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 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.
Things.
Well, I guess it’s more things I’m learning this week.
Because I’m teaching at this amazing Writer’s Retreat in Taos and yeah, it’s all kinds of intense.
Definitely not at the “processing my weird-ass realizations” point yet, but I thought I’d come here and share some of the things I’m noticing and recognizing.
Thing #1: Saying the word “writer”? Still ridiculously hard.
Yes, I am not unaware of the irony. Neither is my duck. But there it is.
Jen had us do this exercise where we said “I am a writer!” over and over again. Whispering it, yelling it, saying it to the trees and the sky and each other.
And even though I promised to let Writer Me get a whole week of love and acknowledgment, there was still this part of me that went waaaaaaaaaaaay into resistance.
Me: I am a writer.
Resistance Me: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, you’re a blogger. Let’s not go too far.
Me: I am a writer.
Resistance Me: E-books, honey. They’re not books.
Me: I am a writer.
Resistance Me: How about we just save that word for when you’re being reviewed in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell, mmmm? K?
Thing #2: Resistance Me actually wants me to be published.
We also did a ton of “talking to the inner critic” stuff.
And I’m thinking, oh, I’ve been doing this for so many years and I have my negotiators and my conversations with blocks and I know all my monsters …
So of course I already know that my inner critic just wants to protect me. Because we hang out and talk all the time. And I know it’s on my side. Blah blah blippity blah.
But then when we did the exercise, I learned something new.
The reason my critic is so obnoxious is that it (he? she?) really, truly wants me to be published.
And more than that: it feels conflicted about its mission.
Because what it really wants is for me to be able to stop caring about what other people think. And since it’s afraid I’ll never get there, it uses the external legitimacy thing because that’s what works.
Anyway, that was … useful.
Thing #3: This is not exactly news, but my standards? Way too high!
I watch these women. These amazing, bright, capable, loving women. I feel this deep, beautiful love for all of them.
It is so clear and obvious to me that they are writers. Of course they are.
I listen to their conditions and their rules and their shoulds about what a “real” writer is, and I just feel so much compassion.
And then I wonder at how strict I am with myself. How my shoulds are even more outrageous, absurd and un-live-up-to-able than theirs.
One woman says, “How can I call myself a writer when I haven’t written in months?”
And I’m thinking (not saying, of course), “What does that have to do with anything? You’re a writer in your soul. I see your pain and I see your stuck … and I also see the flow of words and wonder in you and that is enough. You are enough.”
And I can be completely in this love-and-acceptance thing.
And at the same time, I can be aware of the interesting fact that I write at least 90 minutes every single day and I still don’t think I get the right to use the W-word.
Who gets to decide? Who gets to let Writer Me out to play? Who gets to incorporate all aspects of herself into her life?
I do.
Thing #4: What is your name, critic?
This isn’t really a thing.
I’m just going to share one of the neat guided exercises we did where we interviewed our internal “no, you’re not good enough” voice and my responses. I mean, my critic’s responses.
Interviewer: What is your name, critic?
Answer: I am the protector. I keep you from knowing how they can hurt you.
Interviewer: If you were a color, what color would you be?
Answer: I am dark. I am light. I can hide.
Interviewer: How big are you?
Answer: Big enough. Big enough to block the pain.
Interviewer: What texture are you?
Answer: I am ever-changing. I am the wind. They can’t hold me.
Interviewer: What gender are you?
Answer: I am the Authority.
(Yes, my authority gets to decide who is an author, I get it, heavy-handed-mouse)
Interviewer: How have you come to be who you are?
Answer: I keep your words safe. Remember what happened when you showed your work? I don’t let that happen anymore.
Interviewer: What do you really want?
Answer: For you not to need anyone else’s approval.
Okay … comment zen for today.
Here’s what I want:
- Anything this stuff reminds you of.
- Your own experiences of Writer You or Dancer You or _________ You.
What I would rather not have:
- Shoulds. As in, “You should get over yourself” or “You should try x, y and z”
- To be judged or psychoanalyzed.
My commitment.
I commit to giving time and thought to the things that people say here, and to interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
Very Personal Ads #4: Writing and missing and needing.
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 Sunday ritual. Yay, ritual!
There were some pretty fantastic personal ads in the comments of last week’s post. So I hope people will update on their stories too.
I’m in Taos at the Writer’s Retreat with the super-wonderful Jennifer Genius-Mouse Louden.
But that’s not going to keep me from throwing personal ads out there like there’s no tomorrow! Oh, the joys of pre-posting.*
* It’s kind of embarrassing actually how I can’t stop posting about how much I love pre-posting but there you have it.
Yallah. Let’s do this thing.
Thing 1: mad help with my baby book!
Here’s what I want:
To make crazy progress this week on my almost-completed Shivanaut Manual.
I had a mini-crisis around this a while back and now I’ve done the work and am ready to commit again.
But I would really, really love to have a more-finalized final draft by the time I’m back from my week of Writer’s Retreat. (Yes, I know I’m supposed to be teaching there, but I also plan to get some writing and retreating in too!)
Here’s how this could work:
I will Shiva-it-up and get in the zone.
Wonderful people will help me.
My students will remind me that this book doesn’t have to answer every single question they have. It doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all of everything. It’s just a manual.
And, at the same time, it’s special.
My book will talk to me. It will whisper sweet nothings in my ear. It will appreciate me when I’m spending time with it, and be understanding when I can’t.
It will allow all the old hurt feelings between us to drain into the earth.
My commitment.
Oh, my sweet book. I will give you my love and my attention.
I will notice when my stuff comes up and I will ask for help when I need it.
I will keep practicing and dancing up a storm and working on my stuff.
And I will appreciate the hot, buttered epiphanies that the Dance of Shiva practice hurls at me instead of just whining about how much it sucks to learn such weird, deep stuff about my issues.
I will tell my story.
Thing 2: A memorial please.
Here’s what I want:
I want to know when my friend who is dead actually died.
No one seems to know. And it’s kind of driving me crazy.
Yes, I know he is gone gone gone … still gone … and still I want to have a day for him.
Not just International Borekas and Repression day. I want a day.
I even tried to plan my trip back to Tel Aviv to coincide with the time (because there is kind of a ritual of going to the grave for the “day of the year” which is like a memorial).
And no one knew. I only found out about my friend from my ex, who is notoriously incapable of knowing what month it is now, never mind when something in the past happened.
I talked to the best friend of my ex, who used to play harmonica in a band with my friend who is dead … and he said it was in the fall, but more than that he didn’t know.
But but but, you say, that post when you found out and then when you wrote your hurting bits of wisdom … wasn’t that in July?
Yes. Some of my friends got together and decided I had to be told in person. Which was stupid. And we were all going back and forth between Israel and Germany and the States. And it took a while.
In the meantime? I just want one day.
Here’s how I want to get this:
Someone could remember. Or find out. And tell me.
Maybe Adi (the best friend of my ex) was able to finally get through to the sister of my friend who is dead.
Or … I could just suddenly know.
The way I knew with utter certainty exactly what had happened — in the moment when I heard that my friend had killed himself, I knew.
Even though I never would have guessed that he would do something like that.
I mean, if you had told me that one of my friends in Israel had committed suicide? I honestly would have guessed every single person I knew before thinking it was him.
The qualities that I associate with him are things like … joyfulness. And laughter. The kind of spark you really only get from genuinely participating and being present in being alive.
But the moment my ex told me he had killed himself, I knew without asking exactly how and exactly where.
I even knew the song that was playing while he died. It was like I just tuned into it and the information was right there.
So maybe I will also remember the when?
My commitment.
I will love this day.
I will eat borekas and listen to Cake and dance around the room. Not all at once, though.
My hope of course is that if I have one day to fall apart completely with my loss and grief and pain that maybe it won’t have to be such a big part of my day-to-day.
But either way, I will be glad for this day.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads and what’s going on with them.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Not only did we fill the weirdly-opened spot in my North Carolina workshop, we filled it with someone whose fabulousness is well-documented.
Actually, I love her.
So that was cool and exciting and weird. And while it does suck to have to say to other people, “sorry, someone kind of beat you to it”, it’s also really fun to have lots of neat people want to go to your workshop.
With the tech wizard request, we have been doing some interviews and seem to be clear on who we want to work with.
So thanks, everyone and thanks, magic-internets and thanks, weird-ass power of asking for stuff out loud. Triple-whee for that.
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.
Thanks for doing this with me! You guys rock. I say that every time, but still true.