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.
What you do when you feel like dirt.
This is not some theoretical post, full of brilliant bits of how-to-ishness from genius expert me.
I actually do feel like dirt at the moment.
Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Ugh.
To the point that I don’t even feel up to walking you through my process or anything. Sorry.
But maybe just a few of the things I do when everything is dirt, and some of the ideas behind the process. Because there’s no way I can write about — or even think about — anything else right now when it’s all dirt. DIRT.
So: some of the things that help me cope with the hard and come through on the other side when I’m ready.
Not asking “how come”. Just don’t ask.
There is always a good reason — usually a series of good reasons — for why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.
As soon as you start demanding to know why everything feels so awful, you start to doubt the legitimacy of the feeling and wonder what’s wrong with you?!
Which leads you straight into more stuck.
Better: assume legitimacy.
Even though I have no idea why I feel like dirt, this is where I am right now and baby, that’s how it is. For now. Not forever. Just right now.
Giving yourself permission to feel as crappy as you want.
Because that’s what you’re feeling.
It sucks, yes. And … that feeling is what’s true for you in this moment.
If you can’t give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling, give yourself permission to not be able to feel what you’re feeling yet.
This feeling of dirt doesn’t define me. It’s not the whole of who I am. It’s just the thing I’m dealing with right now. Even though I hate feeling like dirt, I’m allowed to hate it as much as I want.
Letting the reasons have their weight.
Once you’ve stopped asking but how come how come how come and you’ve stopped fighting with the feeling, you’ll probably know why you feel like dirt.
Or at least, you’ll have some pretty decent theories.
Instead of trying to convince yourself that these are stupid reasons and here’s why you actually shouldn’t be feeling like dirt, let those reasons seem like okay reasons.
Talk to yourself as if it were your best friend in the entire world who felt like dirt and had every reason to.
Wow. No kidding. Of course you feel like dirt after X happened. That’s a really hard thing to go through. And you’re catching up on sleep. And you’ve been dealing with all these other things. And things are changing in your life like crazy now. Who wouldn’t feel like dirt right now?
Figuring out what you’re actually talking about.
Okay, so I feel like dirt. What does that mean? What does that look like?
It’s not the same as dirty. It’s not necessarily about messiness. It’s about blah. It’s dusty and formless and smudged and hard all at the same time.
It’s not rich soil where something can grow. It’s just there. It’s useless and it’s there.
It’s hurt in my heart. It’s dread in the pit of my stomach. It’s blocked in my throat.
This is my personal definition of feeling like dirt. And now that I know what it looks like or sounds like or feels like, I can recognize it when it comes up.
Reminding yourself of the relationships between things.
At this point, the stuck might have less power over you, but to some extent it still kind of seems like it’s running your life.
This is where you remember that pain and stuckification and suckiness and feeling like dirt are all temporary, momentary, normal parts of being alive.
They are not the grand sum of your identity. Even when it feels like it is.
Even though I have no idea how long it will take to stop feeling like dirt, I’m going to give myself as much support as I can stand right now. And I’m reminding myself that I am not my thoughts and feelings.
I am larger than all of my thoughts and feelings. I am the being that brings these thoughts and feelings into existence, and I can learn to interact with them instead of being the innocent bystander who keeps getting knocked over by them.
Finding your resources of strength.
There are internal resources to call upon. I get to mine through breathing, singing, dancing, crying, repeating words, writing or meditating.
There are also external resources to call on. I get to mine by talking to my duck or leaning on friends or consulting an old, favorite book. Reading a blog post counts.
If I can’t draw on my own strength, I can draw on someone else’s. If I can’t count on someone else’s, I go back and look for my own.
If the stuck is so intense that it feels as though neither of these are available in that moment, I plant the request in my heart.
Like this: you close your eyes and say, “Strength, please!” and wait for it to come to you.
Sure, this too shall pass and all that. But in the meantime — while I’m in it — I’m willing to receive whatever support I can. I am willing to get better at accessing hidden sources of support that fit what I need.
Avoiding people who will try to talk you out of what you’re feeling.
The cheerer-uppers mean well.
But just as often they make it seem as though it’s no big deal. As though you don’t deserve to feel the thing you’re feeling.
You want the people who will give you a hug. The ones who will make you laugh but are also strong enough to just let you feel like dirt for as long as you need to.
Not the ones who can’t handle your pain because it sets off theirs.
I’m ready for support and kindness from the people in my life … and in the meantime, I’m going to practice giving it to myself because that’s where it starts.
That’s what I’ve got for now.
That and appreciation for my duck Selma and my patient, loving gentleman friend who both allow me to feel like dirt when I feel like dirt.
They remind me what unconditional love is and what it looks like. Which means that — at some point — I’ll probably have at least some sort of shot at being able to practice it with myself.
Friday Check-in #40: vacation hangover 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.
The good. The hard. They seem to be alternating so quickly that it’s almost impossible to keep track. Cycles.
So I lost my iPhone which was hard. But then the guy who found it was the sweetest, most wonderful person in the entire world so that was good.
Or: being crazy busy before going on vacation was hard but then being on vacation was good but coming back from it was depressing and nightmarish hard.
Then the Celtics beat Orlando. And then they didn’t. Never mind. Let’s do this thing.
The hard stuff
Vacation hangover.
Foggy brain. Not wanting to get back to work. Delaying things.
Plus taking hours and hours to write blog posts and then not getting them posted until the day is half over.
It was as if my whole body-mind was pleading with me to take another four-day weekend, effective immediately.
Actually, more than vacation hangover … it was something else. It was more like vacation deficit.
Like when you get lots of sleep but you’re still tired because your body hasn’t caught up from all those times you beat the crap out of it.
I have the sinking feeling that my vacation deficit is way, way, way too enormous. Sensing that my duck and I might need some serious time off soon.
Reno.
Now officially added to my list of places I never wish to go near again.
Not that I didn’t madly love Lake Tahoe because I did. But if getting there means the Reno airport, next time we’ll drive, thank you.
I’ve talked before about how life as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is not exactly always the most fun thing in the world.
Taking someone who is hypersensitive and putting them in a shabby, dingy airport full of earsplittingly loud slot machines with garish lights, and watching them (okay, me) completely lose it might be entertaining, but it’s not too attractive.
That incessant blooping. Made only worse by the bleeping. Oh, and the awful flashing colored lights.
I was pretty much a wreck. It sucked.
Still with the system changes.
One step forward, one step back. Still doing the systems thing.
Of course, the nice thing about clearing all the enormous rocks out of your path is that you’re not tripping over them anymore.
The annoying thing about it is that now you really notice all those pebbles in your shoe.
Ow. Ow.
I want more vacation! Wah!
Taking a long, lazy, weekend somewhere beautiful is the most delicious thing in the entire world and I must do it again as soon as possible.
Which leads me to …
The good stuff
Four day weekend, baby..
Life-changingly great.
I am determined to have many more of these. Soon.
You know what else was dreamy? Four whole days without the computer. Not as hard as I thought. And really, really nice.
Also: we (me, my gentleman friend and Selma) went hiking in national parks. And we ate ridiculously great breakfasts.
And I got to do yoga in the morning which never happens because usually I write a post right after my morning meditation. Bliss.
The wedding.
So I did have a few seconds of total bewilderment when my gentleman friend told me that his high school girlfriend had asked him to marry her. Off.
You know, to someone else.
The wedding was awesome. First of all, she’s the coolest person ever. And the guy she married is amazing. And I adored all their friends.
And they invited my duck to the ceremony.
Also, it was the first goth-hippie-punk-scooter wedding (or something) I’ve ever attended. Also my first pastafarian (you know, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) ceremony.
It was goofy and spontaneous and fun and moving and I cried.
The best part, though, was when some lady saw us all walking down to the sunny beach in our black dresses — and asked if it was a memorial. Nice!
Not that I would get married again, necessarily, but if I ever did, I would also want the bridesmaids to be covered in skull and bat tattoos because that was totally hot.
The eleven hour brunch!
Well, breakfast is the three most important meals of the day. Heaven.
Back home. Thank goodness
Portland! Where everything is lush and green and gorgeous and not so freaking loud.
There are so many things to love about this city. Admittedly the fact that it’s pretty good at not being Reno is one I’d never thought of … but now I appreciate that too.
Being on email sabbatical is the best thing that ever happened to me.
That’s pretty much all I have to say about that but it’s really, really fantastic.
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. Because he’s an acetyl .
- “Leonard is a bard about” instead of the hardest part about
- “to have encumbered stations” instead of having conversations
- “That Senator business” instead of that’s none of your business
- “What about hubby’s brother” instead of what about Havi’s mother
- “is learning a Jersey sieve” instead of is learning to receive
- “pig glue” instead of igloo
- “jester direction” instead of just a direction
- “I was Frink yesterday” instead of I was at my friend Carolyn’s yesterday
- “I could have a magic opera cloak” instead of a magic hacker cloak
- “not a partnership” instead of not a pirate ship
Freudian Stuism!
- “The fear-based Alliance” instead of their fear-based lives
And for good measure … a Shakespearian Stuism:
- “in witch I Dictate them to stew” instead of in which I dictate them to Stu
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.
Visibility. Invisibility. Power. More pirates.
I was at my friend Carolyn’s yesterday afternoon.
And I was feeling pretty upset about the whole awful gold-toothed hackers invading my website thing. Upset and vulnerable. Foggy, even. Like my brain had been hacked too.
She led me through a cool little process. Which is great, because I was in no position to think straight.
I’m going to share it with you because it’s fantastic. And because you guys are smart enough to be able to apply it to your own stuff.
NOTE: Carolyn is — weirdly enough — actually a real person. Not a character in my head. Not an internal monster. Not a fear. Not even a duck. I sometimes get crap from people who think having inner voices means you’re crazy instead of creative — just wanted to be clear on that!
Okay.
Taking it all apart.
Feelings and qualities.
Carolyn: Tell more about what it feels like to be hacked.
Me: I feel vulnerable. I feel uncomfortable. I feel upset. I feel unsure.
Carolyn: What kind of person would hack into your site?
Me: I don’t know.
Carolyn: What are the qualities of a hacker?
Me: Sneaky. Taking advantage of someone’s vulnerability. Nefarious? Long twirly mustaches?
Needs.
Carolyn: What do you think is going on here?
Me: It’s like they’re trying to hack into my head!
Carolyn: What does your head need?
Me: I need for my head what my super genius guy is doing for my site. No one should be able to get in uninvited.
What’s going on here?
Carolyn: And do you share any qualities with the hackers?
Me: Sits and thinks about it for a minute or two.
Looking for connections and not finding them.
Me: I honestly don’t see how. I mean, I do have the ability to get into someone else’s headspace because of my weird intuitive superpowers, so there’s a connection there. But I never do it unless a client has expressly given me permission to.
Carolyn: Okay. When would it be good to be a hacker? What about being a hacker could be useful and powerful for you?
Me: ???
Looking for qualities and finding lots of them.
Carolyn: Let me ask this a bit differently. Is there anything you admire about hackers? What qualities do they have that are useful?
Me: Sure. They’re smart. They’re quick. They’re highly capable and competent. They’re good at what they do. They’re goal-oriented. They’re invisible. They get things done.
Carolyn: Wow.
What qualities do I share? What qualities do I need more of?
Carolyn: So these are all good things.
Me: Yes. Absolutely.
Carolyn: Which are the traits that you share? Obviously you’re smart and quick and good at what you do. What about the other ones?
Me: I would love to get better at being goal oriented because I’m not at all. And I’d love to get better at getting things done. And I have weird issues around the word invisible, but I get that there’s a lot of power in there.
Tapping into the hacker’s power and taking it for myself.
Carolyn: What is the power of being invisible?
Me: No one can stop you because they don’t know what you plan to do. No one can stop you and no one can sabotage you and no one can criticize you.
Carolyn: So how would it be useful for you to be invisible?
Me: Oooh. I could have a magic hacker cloak of invisibility to protect both my head and the path to my goals… so that I can ultimately be more visible and more safe and more confident and more capable!
Carolyn: And get things done. Because you’re smart and you’re quick and you’re good at what you do.
Me: Yes!
Carolyn: Tell me more. Describe what it’s like to have a magic hacker cloak of invisibility and protection.
Transformation.
Me babbling excitedly while Carolyn tries not to crack up: Okay, so I can get this cloak of invisibility for my site and for my head.
And what this means is that no one can see how to get in, and no one can see where I’m going.
Sometimes we take the pirate flag down. And then we’re an invisible ship instead of a pirate ship! It’s like a disguise!
You know what, though? I like flying the pirate flag! Well, the pirate-duck flag. I feel annoyed and frustrated when I think about having to take it down.
But that’s stupid. We should just be faster than everybody else! A blur! Almost invisible! Actually, instead of flying the flag… it’s like we’re the ones who are flying. Trippy.
I really do want to be seen, though.
I don’t want to live an invisible life. It’s important to be seen sometimes because being a famous pirate helps inspire other people to lead interesting, adventurous lives.
It empowers them. And that’s important.
It’s just that I really need to protect my ship. And my head. And for that I need to be able to navigate between visibility and protection. And to trust my mission.
When is a hacker not a hacker?
Carolyn: So are you ready to take on some of the qualities of a hacker?
Me: Oh yes. Underneath my magical fog of invisibility that cloaks my pirate ship, I’m fast and capable and powerful.
Carolyn: What about the other qualities? Like “sneaky” and “taking advantage of vulnerability”? When is it useful to have those qualities?
Me: When there are people around who would (intentionally or not) try to get too close to my pirate ship.
Carolyn: For example?
Me: Like if there are hackers trying to get too close to my site. Or if there are critical people whose criticism is getting too close to my head. I can be sneaky about how I close up the openings into that space in order to protect myself.
Carolyn: Yay!
Back to the feelings.
Carolyn: How do you feel about the hackers now?
Me: They were just doing their hacker thing. It’s nothing personal. They have skills and they use them. They were just being bad pirates and I’m a better one. I’m a faster one, too.
Carolyn: So you’re not upset anymore.
Me: No. Bring it on! I have the fastest ship on the open seas and I can hide it whenever I want in a magical cloak! Or maybe in a giant igloo.
Carolyn: ???
Me: They’ll never look there! Good grief. I’m an adventuress. I’m a freaking pirate queen. They’ll have to try a lot harder than that to impress me. Pffft! Hackers.
And that was it.
Here’s the part that drives me crazy but that I also completely love:
The thing I despise contains something I desperately need.
The quality that will protect me is being demonstrated to me in a way that I can’t see it, but if I can find it, I can take its power and transform it.
Take experience. Add water. Stir. Etc.
Gah! Hackers. And craptastic spammy horribleness.
I would hope it would be spectacularly obvious that I would never, ever have pop-up ads or anything like that on here …
… but if you can see a big green sidebar selling dubious medical supplies, that’s evidence that my site has been hacked. By supremely evil asshats.
*shakes fist in direction of one of those countries where people have gold teeth*
Anyway, here’s the part that’s important:
1. We’re on it. My web guy put in five hours on this yesterday and now we’ve hired a super-genius expert to take care of it and build in even more fancypants protective stuff.
2. Your information is not in any way compromised. The part of the site that evil asshat hackers can get to has nothing to do with the shopping cart software or mailing lists or anything else.
3. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Sorry that you had to see something so stupid and annoying. If you can even see it. And apparently not everyone can (gott sei dank).
Love the irony though. Love that I’m the one who always talks about how the whole point isn’t selling stuff. It’s learning what to do so you don’t have to.
And now someone found a way to make it look like all I do is sell stuff. Tacky. Horrible. Bizarre.
Grumble grumble grumble. And more apologies. And things will be (knock on keyboard) back to normal soon.
Thanks!
Havi & Selma
42.
I have a bunch of points to make.
They need numbers.
But they’re really only in the order I dictate them to Stu (short for “work, you stupid piece of crap!” which is what you say a lot when you use voice-to-text software to save your arms) because I can’t be bothered to move them.
Okay. Ready.
- If you’re making it hard for me and my duck to tell the smart, interesting people we know about the cool thing you do, everyone loses.
- It’s not good for you because we don’t find out about your cool thing.
- It’s not good for your potential Right People who need your cool thing.
- It’s not good for me because I don’t get to be a connector mouse. And being a connector mouse makes me happy.
- When I say “tell the smart, interesting people I know about your stuff”, I mean the ones who read my blog (hi!), follow me on Twitter, or hang out with me “in real life”.
- Maybe these people are in the general Fluent Self orbit and maybe they’re not. But they tend to be good people and I like them.
- There are a lot of them.
- And when I talk about telling people “about the cool thing you do”, I mean whatever it is you talk about. Or write about. Or think about. Or are occasionally inspired to paint about. It doesn’t matter. There is you-ness involved.
- And I really, really like sharing good stuff I find with my people.
- Like the amazing homemade good-for-you face cream I got from Lauren at DressGreen. Or words of wisdom from Black Hockey Jesus. Or Leah’s painting.
- There are two ways you can make it hard for me to tell people about you.
- You can hide. Or you can do something that makes me not want to tell people about you.
- Hiding means that I don’t have anywhere to send people so they can find out more about the cool thing you do.
- Some ways of hiding are more obvious than others. Like, if you don’t have a website, you’re kind of hiding (I know, sweetie. You’re working on it. No worries). Or you’re not on Twitter yet. Or you’re there, but you aren’t talking to anyone.
- But there are other ways to hide. Maybe you have a site but there’s no way to subscribe to a noozletter or an RSS feed or something so that I can remember to go back there.
- Someone who used to hide that now — gott sei dank — I can tell you about: the wonderful Janet Bailey who writes about mindful time management, among other things. Brilliant. Useful. Tremendously reassuring.
- Of course I don’t worry about the hiding too much because hiding is natural and normal. Just like avoidance. You’ll come out and play when you’re ready.
- What I worry about a bit more is the people I want to tell you about but don’t.
- Like this guy who does Celtic chanting stuff. I freaking love it. But he’s overtly — and even weirdly — self-promotional on Twitter. Even relative to the sleaze-non-sleaze kosher marketing continuum. Not because he’s sleazy. He’s totally not. He’s just doing it in the wrongest way, so I can’t tell anyone to follow him.
- Or like this potter from Michigan who makes the most stunningly gorgeous ceramic pieces. I have two pitchers and a vase of his. And am lusting after some bowls. Will probably order this week.
- Normally I’d send everyone I know to him because his stuff is amazing and I love to support small, local do-it-yourself-ers and craft-ey people and Etsy people.
- But if I send people to follow him on Twitter, they won’t. Because he is always promoting his stuff and not hanging out.
- I know, I could just send you to his Etsy page, but if you’re not in the mood to buy something right this second, it’s a lot easier to hook you up with someone’s Twitter feed and then you can get to know him over time.
- My goal in all of this is to try to get people to be less strategic, not more strategic. Beyond knowing the basics.
- I should also add that if you’re thinking about taking my course with Pistachio on the strategy of not being strategic (aka how to use Twitter magic to get people to care about your cool thing without being manipulative, weird or not seeing results), well, now is a good time to sign up.
- Also, we moved the “last chance for the early bird price” all the way to this Saturday to give you an extra couple of days.
- Because I was in Lake Tahoe for four days this week and forgot to be here and tell you about it.
- Not because I was hiding. Though sometimes hiding is fun. More because I like you.
- Who this class is for: Oh, people who enjoy Twitter but aren’t making money there (and aren’t willing to start being an asshat in order to do so — good for them!).
- It’s also for people who don’t yet have a Thing-to-promote-in-a-non-icky way, but will eventually.
- Also people who want to grow their cool thing organically but not have to talk about it very much. People whose natural inclination is hiding. People who feel uncomfortable about promoting anything.
- We won’t try to make you change who you are. We’ll just help you feel more comfortable being who you are so that you can get the results without the horrible side-effects of having to hate yourself.
- Who this class is NOT for: People who think Twitter is a huge waste of time. We have enormously useful information to give out. We’re not going to convince people that yeah, it’s important.
- If you need convincing that Twitter is potentially useful after I told you how I make over a third of my income on Twitter without following a bunch of strategies or promoting anything out loud, probably not a good fit.
- I am an introvert.
- I have no interest in teaching you (or anyone) how to sell. I’m interested in teaching you what to do so that you’ll never have to.
- And talking about what you need to do so that you won’t need to hide but you’ll still feel safe.
- And what to do so that I will be inclined to send a chunk of Right People your way and feel good about it.
- Deadline for the Early Bird price is in a couple days. Saturday.
- No, I won’t be manually putting the price back up to what it should be. It happens automatically because
technology is awesomeI have mad geniuses on my Pirate Crew. - Oh, right. I should give you a link for the Strategy of Not Being Strategic course.
- Will see you here tomorrow, either way. Am planning on writing about what to do when external criticism triggers internal criticism. But we’ll see. Am willing to be surprised.
- I probably made some mistakes with the numbering because I pretty much can’t count and Stu really can’t count.
- I was going to end with 42 because it’s the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything but that totally didn’t work because I can’t stop talking.