part of me who is really excited to see what happens if and when they choose to spend some time together.
Or to spend some time with me.
Do you want to play with me? Yay.
I would love it if you gave this exercise a shot. Not sure how useful it is without the context of Barbara’s amazing book, but you can definitely get cool stuff from it anyway.
And then if you want to share some (or all) of your results here, that would be really interesting — and fun!
And then I won’t be being all self-help-ey all by myself.
In terms of “comment zen” for these posts? I’m thinking, let’s try for less of the “this is stupid” and more of the “this is what I’m noticing”.
Because it’s really easy for me to start hating an exercise before I’ve really tried it. And I’m trying to just kind of throw myself into these and see what happens.
Wheee! Play with me!
Item! The ebullience! It’s inexcusable!
A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.
Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.
Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.
So yeah, I’m still in Taos at Jen’s Retreat.
Still teaching. Still writing. Still experiencing cool things that I will report on later. Still suffering Twitter withdrawal. Okay, semi-withdrawal.
In the meantime, let’s have some Items! And some exclamation points!
And no, I’m not running around on the internets this week. But I have been collecting these (sneakified me) just for today.
Because of course I could not leave you without some Items! And exclamation points!
Shall we?
Item! Post No. 28 in a semi-ongoing series that gives me full reign to use exclamation points in an excessive and inexcusably ebullient manner.
Item! Find out what happens to creative ideas!
Beautifully depressing. Or depressingly beautiful.
Or something.
It’s a video from Obsessed with Conformity.
Item! Advice on what to say to your bank (from Ramit)
Tim Ferris posted a chunk of Ramit Sethi’s book on his blog a while ago.
Ramit is super smart. And while I’m not really his Right People, I do really appreciate smartnesses.
He gives some scripts for what to say when you want to renegotiate bank fees or get fees waived.
Useful.
Item! This is the best name for a knitting blog.
I realize that this is a pretty hardcore statement to make, given how many excellent knitting blogs there are out there with extra-clever names.
However, I stand by my wow.
It’s called The Hook and I.
Ohmygod the great.
She’s @plainsight on Twitter.
Item! What is a mensch?
We heard from Melynda last week too, but this post is too great to not include on its own.
“What’s a mensch?” asked Little Sunshine.
“A person,” I said. “A civilized, courteous, compassionate, thoughtful, grownup person.”
She’s @melyndahuskey on Twitter.
Item! Part of what you’re paying for is not being first.
Nice post from Jonathan Fields about why it costs a lot to hire someone who is good at what he does.
He’s @jonathanfields on Twitter.
Item! Dubai is in the Middle East, last I heard. Right?
I was absolutely fascinated by this article about the dark side of Dubai, which I found (of course) via Boing Boing.
But I was even more astonished to read the following from a now-homeless expat woman:
“Before I came here, I didn’t know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada’s or any other liberal democracy’s.”
Seriously? What made you think that? Saudi Arabia, people.
Even if you had no idea about the “this is basically a slave society” thing and the repression thing, you could still have made an educated guess about the “our entire legal system is different” part, right? Gah.
This reminded me of why I tend to avoid other expats when I’m in expat mode. But it was also really fascinating.
Item! His own personal sadness troll!
Luke has his own personal sadness troll. Oh. Sad face.
But it kind of looks like a really sweet muppet. So don’t feel too bad.
And he used smart interviewing techniques to figure out what’s going on with that.
This is just inspiring.
Interviewer: Why do you make Luke so sad?
Sadness Troll: I have to keep reminding him that he needs to be successful! So yes, he gets sad when he doesn’t measure up, but he needs reminding!
Int: Why does he need to be successful?
ST: Hmmm … not sure. Because a lot of his identity has been bound up with that ever since school? Because people expect it of him?
Item! Update from the land of the Peculiar Shivanauts!
A really sweet post from Danielle called slowly but surely.
Lots of good thinkey-ness there. We love Danielle!
And another guest post (I know!) from Gina called brain mush, patterns of fear, and writing guest posts. Love it!
So the Shivanauts are rocking it. And I’m feeling pretty happy about that.
Danielle is @dmonique on Twitter and Gina is @gloreebe88.
Item! Comments!
So it was really cool the other week when I got to work on my practice of how I ask for stuff and you guys gave me the best reading recommendations ever!
So I’m going to try it again.
Here’s what I want:
- Any insight or realization you had this week, if you had one.
- A favorite word.
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.