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.
Item! I renege on the goofiness!
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.
I know I promised goofiness yesterday, but …. yeah, sorry.
No goofiness.
Tired and cranky. I’ll tell you about it later.
But hey, lots of great stuff to read! Happy Wednesday.
Item! Post No. 9 in a series that I love even though it continues to not really have a clear purpose or function.
Item! I am a sensitive flower!
I was reading this post by Kate about Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome … and was so fascinated/shaken up by it that it was only at the end that is sunk in how weird it is that my blog had inspired her to write it.
Part of me wishes I’d never heard of SSSS (which, I must say, seems a very inappropriate name for it).
Part of me wishes desperately that I’d known about it as a kid.
I have memories of my mother chastising me for being too noisy while eating apples or for swallowing too loudly.
And just wanting to disappear and never be noticed again. Hello, pattern!
When all along it was probably her own hypersensitivity and had nothing to do with me at all. Realizing this totally made me want to cry.
But it was also a really useful thing to have read.
Item! Noise!
Speaking of sensitivity, another useful and thought-provoking post about noise and what it does to us. This one from brand-new Shivanaut Joan Spear.
Also, note the picture with the sweetest little boy in the entire world. Seriously. I look at that picture and just want to schnuggle that kid and cover him in kisses.
Item! This is one of the most profound posts about the self-work process that I’ve ever read!
Diane confronts her demon, recognizes that it’s not actually a demon, still doesn’t like it and puts it under a tree, and bravely documents the whole process for us.
A beautifully written piece that everyone should read.
Item! Having someone believe in you is (yes, still) incredibly powerful!
So I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks. Specifically with regard to my complicated relationship with writing, but also in a much larger sense.
And even posted about it and made a declaration to you.
This is an astoundingly moving story from Emma that demonstrates this principle wonderfully. It made me cry. But in a good way.
I’ve read this post six times. Seriously. Read it.
Item! Would you like to read a story about a building? Because I think you should.
This piece from Ulla Hennig (Old and new — a story from Berlin) is just lovely.
I’ve never liked Potsdamer Platz … too lonely for me. A lot of Berlin is pretty haunted and there are parts where I simply cannot go without falling apart. It was so sweet to have the building’s perspective on this one.
Also, this is kind of off-topic but I find that most of the buildings in Berlin are especially chatty. They’re constantly telling me stories. Some are better stories than others, of course.
This one is a good one!
Item! This is sad! But there is also comfort in it.
This post by Black Hockey Jesus about seasons and writing and loss just blew me away.
I like all his stuff but this one struck me as especially poignant and especially important, somehow.
Item! You should read this (hilarious) book! Plus I have an extra copy!
If you hang out here much, you probably know Johnny B. Truant, writer of the blog The Economy Isn’t Happening, who hangs out here in the comments and says weird and witty things.
If you hang out on Twitter (and really, why aren’t you there so I can buy you a drink?), then you also know that I am quite enamored of his fantastically zany blog which is one of my favorite things to read.
Anyway, he put out a book called *May Contain Nuts, which is highly entertaining and generally wonderful.
And because he’s my obsessive stalker exceptionally thorough, he sent me two copies.
One of them you can’t have! Mine! Mine!
Sorry, got distracted. But the other copy of his marvelous book? I’ll happily send it to one of you lovely people.
Say something in the comments about how much you adore Johnny B., and I’ll make Marissa choose someone to send it too, because I’m the worst person to work for in the entire world.
Or I could draw from a hat. Assuming I can find one that I’m not actually wearing at the moment.
That is all.
Apologies for the lack of goofy. Hope you got as much good stuff out of the links as I did.
Our fairly normal posting schedule will continue. At least until next Wednesday. Because who knows what can happen on a Wednesday.
Selma and I will be back to our usual stuff tomorrow. And may even have slept, which (I hear) does wonders for everything.
Blogging Therapy: Finding your safe space.
Blogging, man. It’s hard enough without having to worry about getting squished between the pressure to “be yourself” and the pressure to “be like everyone else”.
Stupid experts! Contradicting themselves! Gah.
Oh, it’s Tuesday again. Again! Which means it’s time for the latest installment — number sixteen — in our ever-lengthening Blogging Therapy series.
Which is kind of about blogging and mostly about working on stuckified patterns and giving them some love.
You don’t need to have a blog or be a writer to be here. Or care about the world of blog.
And you definitely don’t have to have read the other posts in the series. Though if you’d ever like to, they’re right here:
Part 1. What if people are mean to me?
Part 2. What if I throw a party and no one shows up?
Part 3. Why even bother when there are already other people doing it better?
Part 4. What do I saaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?
Part 5. Help! Perfectionism! Gaaaaak!
Part 6. But I’m not an EXPERT!
Part 7. Don’t make me be vulnerable!
Part 8. I just don’t have the time!
Part 9. What if someone READS what I wrote?
Part 10. But I’ll never be popular!
Part 11. De-shouldifying.
Part 12. A bunch of questions.
Part 13. Finding your voice.
Part 14. Worry. Worry. Worry.
Part 15. Learn from my mistakes.
Whew. That list is getting kind of insane.
Okay, on to some Useful Questions and a bit of philosophizing that totally has a point.
“How can I ‘be myself’ on my blog when I feel so much pressure to do what other people are doing or advising me to do?”
Here’s what happens when you do what everyone else does.
You stop being you. And whatever you were interested in starts losing its appeal.
Right now just about everyone is listening to the same experts … and they end up doing mostly the same thing.
The result being, of course, that most sites and experts sound exactly the same.
At this point in the game, not following expert advice is probably the smartest thing you can do.*
*We can talk more next week about why you shouldn’t listen to anyone, even me!
“But I want people to take me seriously.”
That makes sense. You’re saying you feel anxious that if you let too much of yourself into your writing, people will judge you or think it’s unprofessional? Is that right?
I get that. It is a pretty terrifying idea.
Here’s what I think. There are so many places we can get information online. There are so many people just giving it away.
Which means there’s choice like crazy. As someone who actively consumes information, I can get it from an absolutely mind-boggling variety of sources.
I could learn about stuff like marketing and copywriting from a gazillion different people. But I’d rather learn from Naomi because she’s my kind of nutjob. She’s super smart and outrageously funny.
And just kind of outrageous. Like, in general.
“Hmmmm. I don’t know.”
Will some people run away from Naomi as fast as possible? For sure. But the rest of us are devoted fans. Which means that she’s allowed to have fun in her business.
And really, if you can’t have fun, you might as well go back to (shudder) working in an office. Or, in my case, at a bar. Because you’re never getting me in an office.
Sorry, I got distracted by my rant.
Here’s the point:
The more you you are in your writing, the easier it is for your Right People to say yes to whatever you’re teaching or offering.
If your people can choose between an insane amount of experts (and they generally can), chances are they’ll go for the one who has a personality.
“But I don’t have an obnoxious curse-ey personality like Naomi or a kooky yoga lady personality like you and Selma.”
Good. That would be boring.
It’s much, much better if you can be yourself.
Having a personality (or letting one show) doesn’t mean you have to be loud or boisterous or goofy or anything, really. It just means that some of your you-ness gets to be present.
You’re giving it space to exist and to breathe and maybe even to thrive.
Again, you’re just making it easier for me to say yes to you if I can tell you’re different from the wall of experts.
Yeah, scary. And yet, being different from everyone else has done nothing but help me.
Even though everyone said that I shouldn’t tell anyone that my business partner is a duck because apparently that’s weird or something.
Resonance.
When you try to sound like everybody else, you’re not in resonance with yourself.
The energy is wrong. Something feels false. Cognitive dissonance like crazy. And people will pick up on it.
When you let yourself sound like it’s actually you, that’s where the resonance comes from.
Yay, resonance. And when you’re in resonance, everything you write will be interesting. And real.
And you know what? People will be drawn to that because a unique, authentic voice is just about the sexiest thing in the entire world.
Then, when the kind of people you actually like are showing up, and you’re feeling comfortable, you can start figuring out what they need to receive and what you need to give.
The main thing is that you’re feeling like it’s you. Sure, you don’t have the false safety of the biggified expert cloak.
You have something better than that.
Safety.
Obviously being all yourself and everything out loud is a scary and uncomfortable concept.
So you don’t want annoying buzzwords like “vulnerability” and “transparency” and “authenticity” to become Shoulds that bully you into exposing more than is comfortable.
It’s really about taking the time to notice, “Hey, I’m needing to feel safe and supported here. What can I do that will help me access some of that safety without having to wall myself off in boring expert-ness?”
Because yeah, we don’t want you to end up being so protective of your true voice that you become some boring expert clone.
And at the same time, of course it’s important to feel safe and supported and loved. Everyone needs shelter sometimes.
Finding that safe space.
My wonderful friend Mark Silver talks about “veiling the Jewel” — the idea is that you uncover a beautiful quality that informs all your work and then you create a safe place for it.
I thought this was incredibly cheesy the first time I encountered it, but working with Mark’s stuff has been really transformative for me.
Anyway, the deal is that you want to let your unique Quality of fabulous you-ness shine enough so that your Right People can be drawn to it, but you also make sure you can veil it when you need to.
That way it’s not like you’re feeling so vulnerable and open that you can’t function. That’s safety.
Feeling safe is a big deal.
Creating structures and routines and rituals that help you feel secure is probably the smartest thing you can do in your business, if you have one, and for sure in every other part of your life.
So I’m not saying that you have to — tfu tfu tfu — be dragged kicking and screaming from your comfort zone. Heaven forbid.
I’m talking about creating a safe place from which you can speak your truth. Your truth to your people. The ones who are ready for it.
Another damn paradox.
So really the whole authenticity vs safety thing is kind of a false equation. There’s just no reason for it to be one or the other.
I’m convinced that the conscious practice of being yourself out loud — in small doses, paying attention to what comes up — can actually end up being the thing that helps you create that safe space for yourself.
How crazy is this? Your unique voice is its own form of protection.
So it’s a bit counter-intuitive, yeah, but there is also safety in being different.
There can be solace (and not just fear) in knowing that there isn’t anyone else saying what you’re saying in quite the way you’re saying it.
Sometimes — for me, at least — it feels as though I can even take comfort in the very act of setting up this space for me. For me.
There’s a lot of light in that space. There’s room to breathe. And there’s freedom in telling the experts where they can stick their expertise. Or at least whispering it inside your head.
Yeah, that’s our topic for next week.
That’s it.
Tomorrow, partly cloudy with a high chance of goofiness.
Next week we’ll be back to Blogging Therapy and a bit of a rant. Glad you’re here.
The questionable practice of de-guiltifying
I wrote last week about some of the people who believed in me without me ever giving them reason to and how powerful that was.
The post triggered lots of stuff — both interesting realizations and also huge amounts of internal resistance — for clients and a lot of readers as well.
Like, wait just a minute, young lady.
And yeah, they have a point.
I mean, really. Just the implied concept that you could actually accomplish something based on love-based motivation as opposed to guilt-based motivation … whoah. Insane. Revolutionary.
And maybe too revolutionary for this space, without a lot more explaining and processing … but I’m up for it.
Let’s take our time with this.
It’s probably going to take more than one post to lay the groundwork for this.
But the idea that we can (eventually) get to the point where we can choose not to use emotional manipulation and finger-wagging …
The notion that this is not the only way to get us to actually do the thing …
That we can practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves, but still get done what needs to be done …
It’s pretty liberating, once you get over how freaking scary it is.
In the meantime, there are some big, tangled, complicated, stuckified patterns here. So I want to spend a little time teasing out some of the threads.
And (she types hopefully) maybe one of these posts will hit its mark and we’ll be able to calm this chaotic guilt-storm and find something for you that works a little better.
Starting … here.
LeAnne’s comment on that post (which I’ll share) was really moving, I thought.
She’s basically asking what it means to communicate unconditional love as opposed to guilt-based love …
… and can we even trust that this will work?
And even if it does work (and it intuitively seems it shouldn’t), how do you go about doing it?!
But I’ll let her ask the questions:
How do we encourage others? I was sitting with my own stuff and I had the shocking realization that I DO THIS VERY THING TO MY OWN BELOVED SON. And I’ve been complaining about how he won’t let me help with applying to colleges. DOH! Now, I know why.
And what does happen when you accept where someone is without expectation?
Yes, I would love and accept my son, but if he doesn’t get into college, he’ll have to get a job and move out.
Sitting with this.
I’m kind of taking a moment just to breathe here.
There’s a lot of question in this question. A lot of pain. Anxiety. Concern. And love.
Peeking at the patterns.
LeAnne’s anxiety for her son’s future is getting in the way of her being able to talk with him about his anxiety for the future.
The more she worries, the more she’ll push at him. And the more she pushes, the more he’ll resist a. talking to her or b. thinking about it.
Pressure creates resistance. Resistance creates stuck. In action, in communication, in relationships and so on.
When you’re hurting, it’s hard to meet someone else in their hurt.
Not to mention that it’s pretty hard to communicate effectively when you’re really just needing someone to acknowledge your pain and give it a hug.
LeAnne, it sounds like you’re feeling worried about the potential consequences of expressing that kind of love and acceptance to your son … because you need to know that he’s still going to be motivated to take action.
That he’s not just going to take it as a permission slip to do nothing forever.
If that’s what’s going on, it makes sense that you’re feeling anxious. You love him and you’re needing to know he’ll have the skills and resources to take care of himself without you.
And something else.
LeAnne, your son may not be telling you what’s going on for him, but I can.
I can guarantee that your son is feeling anxious and frightened right now. College is scary. Change is scary. Decisions are scary. Taking action is scary.
I can also guarantee that the more shoulds you throw at him, the more resistance you’re going to get and the harder it will be to talk to him.
In fact, I could write ten posts (and probably will) about the middle ground between pushing and allowing.
About how conscious, active, compassionate “letting things be the way they are” is not the same thing as abdicating responsibility.
Or about how intentionally meeting someone where they are with compassion and attentiveness is always going to be more effective than the “tough love” deal.
But we’re not going to be able to cover all that today so I sincerely hope you will try to trust me for now. I’m going to tell you about three books that you will really want to read, and a little gem (as one of my eccentric high school teachers used to say) from each of them.
Resource #1: Why we shoot down people’s dreams.
One of my favorite books on communication is called “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk“.*
*Even if you never plan on having kids, read this book. It’s full of general communication usefulness.
We shoot down other people’s dreams for the same reason we shoot down our own. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of letting ourselves down.
This book really demonstrates in an “Ow! Make it stop!” way just how unintentionally limiting and controlling we can be when our fear gets triggered.
The general idea …
How we screw it up:
Kid: “I want to be a pilot when I grow up!”
You: “Oh, well, it’s really hard to be a pilot. Hardly anyone passes those exams. And you know your eyesight isn’t really the best. It’s probably not going to happen.”
Kid: *crushed*
Again, this isn’t because you’re a horrible person. It’s because you love that child with all your heart and you want what you think is best for him.
The part we don’t hear in that dialogue of course is the fear whispering: “Nooooooooo! Keep my sweetie safe!”
How we can do it better:
Kid: “I want to be a pilot when I grow up!”
You: “Wow. I didn’t know that. Tell me more about this. What is it about being a pilot that appeals to you?”
And then you can have an actual conversation. It might turn out that your kid just really likes peanuts, in which case a career in the circus might be better.
Just kidding. The point is that when you engage in curious and compassionate communication, you learn a lot about what the other person needs. And you get a lot better at expressing your own needs.
Resource #2: Meeting needs.
Marshall Rosenberg’s excellent book “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life” (ignore the cheesy poetry interspersed throughout) is the relationship handbook that belongs next to every bed.
My gentleman friend and I practice NVC together … and good grief. It’s a godsend.
One of the most useful things this method gives you is the ability to notice what’s going on under the surface, and then to express your feelings and needs in a way that they can actually be heard and acknowledged.
And then to be able to do the same thing for your son.
For example:
“I’m guessing you’re feeling frightened and anxious because you’re not sure what you want right now. Is that true? Are you needing some reassurance that all this change won’t be as scary as you think it will?”
Or
“I love you sweetie. And I’m feeling anxious when I don’t know what’s going on with your college applications because I need to know that you’re going to be taken care of. Can you keep me updated? Or let me know that you have someone to turn to when you have questions?”
Resource #3: Protecting yourself.
Suzette Haden Elgin’s work on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense is one of the most powerful things I’ve encountered.
She has a great bit on something called Miller’s Law which basically says that anything someone says or does makes sense. So it’s your job to figure out how.
The person doing the thing that seems to be incomprehensible is probably not crazy. It’s just a misunderstanding.
And then she gives you techniques for sorting this stuff out. Read Elgin. You’ll feel better.
Bringing it back.
Okay. LeAnne, with all of this in mind (and I know it’s a lot), I’m imagining something like this just to start with:
What if you went into your next conversation with your son with the idea that all you were going to do would be to figure out how he was feeling, and to let him feel whatever it is.
I know it’s hard to trust that this won’t result in everything going horribly wrong, and that he’ll just do nothing forever.
At the very, very least … you’ll know what he’s feeling.
You’ll be talking. You’ll be practicing. As worst case scenarios go, it’s pretty good.
And — this is the most important part — you’ll be modeling for him what it’s like to give love, provide safety, and be present for him.
Actually, I feel kind of tingly just thinking about it.
I mean, wow.
This post may not have a point.
It’s Sunday. I don’t have to have a point.
Tracing memories.
This past Tuesday I sent you all on a mission to reread and mock mercilessly brainstorm ways to revise an old post of mine as part of our whole ongoing Blogging Therapy series thing.
The post in question, among other things, recounts an episode from a few years ago, when my gentleman friend and I were in Berlin for two months and semi-accidentally landed this insanely great house-sitting gig.
Like, a house.
Well, two floors of a gorgeous old apartment building.
I know!
I’ve lived in pretty much every part of Berlin, in a huge variety of places … and while not all of them were semi-legal drag-king-inhabited squats in abandoned buildings, this place was pretty outrageous.
Actually, we were kind of afraid to touch anything because it was all way more fancypants than a. our place in San Francisco or b. pretty much anything we were used to.
And we were still kind of in awe that despite our incredibly stupid plan to go to Berlin for two months and just count on our ridiculously great “apartment luck”, it was totally working.
Get this.
One of the many oddly fabulous things about this place we were staying is that they had one room that was a trampoline room.
And when I say “trampoline room” I mean that the entire room, which was actually quite large, was taken up by this enormous trampoline.
This is Berlin we’re talking about so the ceilings are ten miles high. One wall was floor to ceiling windows through which you could see the tops of trees poking up. One wall was mirrored.
And the rest was trampoline.
I wish I had pictures because there is absolutely no way to adequately explain how insane this room was.
You know, we’d tell friends about it and they’d say “Whoah, that’s crazy. A trampoline room.” But then they’d come over for dinner and freak the hell out over the enormous room that was all trampoline.
Mixed feelings. Mixed everything.
Those two months for me were all about mixed feelings.
I was loving the Shiva Nata workshops I was teaching. But I was conflicted about where my Fluent Self business was going and whether there would still be room for yoga stuff and general wackiness within the coaching/consulting practice I was building.
I was loving being back in Berlin. And being there with my gentleman friend (we’d both been there many times separately but never together). But I was pretty much a wreck over meeting my ex.
Loving seeing old friends. Sad about saying goodbyes again.
Also, I was speaking more Hebrew than German because my ex and my best friend and a whole bunch of other people from Tel Aviv were in town at the same time.
And I was teaching in German and writing in English. And it was all … I don’t know.
Anyway, it was jumbled, tumultuous times. And for all sorts of reasons, the jumbled, tumultuous jumping on the trampoline helped me clear my head and climb back into my body.
But of course I was conflicted about that too.
The simple living advocate and the yoga teacher in me were not into the decadence. Not at all.
An entire room for a trampoline? Oyvavoy. That’s no way to live.
The ex-hedonist in me thought it was pretty fabulous. And the six year old in me just wanted to bounce around all day. Bounce!
Anyway, I was mostly disapproving, theoretically. But in practice …. I loved the sensation of freedom and intensity that came with pure, ecstatic jumping around.
I got to jump every day for six weeks and then we landed an even more outrageously fabulous house-sit. In a three-story penthouse apartment in the Sophienstrasse in Mitte.
If you’ve ever been to Berlin for more than five minutes, you’re already gasping. If not, just assume that it was spectacular. But no trampoline. Alas.
And that was that.
A couple of months ago I was on the phone with one of my clients in Switzerland and she mentioned that she bounces.
On a rebounder. And does the Shiva Nata portion of her change-yer-habits practice on it too.
I was intrigued. I started researching and then gave up entirely the second I found the one I wanted.
It was the decadence thing again. Yes, my stuff. My patterns.
Like, how can someone who boycotts box stores and makes her own conditioner out of stuff in the kitchen and generally believes in not having very much stuff …. how does she justify something like getting a trampoline?
Even if it’s a really, really tiny one …
Anyway, that was where I got stuck. So I gave myself a few months to work on that and with that.
In the meantime I was getting these huge amounts of email, some of which was highly critical and hurtful and a lot of which was requiring me to be very clear about setting boundaries.
It eventually occurred to me that my ten-minutes-in-meditation that I was doing over every tough thing in my inbox was taking a lot of time and energy.
And that maybe things would be a lot easier if I could just kind of bounce it out.
Yeah, I was crushing hard on this trampolina.
It showed up a few days ago.
And I pretty much can’t stop bouncing. It’s that great.
Also, it’s in my office (of course). So now I feel like I work at Google or something. You know, one of those companies where they cater to you tremendously because they want you to be creative and feel appreciated and loved.
And it hit me:
I do work for a company that would do anything to help me be creative and feel appreciated and loved. Mine.
And if I want my desk to be a chaise lounge and my conference table to be a rebounder, then by golly …
Exactly.
Tramp tramp tramp tramp tramp tramp tramp*.
That?
That’s the sound of me. Jumping and bouncing. On my trampoline.
*Bonus Freddy the Pig reference: which book is that from?
They recommend doing ten minutes. Twice a day.
The first day it hurt so much that I gave up after about three minutes and spent the other seven cursing being old and tired.
Later on I barely made it through ten minutes and had to spend the rest of the day recovering.
But then I got hooked.
And yesterday I did twenty minutes while dancing around to Been Gone Too Long by The Snake Charmers** (which is awesome, by the way). And now I’m hooked.
**You follow Marie — @snakecharmers — on Twitter, right?
I told you there wasn’t a point.
Things move and change.
Seeds are planted. Stuff grows. Things emerge and lead to other things. There are twists and turns and surprises. Sometimes whatever it is will take some time to get there.
I’m not ready to decide what the point is today. Or if there is one. I’m just hanging out and watching patterns.
Absorbing information. Connecting dots. Closing circles. Bouncing.
A lot of bouncing.
Friday Check-in #24: bony 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.
So I know that usually when I talk about the hard stuff in my week it’s mostly the big kind of “hard”.
The big kind?
You know, existential angst. Things going horribly wrong.
Missing my friend who is dead and wanting him back. Stuff like that.
Of course there’s some regular old “This happened and I found it challenging” or some CrankyPants McGrumbleBug kvetching but it doesn’t take over my week.
It did this week though. So have patience with me and wait for the good because there’s a lot of it. And I’ll try to go back to Challenging Life Issues next week. Sigh.
The hard stuff
My site getting hijacked by Russian hackers, may they all be impotent forever.
Yep. They hacked my site and planted links to Russian porn sites on every single page. As well as some extra folders full of spamtastic crap, just for fun.
Ugh.
It’s creepy. And weird.
Like someone breaking into your house but then not stealing anything. But leaving half-eaten bowls of cornflakes in your cupboards and empty cigarette packs in your dog’s water bowl.
And we don’t even have cornflakes. Or a dog.
I HATE THEM.
Things change. But why? It is so very hard to deal with.
This is small, petty stuff, but I really don’t care.
After we kicked out the evil sexpot-bots, we upgraded to the very latest edition of WordPress.
And gaaaaaaaaaah, I can’t find anything I need.
The “manage posts” tab which is the single thing I click the most in my life no longer exists.
Now I need to click “edit” which — to me, at least — does not sound as though it will help me do the thing I want to do which is to manage the damn posts.
It’s like walking into your house and finding out that someone moved all the furniture around and said “Isn’t this so much better?”
And you’re thinking, I think I liked this house way better when it had a bathroom.
And then more things change.
Yes, still petty. I am not done with the petty. Sorry.
One of my favorite things to read when I’m feeling picky and irritable is Amelie Gillette’s wonderful column ‘The Hater’.
It used to be that when something (oh, say Russian porn hackers … or WordPress) got on my nerves that I would head over and read some of her vitriolic hating.
Of course I never understand most of it, since I don’t have a television and am frightfully unaware of most pop culture references.
But she’s a terrific writer and somehow reading her flow of hate always eases whatever annoyances I’m dealing with, and I laugh and feel better.
Here’s how it used to work. I’d open up the Hater page and read three or four columns in a row. You know, just scrolling down the page.
But they redid the AVclub site and now you only get excerpts of each post. You have to click through individually for each one.
And I never really have patience to click through. Even though they’re good. Even though I’ll probably enjoy reading the rest.
My favorite “cheer me up” site is now all choppy and broken up and unappealing. WHY?
By now everyone should know that having to click a link to continue reading the thing you started is the online equivalent of walking three blocks without a jacket to buy someone a sandwich. Don’t make me click!!!
Guilt, I guess. And some sadness
Even though taking a sabbatical from email is totally one of the smartest business moves I’ve ever made, part of me still feels kind of bad about it.
I wasn’t really aware that I was feeling bad because I was so busy feeling good, but yeah, it was totally there.
My gentleman friend reported that several times this week I sat upright in the middle of the night, wild-eyed and apparently wide awake, and proclaimed loudly:
“People need me to answer them!”
I have zero recollection of this but I believe it.
Sad face.
The good stuff
No email!.
Oh. My. God.
On Monday I announced that I was taking a year’s sabbatical from email, which was a really scary thing to say and everyone was awesome about it.
And then I was expecting that Marissa would have to spend her entire week writing answers to all the “But you’ll still answer this one, right?” emails.
But it didn’t happen. It was blissfully quiet. And peaceful. People wrote support questions directly to Marissa if they had them.
And that was it. I should have done this two years ago. I seriously didn’t realize that all I had to do was ask.
Time! Like, on my hands. It’s the best thing ever.
This is like quitting smoking and then randomly having fifteen shekels when you need them.
I have had so much time this week. Not reading email. Not answering email. Not crafting answers in my head. Not drafting apologies.
Instead I’ve been hanging out at the Kitchen Table. I’ve been writing. I’ve been thinking.
I went for a long walk yesterday in the middle of the day and didn’t even feel guilty.
The joy. It is outrageous and all-consuming.
La Calaca Comelona.
Or as we call it, the Bony Mexican. Which sounds horribly inappropriate but it really has to do with the fact that I can never remember what the restaurant is called.
The part of my brain that actually remembers taking two years of Spanish at Tel Aviv University knows it means the “Hungry Skeleton”.
But the rest of me knows that it has something to do with bones and that they have amazing Mexican food.
So I said to my gentleman friend, “Let’s go to that bony Mexican place” and it all went downhill from there.
Anyway, we went there with Ez. And our friend Denise. Both of whom will have websites very, very soon and I’ll finally be able to link to them.*
* It actually hurts my fingers that I can’t do that right this second.
Haven’t been there since Melle was in town forever ago. Yum.
Ez lives here now!
I know I said this last week but having my brother living with us is just the best thing ever.
Everything is funnier, for one thing.
And I could not be happier about it.
Selma and I were in the Oregonian.
This didn’t even happen this week but I forgot to mention last week because I was so upset about all the stuff I was getting in my inbox.
Anyway, my duck and I were on the front page of the Healthy/Wellness section of the Oregonian. Same article as in the New York Times but a terrific picture of Selma.
In close-up, sitting on my hand. Very nice.
The article also generated a few sales, some odd queries and some people who want to meet me. Also the weirdest thing ever to be left in the “comments” part of the online shopping cart:
“Read about you in the Oregonian. This better work.”
Awesome. That’s exactly why I tell my clients to grow their community of clients, customers and fans slowly and organically instead of trying to get a bunch of random outside attention.
The people who hang out here on the blog generally already feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth before they even buy something, if/when that time should come. Whereas total strangers don’t even know if they’re your Right People yet.
Anyway, it’s still cool that we were in the paper.
Visit to the tax lady.
This was also hard because we really, really, really miss Diane who was our tax lady when we lived in California.
To the point that we almost didn’t want to move because not driving to Oakland to have Diane do our taxes seemed like the most depressing and awful thing ever.
Also hard because it’s kind of like going to the doctor. Like, let me get this straight … I’m paying you to see me naked and find out how much I weigh?
But it still counts as the good part because last year my gentleman friend had to do ten minutes of acupuncture on me before I could even walk through the door. And this year I didn’t need any. Ha.
Not to say that I wasn’t slightly a wreck, because I was. But I wasn’t a huge, impossible wreck. Progress, baby.
I’m giving a talk this evening at Jennifer Louden’s Comfort Retreat.
There’s really nothing more exciting than having someone I completely admire invite me to talk in front of a gazillion people about the stuff I care about most.
Working through fear (but not trying to stomp on it), and shifting stucknesses without hating yourself for having them.
Or something. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be talking about but I am absolutely convinced that we’re going to have an amazing time. I love Jen madly and her work is ridiculously inspiring.
Catch you tonight? Because that would be really, really great.
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.