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 #49: the “off to San Francisco!” edition

by | Jul 10, 2009 |

Friday chickenBecause 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 actually in San Francisco right now so this is the miracle of pre-posting.

Whoo! Pre-posting. It makes me happy.

But yeah, it was quite a week.

And I’ve been doing a lot of general mulling over while remembering everything that’s been going on for me.

The hard stuff

Too many freaking things to do.

My Pirate Queen Action Items List is so long it actually makes me want to throw up looking at it.

No, I do not understand how it is that I have THREE assistants and still there are so many things that are on my list?

Maybe it’s that I haven’t figured out yet how to teach other people to do them. Or maybe it’s more that I don’t have time to teach them while I’m completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the list.

I don’t know. But there was a lot of hard this week around that.

And I focused a lot of my time on just healing the ick and doing techniques to calm down. Blech.

The fireworks.

I already wrote about this.

But having my post-traumatic stress stuff come up again was not fun.

What’s the opposite of writer’s block called?

There is so much that I want to be writing about all at once that it forms this sort of weird paralysis.

I find myself resenting the time that’s designated for non-writing things.

And then when I do sit down to write, it’s with too many frenetic ideas floating around and begging for a piece of my attention.

Something to work on.

But not today.

I want some good stuff! Oh, right. Here we are. The good stuff.

The good stuff

As ladyfriends go, I am pretty much the best ever.

Executing the super-complicated Mission Ridiculously Complicated Birthday Surprise for my gentleman friend was not easy.

Well, mostly it was not easy to keep my mouth shut and not tell him what was happening.

I’d arranged a four day trip for the two of us to his favorite city, a four-star hotel, transportation, brunch plans with various friends of his … and oh, various other little sneaky surprises.

All of which I’ve been dying to be able to talk to him about since I’m not used to having something that we’re not talking about.

And then there were all the various loose cannons — his various friends in San Francisco that I had sworn to secrecy.

And our friends here who knew (I’m pretty sure the Spicy Princess was totally kicking Ranch Boy under the table when we had dinner at their place).

Anyway, it was agonizing. But so completely worth it to see his elated and astonished grin when Selma and I handed him his birthday envelope with a goofy deck of itinerary cards inside.

I learned something.

This is actually from a couple weeks ago, but the realization has been really helpful for me this week.

I was doing Cairene’s brilliant Bite the Candy thing which is all about doing the stuff on your to-do list that never actually gets done.

So I had four things that I wanted to give attention to, and one of them I kept thinking of as “the fun one”, so I saved that one for last.

And when I did it, I learned that hey, it wasn’t really fun at all.

Which was really useful. Because I was able to stop and say:

“Oh! Oh oh oh oh oh! THAT’s why I was avoiding it.”

Of course I had been thinking of it as the fun one because it was on a list of ew.

But it was really hard! And realizing that gave me permission to stop giving myself crap for avoiding the “fun” one.

People are awesome.

Every once in a while something bizarre happens that costs me money.

For example, someone’s house gets broken into and their Shiva Nata DVD gets stolen.

This has actually happened more than a couple times, which kind of makes you want to shake your head at humanity in general. But I figure that some loss is just the price of doing business.

So I have a very “oh well, what are you gonna do” attitude about that kind of loss. We ship another one, it gets marked in the books and then I forget about it.

But this one woman in the Netherlands? She got insurance money. And then she paypalled me 20 Euro as a thank you.

Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever?

Also, in a weird way it kind of makes me happy to imagine the person who stole her DVD actually using it, becoming a Shivanaut and changing his own patterns through the practice.

Shiva-Nata-inspired moments of bing!

Speaking of Shivanauts and the insanely weird Dance of Shiva, I have been getting the most brain-blowingly awesome insights all week.

Dancing up a storm. And writing down the things that come up afterwards.

And it’s out of control.

Swing!

My gentleman friend and I have been learning swing dancing. And now that we can do four different turns without falling on our faces, we can rock out in the living room while listening to Elvis.

And that is pure bliss.

And … new at the meme beach house!

Yes, that’s a Stuism too.

My brother and I like make up 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:

My Right Arm For A Pepsi*

It’s just one guy.

*Second runner up: Barton Finkelstein and the Elephants. Also a guy. No elephants.

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.

My favorite was:

And the Giants rock!

That was instead of what it was supposed to be which was “and the giant rock“. But since I madly adore the San Francisco Giants, I was pretty excited that Stu finally got something right.

My second favorite was It’s that Nutter Irish instead of “It’s the Nataraj”.

(Yes, I know … and his second guess for Nataraj was not trashy, to which I say: ?!?!?!?!)

Anyway, the gems from this week:

  • Friday Czech and instead of “Friday Chicken”
  • That’s a heart, Inuit? instead of “That’s hard, isn’t it?
  • folks and head wax instead of “pokes and head whacks”
  • They steal the two hogs back together instead of “they seal the two halves back together”
  • after Leslie instead of “effortlessly”
  • here is termite brain instead of “erased from my brain”
  • Ha ha Ha ha ha. No picket. instead of “Hahahahaha. No.”
  • the sell you an arc is going to ash instead of “the cellular network is going to crash”
  • no unbiased instead of “no one buys”
  • So pick a Grammy instead of “So big hug from me”
  • from Psalm A instead of “from Selma”

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.

“No one is interested in my thing.”

by | Jul 9, 2009 | ,

This is something that’s been coming up lately in my Kitchen Table forum, and I’ve been seeing it in various other online places as well.

Someone launches a thing.

You know, a mailing list or a class or a program or a product.

And nothing happens.

No one signs up. No one buys. No one responds.

Here’s the fascinating part.

There is a huge leap that just about everyone makes from “no one has responded” all the way to “no one is interested”.

And man, I have a lot to say about this.

First the comfort.*

*Only if you want it, of course. If you’re not into the comfort thing, go ahead and skip to the next bit. 🙂

Oh, you poor sweet thing.

Ugh. Yuck. Miserable. No fun at all.

You must be feeling so frustrated and upset, because you need to know that you’re supported, and that all the hard work you’ve put into this wasn’t in vain.

So big hug from me. And a sympathetic look from Selma.

And recognition that you did something that can feel scary and vulnerable, and that you didn’t get what you wanted from it. Because that sucks. And I’m sorry you had to experience that.

Then the reality check.

You actually don’t know yet.

You don’t know that no one is interested in your thing because you can’t know.

There is not nearly enough evidence to justify that kind of conclusion yet.

And anyway, we already know that conclusions are often astonishingly ridiculous … and jumping to them? Even more so.

There can be all sorts of legitimate reasons for why no one’s going for it yet. Reasons that do not have a thing to do with whether or not people are interested.

So there are three questions (at least) that we absolutely have to be able to answer… and then we can figure out where to go from there.

Important Question #1: how many people saw the thing you offered?

Because you know what?

There’s a pretty big difference between a situation where three hundred people saw your thing but didn’t go for it and a situation where only two people did.

So the first thing you need to find out, is how many people actually got to the right page on your website.

Or saw the sale at your Etsy shop. Or read your blog post. Or received the invitation — or whatever.

For example, if you send out an email noozletter announcing your thing to your hundred and fifty subscribers and not one of them clicked through to your website… that’s hardly proof that no one is interested.

It’s possible, yes. Theoretically.

But it’s much more likely that it’s one of these things:

  • Your link didn’t work. People tried to click on it and it didn’t take them anywhere.
  • It wasn’t obvious that it was a link. Maybe you linked one word in the middle of ten paragraphs and people missed it. They’re busy. They’re reading fast. Understandable.
  • There wasn’t a clear reason why someone should click that link. It was just a “hey, check this out if you feel like it at some point, though god knows why you’d want to” kind of thing.

And there are a bunch of other reasons I can think of, but in the interest of avoiding the longest post in the history of blogging, let’s just say this:

Before you can decide that people aren’t interested in the thing, you have to have gotten them to the place where they can say yes to it.

Important Question #2: did you answer their unasked questions?

  • Is it going to work?
  • What if I don’t like it?
  • How long does each class last?
  • What if I’m not ready?
  • Is the shipping going to be really expensive?
  • What are the other people going to be like?
  • What about the wild animals?*

* If this makes no sense, read Mark’s wonderful post where someone actually asked, “Are there wild animals that will attack me?” and it was a perfectly legitimate, reasonable question.

We all want to know things. Because we’re curious. And scared. And hopeful.

And we need reassurance and safety.

But we tend to not like having to ask about the things we want to know, so you’re going to have to answer our questions for us before we can say yes to your thing.

Even if we are mostly ready to say yes to it.

Important Question #3: did you allow enough time?

One of my students recently announced a six week course she was going to teach… two weeks before it started.

It was her first class ever. And she was absolutely devastated when no one signed up.

After the designated grumblebug kvetch session and the commiserating, I pointed out that when I first started announcing programs four years ago, it would take me ridiculous amounts of time to fill them.

I learned to allow months for getting the word out. And even then I sometimes ended up teaching classes that had three people in them.

Now, finally, astonishingly, it’s gotten to the point where I can completely fill a class in a day or two. But that’s crazy. Not the norm.

The norm is that you want to give your Right People (and yourself) at least a couple months to get used to the idea that a course is coming …

That way, you have more time to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

And more time to plant gentle reminders. To answer more questions. To work on your own stucknesses as they come up. Stuff like that.

I know. This is a lot to work on.

And that’s kind of my point.

There is just so much to do and learn and work on before you can legitimately say that no one is interested.

Which means that when you find yourself leaning towards the “no one is interested in my thing” explanation first, that’s a clue that your stuff is coming up.

So there are two things you’ll need to focus on.

You’ll want to be consciously, actively working-on-your-stuff so you can start to destuckify your own issues around biggification. What I call working “in the soft”.

And at the same time, you want to keep using practical, measured techniques “in the hard” for the actual getting-people-to-say-yes part. You know, the M-word.

Useful resources.

One last thought.

All these techniques — all this non-sleazy “marketing”-ey work and biggification stuff?

It’s just the means to an end. It’s not the end itself.

The point of learning how to do non-gross “get the word out” work is to help you get to the place where you don’t have to do it anymore.

To get to the point where you don’t have to do it anymore.

At this point in my business, I don’t really spend time or energy on the m-word. I don’t write promotional emails and sales pages. I don’t even have a noozletter. I don’t launch stuff.

At most I announce it casually once in a while here or on Twitter.

So you take the time to learn techniques “in the hard”, and you work on your stuff “in the soft”, so that you can do the thing and help your Right People say yes to it.

But once those structures are in place, you can turn your attention back to working on yourself for its own sake instead of working on yourself to work on your business. Does that make sense?

That idea probably needs its own post, but I’m just going to stop here for now.

Comments …

So I’ve been practicing asking for what I need. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of my experiment .

Here’s what I want:

  • Stuff you’re working on biggifying.
  • Stuff you’re thinking about in connection to these themes and concepts.

What I would rather not have:

  • A lecture about how business is evil and promoting things is evil and no one should ever do it. If that’s your life philosophy, that’s fine — it’s just not helpful for the space I’m trying to create here.

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 is still weirdly uncomfortable for me, I’m practicing!

Thanks.

Item! The extra-exclaim-ey edition!

by | Jul 8, 2009 |

Fluent Self Item!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 this Wednesday-arriving-unexpectedly thing is really starting to creep me out.

Ninja Wednesday is way too sneakified for me.

But here we are.

And there are Items! And things to read!

And exclamation points!

Item! Post No. 25 in the series that has captivated the hearts and minds of at least three different people out of the thousands who read this thing and so I just keep doing it even though that’s not really a reason at all.

Item! Who says you can’t be my friend?

This post from the lovely Gina is such a sweet, elegant, compact summing up of so much that I often finding myself wanting to say and not knowing how.

It’s about why online life and real life don’t have to be in conflict.

About why Twitter friends or Facebook friends may be different from the ones you get to physically sit next to, but that different doesn’t mean not powerful and it doesn’t mean not life-changing.

“Because for every person who blogs or tweets about their shit, there are a dozen people tearfully thanking them for letting them know they’re not alone, and then moving forward with courage to do the same. And from there it ripples out into the ‘real’ world.”

It’s called don’t be dissin the Twitter and it’s beautiful.

She’s @gloreebe88 on Twitter.

Item! No cocktail sauce!

Ever since Jason (@jivaka) introduced me to the Awkward Family Photos blog, I have become an embarrassingly obsessive lurker.

But this especially awkward Thanksgiving letter just zapped all the wires in my brain or something. I had to read it five times.

“Lisa, as a married woman you are now required to contribute at the adult level. You can bring an hors d’ouvres. A few helpful hints/suggestions. Keep it very light, and non-filling, NO COCKTAIL SAUCE, no beans of any kind. I think your best bet would be a platter of fresh veggies and dip. Not a huge platter mind you (i.e., not the plastic platter from the supermarket).”

Right? Right?

Item! This is how to do Etsy.

Remember when I had strong opinions about what makes people buy your art?

And I talked about the importance of telling a story and being human and letting people into your life a little?

So people have been asking me for more examples of doing it right.

Obviously, there are a variety of ways that someone might possibly do it right.

But this gorgeous, look-at-me Red Rover Red Rover Lampshade from Fabulously Fierce is a terrific example.

“I loved dressing myself as a child. Sometimes it wasn’t just a matter of putting it on by myself, but picking out what it was I was going to embarrass myself with that day …

… I remember having a favorite outfit that was red and black, and when I wore that, I shone like a crazy star. On those days, my teachers called on me when I raised my hand and never made me last in line.”

Also, some of her item descriptions are Mötley Crüe* lyrics. Rock. On.

She’s @FabooFierce on Twitter.

*I feel actual physical pain when I have to put an umlaut where no umlaut should be. Just saying.

Item! A drawing of my inner creative fairy!

So Amy Crook is basically the coolest person on earth.

Because she gave form to my Writer Me and made her a fairy and captured her likeness astonishingly well.

Take a look at her ass-kicking Artist Amy too.

Oh, this makes me so completely happy.

She’s @AmysNotDeadYet on Twitter.

Item! Fabeku is my favorite.

I heart Fabeku.

And everything about him. Come on, he sent me a crazy pirate duck package in the mail.

So you can’t imagine how thrilled I was when he finally put up a website. With a blog.

The world has been waiting for this guy.

His site is called Sankofa Song. And yeah, he’s a big tree-hugging healer who likes ninjas, chocolate and Cyndi Lauper. And is not afraid of contradictions.

I like that in a guy. In anyone, actually.

Anyway, celebrate with us and get to know Fabeku because he rocks. Hard. And that is not just an expression in this case.

He’s @Fabeku on Twitter.

Item! There is power in hearing voices.

This is a gorgeous, moving, inspiring post from my friend Sarah Vela.

It’s about losing your voice and finding it again.

It’s about having inner voices and being okay with that.

“At seven years old, I knew it was pretty weird for me to be narrating my own life in the third person, but I did it anyway, compulsively, and during some long, ordinary stretches of life. Not much of note happens when you’re walking home from school in a sleepy Boston suburb. But I can assure you I wrote it all down in my mind like I was freaking Tolstoy.”

The post is called Hearing Voices and you can read the rest here.

She’s @orchid8 on Twitter.

Item! Comments!

So it was really cool last 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:

  • Things you’re thinking about.
  • Blogs you’re enjoying that you think I might like.

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.

Explosions.

by | Jul 7, 2009 | ,

The thing I was planning to write today got erased from my brain.

Because of the explosions.

I honestly thought I was mostly over all the post-traumatic stress crap that accumulated in my mind/body from a decade living in the Middle East. Hahahahaha. No.

This is my brain on stress, fear and terror.

I mean, not this. I’m fine now.

It was the Fourth of July.

Of course I knew it was coming. I even practiced reminding myself that these are just fireworks. It’s just kids. It’s just noise.

During the day my brother and I walked through the city and watch teenage boys setting off little mini firecrackers. I didn’t jump. I didn’t cry. It was going to be okay.

At night we went to sit outside with our neighbors to watch the neighborhood display. It was a little chaotic, but I was fine.

Some of the smaller kids were crying, and I remember saying semi-jokingly that we needed a designated hugger.

It was fine. But then there was a shrieking whistle and an explosion right above me.

And I was running panicked to the house.

That wasn’t the scary part.

Sure, I was terrified. And crying. And bewildered.

But the scary part was what happened to my brain. Because it went straight into this-is-a-terrorist-attack mode so smoothly and seamlessly that it was as if no time had elapsed since the last one.

In the first moments I had no thoughts at all other than my feet on the pavement and getting into the house.

Once the door was closed behind me, trauma-mode brain went into “here’s what happens next” overdrive.

“Okay. First you need to let people know where you are and that you’re okay. Of course, the cellular network is going to crash, so see if we can get through on a landline …”

There was still a part of me trying to insert something of now back into my consciousness. Reminding me.

“It’s fireworks, sweetie. You’re okay. No one’s dead.”

But it took seeing my gentleman friend looking at me with the most concerned, loving, and compassionate expression to get me to fully switch gears.

And it got better.

I went to bed.

My gentleman friend used emergency calming techniques on me, because I was too much of a wreck to do it myself.

And I slept. With explosions still going on outside the window. With shrieking. Sirens. I slept for ten hours and when I woke up I wasn’t scared.

And I had learned at least three things that I thought I already knew. Or at least was able to get a little better at internalizing them.

So yeah. I’m going to talk about them here, because that’s what I do.

Realization #1: We’re not done working on our stuff.

The funny thing is that this one is so incredibly familiar.

Often when I’m working with a new client and something really stuckified comes up, there’s an element of surprise and annoyance in their reaction.

Like, noooooooooo how can it be that this thing STILL isn’t resolved after all those years working on it?????

So I’m used to the idea that there are layers and layers and layers to work through. And that each time we heal one part of something, it’s not an ending. It’s just the opportunity to start clearing out even more.

But this really hit home for me just how much “we’re not done yet” there is. And how much time and love it takes to keep remembering that.

Realization #2: Permission. Still a really big deal.

Permission to stop everything and give myself comfort.

Permission to take time and acknowledge just how much trauma I’m carrying. How much we are carrying. All of us.

Permission to remember. Permission to not have to remember.

Permission to be someone who still is processing a lot of hurt.

Permission to be a total freaking train wreck sometimes.

Permission to remember that we are all, to some extent, traumatized from something.

And to try and relate to other people’s triggered reactions with as much patience and compassion as I do my own.

Realization #3: It’s really complicated.

All this healing to be done isn’t just about the immediate trigger.

It’s not just the café exploding across the street while I’m at work at the bar. It’s not just the explosions that wake me up when I’m at home.

  • It’s knowing that your boyfriend was just looking for parking on the same street where that café was before it stopped being a café.
  • It’s the agonizing waiting.
  • It’s when your first thought is not about your boyfriend and it’s not about your customers and it’s not about the bodies on the street. Your first thought is “oh hell, there go my tips for the week.”
  • It’s when you go out on your balcony and shout across to the neighbors to find out what happened … and they tell you it was a suicide bomber on a bus a few blocks away and you shrug and go back to bed.
  • It’s being so jaded that you stop reacting.
  • It’s everything.

A whole universe of reactions and associations and memories surround every painful experience … and they all need attention.

It’s not like you have to work on every single one since they’re all connected, but it’s useful to remember how much gunk can get stored in your body from these experiences.

And that it takes a lot of experiencing safety again to be able to demonstrate to yourself what it’s like to feel safe.

I hope you’re not hoping for a point or anything …

I guess what I’m really thinking is that we all have deep hurts. And old stuckified patterns. Screwed up memories.

And they’re going to come up. And they’re going to end up giving you something new to process each time.

You release something old, learn something new. Release something old, learn something new.

Learn something, heal something, move up to the next level of learning stuff and healing stuff.

We are healing.

But it takes a while.

Comments …

So I’ve been practicing asking for what I need and being more specific. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of my experiment .

Here’s what I want:

  • Comfort.
  • Thoughts or stories about how you (or many of us) react to traumatic stuff, and things you’re wondering about or thinking about in connection to that theme.

What I would rather not have:

  • Judgment.
  • Politics.
  • “Have you tried ….?”

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 is still weirdly uncomfortable for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.

Thanks for doing this with me!

Very Personal Ads #1: Saudi Arabia, Houston and the internet.

by | Jul 5, 2009 |

very personal adsPersonal ads! They’re … personal! Very.

So my itty bitty personal ads this week made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.

Of course it all started when I posted my first personal ad and asked my perfect house to find me, which it did and now I live in Hoppy House.

And yes, I still sing “We have Hoppy House!” to the tune of Iron Man. And no, that’s not embarrassing. Okay, maybe a little.

Anyway, I’m thinking maybe this will become my Sunday ritual.

Because did you read some of the comments from last Monday? Oh. My. God. The most beautiful and amazing stories and requests ever. Plus Andrew even started a ning group for them.

So, to be fair, I don’t quite know what that means either, but yet again I am completely in awe of the stuff that happens here.

Shall we?

Thing 1: More time in my Angel Refueling Station.

Here’s what I want:

Well, I guess what I want is reminders to help me spend more time there.

My Angel Refueling Station is my wonderful little meditation closet, where most of the wackiness you read about here tends to happen.

It owes its name to the fabulous Fabeku who likes to remind me that “even angels need refueling sometimes”.

And I don’t refuel often enough.

Right now I spend about 45 minutes there each morning when I get up. And I go there if something sets me off. If I’m feeling upset or hurt. But that’s pretty much it.

So I want things that will remind me to go there before I need it. Or just for a quick break. Or just because I can.

Ways these reminders could come to me:.

  • I could write little notes and hide them around the house.
  • My brother and my gentleman friend and my assistant could gently shoo me there in a loving, non-guiltified way.
  • Magic. Like … something could just remind me.
  • Any other possibility. I’m willing to be surprised.

My commitment.

I will not pressure myself to spend more time there than I have capacity for.

I always treasure the time I spend there.

I use this space as a way to work on having healthy boundaries in my life.

I will keep it neat and tidy and well-stocked with incense, pillows and whatever other incredibly hippie accoutrements make me happy when I’m there.

Thing 2: Fabulous success with my scary thing tomorrow!

Here’s what I want:

So I’m doing something I’ve never done before and offering something in my business in a way I’ve never done before. Not here on the site. Somewhere else. It’s a weird feeling.

Anyway, I want it to be like this:

For the energy around this to be clear and powerful.

I want to be able to separate the amazing thing I am putting out to the world from my own residual stuckified stuff around invisibility and smallification.

The Right People for this thing I’m offering will get that zap of yes, this is it. And the people who are not the Right People yet (or at all) won’t have to interact with it.

The entire thing will be a sensational success that will knock me over with how great it is and I will wonder why I ever doubted that it was anything other than a genius thing to do.

Here’s how I want it to happen:

Everyone who is ready for the braintastic magic that is Shiva Nata will feel the sweet buzzing this-is-me this-is-me and will be drawn to the things that it can give them.

It will find them. And they will find it. By email forwarding. By an eye focusing on the right part of a page. By a pull. By a tug. By passion. By love. By coincidence. By right timing.

Ways this could work:

I’m pretty much open to anything.

My commitment.

I will acknowledge that yeah, this is me doing something that is new and potentially hard, and treat myself in a really caring, considerate way because this is a big deal for me.

I will give myself credit for taking the time to work on my stuff around this and shift some of the stuck.

I will say thank you for each good thing that comes out of this experience, and I will take anything that is hard straight to the Angel Refueling Station.

Thing 3: Help for Chris.

Here’s the situation:

Actually, I don’t know exactly what the situation is.

But Chris is supposed to be on his way to Saudi Arabia because his plane flies home from there, but there were complications with visas and passports and misunderstandings and bureaucratic ridiculousness.

So what I’m requesting for Chris is some kind of happy resolution.

I don’t know what it is, but I want stuff to work out for him in some way.

Ways this could happen:

  • Something could turn up.
  • He could get a reasonable flight from somewhere else to where he needs to go.
  • Kind, understanding, accommodating people could show up in his life, at the airports, at the Embassies.
  • Something else that I can’t think of that ends up being the perfect — or at least a feasible — solution to his conundrum.
  • I’m also wishing for some kind of neat silver lining thing to come out of this experience.

My commitment.

I am going to wish really good things for Chris.

And I am going to ask you guys to wish really good things for Chris.

And hope that he has a safe, healthy, happy rest-of-trip and comes back to Portland with some great stories.

Thing 4: The Snake Charmers should totally win Best Blues Band in Houston!

Here’s what I want:

The Snake Charmers is a super rocking blues band. Their album is one of my favorites (I give it to everybody and listen to it almost every day).

I got to meet Marie (the singer) in Austin and she’s just as amazing in person as she is on Twitter.

And I happen to know that, despite being a totally sexy rock star, she is way too shy to ask for stuff.

Also, she has a thing about thinking that asking for what you want is like “shameless self-promotion”, which as we all know is a thing whose existence I have issues with.

Here’s what I want to happen:

I want every single person who reads this blog to go to Snakecharmers.net where there is a very thorough explanation of how to vote.

And I want Marie to really get what a terrific thing this is. Already in the top five possibilities in a city (Houston) that is full of great blues bands?

Because they’re that good. And I would love it if she realized that yeah, she’s a star and her music brings joy and meaning to our lives.

So there.

You can vote for The Snake Charmers (they’re #23) for the Houston Press Music Awards until July 26. You don’t have to live in Houston. Click the “no thanks” boxes and you won’t get mail from anyone.

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.

I still don’t have my hangers. But for some reason I’m not worried about it. They’ll come.

And I know where I’m taking my bag of clothing! It just came to me.

There’s a “take what you want”-style free-box at the local anarchist collective.

Which is exactly the kind of place where I used to take stuff (and get stuff) when I lived in Berlin. In fact, just thinking of it makes me picture Angie and her Italian girlfriend wearing my Harley shirts.

I have to walk by there next week anyway. So that’s where it’s going.

Thanks for all your beautiful ideas and suggestions. Really, really appreciated!

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 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 out loud (or in pixels) is challenging for me, I’m committing to this just-trying-it thing and I’m meeting myself where I am.

That’s it! Thanks for doing this with me. You guys rock.

p.s. I promised Claire I’d write about how I went about asking for doctors, and I promised someone else I’d write about some of the elements of a powerful ask, so I’ll do that too. Soon.

The Fluent Self