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.
Changes afoot (yes, afoot!) at The Fluent Self
Big, crazy changes. Afoot.
Every once in a while I get hit by a wild and reckless burst of inspiration and come to the conclusion that — hey, what the heck — wouldn’t it be fun to totally restructure my entire business?
I honestly don’t know where I get the “fun” part, because it seriously almost never is. But, you know me, taking apart the old to make room for the new is kind of my thing.
Me and Shiva, god of destruction deconstruction. We’re like this.
Anyway …
Anyway, what’s really fun (by which I mean terrifying) is when I come up with something that goes way, way against the grain of all the stuff my old business mentor used to say, and also against a lot of the conventional wisdom that I’ve run into in the … well, conventional circles that I travel in.
Right. That would be why it’s called conventional wisdom. Which might go some way towards explaining why it bores the hell out of me.
Point being, I can tell by the way I feel both gleefully excited and shaking-in-my-boots scared at exactly the same time, that my wacky plan is absolutely the right thing to do.
So here’s what I’ve been processing for the past several months.
The plan.
I’m dropping most of my clients.*
*No, no, not YOU! If we already have sessions set up and you haven’t heard anything from me, then we’re fine. Promise. This isn’t a Dear John post or anything. That would just be mean.
Also, I’ve totally done away with my six month one-on-one coaching program.
And both of my three month group training programs.
All gone.
What I’m doing instead, now that I’ve (ahem) thoroughly scrapped all my primary sources of income, is following my heart.
Which means — as it turns out — devoting my energy to building a safe place where the people I love can go to work on their stuff, get support and encouragement, and practice getting better at the things I teach here.
Which has grown into this new Next Big Thing I’ve been talking about.
A fun, safe, cozy, supportive online biggification community.
It’s for my people. And for me and my duck.
Yes, it has a name now …
At The Kitchen Table With Havi & Selma.
And this is where I’ll be hanging out now when I’m not here.
Anyone who applies and gets in will get the chance to work with me and a bunch of other smart, creative, slightly oddball people on getting destuckified and putting their cool thing out there to the world.
I’ll be teaching oh, everything I know about biggified stuff like non-icky marketing, copywriting, making monies and so on (but in the most accessible, not-scary way possible) and also about this whole self-work “taking apart your habits to build better ones” thing that we do here.
And there will be a generous, loving canopy of peace for you to come in under and hide out with me. And with my duck, of course.
And that’s pretty much it.
A few people will still get to work with me one-on-one in 2009 … I’ll make a small number of six-session packages available (as an extra-help option) to those of you who are Kitchening it up with me.
Theoretically, you’ll also still be able to grab a one-off consultation with me if you aren’t at the Kitchen Table and you absolutely insist on it, but you really shouldn’t — my hourly rate is going up to $375.
And if that doesn’t cut down the two-month waiting list, I’ll just have to re-think things again.
As far as I’m concerned, this coming year for me is all about 1. taking care of myself and resting up, and 2. coming out with some fantastic — and possibly slightly bizarre — new products and mini-courses, which the people in the Kitchen Table are going to test-drive for me.
You can peek at the pretty, pretty facade if you like …
Or you can go straight to the “hey, here’s where you sign up” page, if you’re interested.
And of course, I’ll still be here!
If you’re not into the whole Kitchen Table thing, we’ll keep hanging out here and that will be awesome. In fact, I’ll actually probably be here even more, since several more hours will be magically added to my day.
So all in all — it’s pretty much good news for everyone.
And if you’re looking for me the rest of the time, I’ll be in the Kitchen. At the table.*
*Maybe you’ll be there too! I’ll make you a snack! And either way, I’ll be right here tomorrow for the next installment of Blogging Therapy. See you then.
Regret. And some patterns. And decisions.
Friday afternoon I was getting poked full of delicious needles by my wonderful, witchy acupuncturist.
And between the resulting blissfully doped-out state and a brain-scramblingly fantastic Shiva Nata practice a bit earlier to shake up some old, stuck patterns … well, I found myself in a pretty deep meditative zone.
So. Here’s what I experienced.
I was deep inside my body in an enormous room, and everywhere there were layers of some gauzy dirty-pink material.
It was like cotton batting. Or a thinner version of that fiberglass insulation stuff they use in building houses.
I knew instantly what it was.
It was regret.
Insulation made of regret?
Yes. Sort of.
I asked some questions. The regret was old and a bit bedraggled. There wasn’t any sadness left in it.
It was more like … a shadow of regret. A casing that had once enclosed sadness but didn’t anymore.
Okay. So I poked around a bit more. I asked things like “What does this regret need from me right now?” and “What happens now?” and “What is the kindest, most compassionate thing for me?” and “What do I need?”
And what emerged was that this regret was ready to leave and it was asking me to take it down. So I started gently untangling and unwinding, and whenever my arms filled up with a serious pile, it disappeared.
As I worked, I asked more questions, trying to learn more about where the regret came from, what purpose it served, if there was anything else I needed to know.
I was especially curious because, generally speaking, I don’t tend to think of myself as someone who has a lot of regrets, or any, really.
Fear, anger, guilt, sadness, resentment, sure. I work with and through these emotions all the time.
But regret? Not really. Not lately. I’ve spent so much time making peace with things, reminding myself that at any given moment I was doing the best I could with the tools I had available at that time. This felt like new territory for me.
This was regret that was no longer alive.
This regret didn’t have any emotional charge to it anymore.
Nor did there seem to be any specific memories attached to it. It was empty, spent.
As if it was the wrappings from various things I’ve discarded or cleared over the past few years.
And oh boy, was there a lot of it.
So I made my peace with the idea that I wasn’t going to be able to get a clear read on what this regret was about or where it had come from, and I was just helping it go where it needed to go.
You know what happened then?
As I peeled and unraveled the soft, dirty-pink layers of regret, I discovered that there were tall wooden poles holding it all up.
Unlike the regret, which wanted nothing more than to be allowed to leave, these poles weren’t going anywhere.
I stood looking up at them, at the beautiful wood, at their firm, confident stance.
And I asked, “What are you?”
Instantly, the phrase that came into my head was “U’fros aleynu sukkat shlomecha“, which is a line from the Hebrew prayer Hashkiveinu from the Friday evening service.
Spread over us your canopy of peace.
These wooden poles were — apparently, weirdly — the structure for my own, personal canopy of peace. They were supposed to be there.
So I started strolling down this long corridor (or maybe it was a path), flanked by my wooden poles, and sheltered by my new canopy of peace.
Remembering.
Being under the canopy reminded me of a lot of things at once.
It reminded me of walking down the Karl-Marx Allee in East Berlin in the middle of the night — dark happy trees on each side, their branches leafing out above me.
The same street during the day when there’s so much green there you can hardly see anything but leaves.
And it reminded me of a wedding canopy with no one under it.
This made me think of the deep, complicated, loving, challenging relationship that I have with myself.
And the commitments I make to myself to keep getting better at learning how to give myself love, and stuff like that.
It reminded me of forests. It was lovely. I was very happy under my canopy of peace.
And (finally) getting to the part that has to do with you.
Of course — and forgive me, because I’m about to say something that sounds seriously cheesy but is very earnest — I completely see my business as a canopy of peace.
The whole reason I do this thing — the blog, the consulting, the writing — is that I want to have a safe, cozy, comfortable place where my Right People can show up as they are, with all their stuff and their stucknesses, and feel safe, supported and loved.
Where I can show up with my stuff and my stucknesses, and feel safe, supported and loved.
And I have that. Which is ridiculously awesome, and something I wish for you too, if you want it.
What I realized though, while walking beneath my canopy, was that I don’t always share with you that much of my own process.
Sorry, I just said process. You know what I mean. How I get there. How I work through things. How I stumble and what happens then.
Indirectly, sure. I hint at it and refer to it. But you don’t often get to see what I do when I’m working through the things that I find challenging. And yeah, I find all sorts of things challenging.
So one of my intentions for this new year is to spend more of my time here doing that. Not just symbolically modeling how I do stuff, but letting you peek into the experience itself.
One more thing.
There are some big crazy changes happening inside of my business right now.
And I imagine that I’ll end up talking about them …. oh, a lot. At least over the next few weeks.
My big hope is that I’ll be able to talk about them in a way that’s honest and kind and useful.
That those of you who have businesses of your own will be able to use some of the stuff that I’ve gone through in my own (I’ll say it again) process.
And that you’ll have a little more perspective on how I do things, and why I do them in the way that I do them. And that this will be helpful for you.
That is all.
Glad you’re here. Wishing you good things. See you tomorrow …
Also, let me add that this Wednesday is Jen Hofmann’s wonderful “take two hours to get some peace of mind and much needed perspective while working through piles and stucknesses in your home office” thing.
I’m hopelessly addicted to taking this class and I wait for it the whole month.
You’re doing it with me, right?
Friday Check-in #22: the ducktastic 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 we just checked in day before yesterday, but that was all about New Year’s. Now we’re back to the weekly check-in.
Chicken!
The hard stuff
Schleepy.
So ever since I quit working nights all those years ago (okay, not that many years ago), my body announced that it wasn’t going to stay up past 10:00 p.m. ever again.
It was a classic “Because I can! Ha ha!” kind of move. And most of the time it’s not an issue.
But last night we went to pick up Ez at the airport and didn’t get home until midnight and didn’t get to bed until one.
And I’m totally in dysfunctional mouse mode*, for the record.
*“Dysfuctional mouse” — as in, a variation on helper mouse. I didn’t mean to imply that dysfunctional in a computer mouse sense, though yeah, probably that too.
So much for big plans.
With everyone away on holiday vacation and such, I had big crazy plans to get lots of stuff done.
And yeah, stuff. And a lot of it did get done.
But it wasn’t quiet. It was way hectic and I don’t really want to talk about it but there was just a lot going on, and a lot of work pouring in that I didn’t have patience for.
CrankyPants McGrumbleBug strikes again!
I’ve been feeling kind of generally crabby and impatient lately, to be honest. Maybe it’s the rain.
Maybe it’s all the big changes in my business and getting used to all the new things that are happening or in the process of happening.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen my acupuncturist in three weeks.
Maybe it’s that I get a gazillion and ten emails a day.
Or that way too many of them involve someone being annoyed because something I said offended them.*
*Uh, guys. Last I heard, there was no shortage of blogs in the world. So … instead of trying to convince me to change my style, wouldn’t it be easier to find someone whose sense of humor doesn’t step on your toes?
And then, of course — despite what I just said in that last little aside — I still for some reason cannot not answer these emails.**
**Because being a yogi sucks. I can’t help it. I always end up truly wanting to compassionately engage with everyone who is feeling hurt because of something I said.
And then I take half an hour to meditate on it and half an hour to compose an email, and if I get ten letters a week like this, that’s my whole week right there. Yes, I know.
But is any of that why I’m grumble-bugging? Who knows. It might not even be any of that.
Just. Not. In. The. Mood.
It happens.
The rest of the hard is all stuff I wrote about on Wednesday, so let’s move on to the good.
The good stuff
New Year’s.
As predicted in the bible on Wednesday, I did win at Boggle.
There was good food (spicy cauliflower-potato magic and home-made yogurt) because my gentleman friend is a mad genius in the kitchen.
And … yes, I fell asleep before ten, but it does seem that the transition to 2009 went okay without me so no worries there.
Also, I must point out the extreme irony that — despite it being our anniversary and all the romantic gooey-ness that goes along with that — both of us managed to miss the word “love” in the final round of Boggle.
Cheese!
Not that I don’t love the gorgeous cashmere sweater my gentleman friend got me because I do, but the highlight of the whole anniversary-new-year’s-day thing … this crazy awesome cheese.
Willamette Farmstead Wine Pomace Gouda.
It was purple. Well, purple-ish. And outrageously great.
I am very enthusiastic about cheese, so let’s say it again. Cheese!
I bought myself a desk.
Those of you who know me are saying, “But you HATE desks. With a passion. Who are you?”
Yes, well.
It’s actually a chaise lounge. But I’m calling it a desk.
Because it’s where I work.
And it’s the nicest desk I’ve ever had. Also the most expensive. Also it kind of ties the room together.
And now my brother has a place to sleep (my old desk, aka the purple couch) until his bed arrives.
Ez moved in.
Wheeeeeeeee!
Our alternative family just gets more fun by the day. Me, my gentleman friend, my duck Selma and now my brother.
This is so, so, so great. Expect him to show up here kind of a lot, because he’s pretty much my favorite person ever.
The New York Freaking Times, baby.
So my duck had her picture in the front page of the Thursday Style section of the New York Times yesterday.
Well, second page if you’re reading it online. First page in the print edition.
Also, I was quoted. But Selma was in the headline.
She’s pretty darned pleased with herself, as you might imagine, and I’m basically never going to hear the end of this.
After the famously disastrous Welt am Sonntag piece where she was barely mentioned and it was mostly about me, there were a lot of ruffled little diva duck feathers around here, let me tell you.
Anyway, it’s a thoughtful, interesting piece by Abby Ellin in the Times, and worth a read even if you’re not at all interested in things yoga-related.
I also posted about this on the Shivanaut blog, if you’d like to read a bit more about the rejoicing, the madness and the stuff I do when I’m not here. Oh, and while you’re there?
You can also read about my crazy students and the weird things they do with Rice Krispies treats.
My parents. They might plotz.
So back to that article in the New York Freaking Times for a second.
My parents are pretty vague on what I do for a living, and “internet famous” is kind of a nebulous concept anyway when you’re the kind of person who thinks of the internet as an especially fast version of the Yellow Pages.
But they read the New York Times oh, every single morning. As does everyone they know.
So they were very, very impressed. Which was cool because most of the things I get excited about are things they can’t really understand, so it’s all kind of the same level of “that’s nice, dear.”
Not that they’re not happy for me, just that it’s all kind of insubstantial somehow because they have no context.
So this was pretty entertaining. And really sweet.
Naomi called.
What can I say. My life is just less fun and there is considerably less madcap goofiness when Naomi isn’t around.
She called from England this morning and totally made my week. Everything is better now.
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.
There’s time.
Five in the morning, again.
There was a period of oh, at least five years, when every New Year’s Day found me at five in the morning sitting at a certain table in the corner of a certain bar in Tel Aviv.
Two of those years I’d spent New Year’s Eve working behind the bar there. So I probably wasn’t sitting there for long.
Taking a rest before we’d have to kick out the last of the revelers and pool players to mop the floors, count the money and close up.
Two of those years I’d spent New Year’s Eve working behind a different bar, and then heading back over after closing. To recover. To complain about the tips. To see friends and lend a hand if necessary.
And one year I’m really not sure how I ended up there except where else would I end up? It was home.
It doesn’t matter. Say New Year’s Day and I’m sitting at that table in a corner again, rolling a cigarette. A glass of whiskey on the table. Morning approaching.
Hey, tradition is tradition.
I only ever had one wish back then and that was to finally be able to save enough money to get the hell out of Israel and move to Berlin.
And if anyone at the bar was misguided enough to ask me what my resolution for Sylvester was, I’d tell them that it would be to not be sitting at this damn table in the corner next year at five in the morning on New Year’s for once.
Every single year.
All I wanted from the New Year was to not be where I was for the next one.
But of course the truth was that I also loved New Year’s morning at my bar. It was familiar and comfortable and I was surrounded by people who adored me.
And I’d always joke that sitting at that table in the corner at five in the morning pining for Berlin had become such an important tradition in my life that it definitely wasn’t going to stop.
In fact, I’d smirk, after I move to Berlin I plan to leave Berlin and fly back to Tel Aviv once a year for New Year’s … so that I can sit at this table in the corner and bitch about how I wish I were in Berlin already.
After all, it’s a tradition.
But I didn’t go back.
This year I was also up at five in the morning on New Year’s Day. But not at that table in the corner.
I woke up at five and went to meditate, like I do every day. Because it’s what I do every day. Because it nourishes me and holds me. Because it’s tradition.
And then I opened my computer and started writing. Like I do every day. Because it’s my sanctuary. And because it’s tradition.
My new traditions do not in any way negate the old ones. For the record.
I’m smiling right now, thinking about that table in the corner. Not because hey, I’m not there anymore but because it’s a happy memory. I’m feeling fondness towards the whole scene actually.
My black, black humor which sustained me through so much hard. The people I loved. The place which was always there for me, where I was always welcome.
I would have been astonished then if you’d told me that I’d manage to quit smoking, that I’d make plenty of money and always have enough, that at some point I wouldn’t be upset, hurt and angry about nearly so many things.
But I would also have been overjoyed to know that this new way of doing things would be grounded in tradition, ritual, playfulness and a sharp sense of humor.
Time. It’s the sweetest thing you can give yourself.
Before I left Tel Aviv and finally moved to Berlin, I’d been studying with this spiritual teacher.
One day in class one of the women in our group was speaking bitterly about how much she was struggling with a particular pattern, and how the new habit wasn’t taking root, and how nothing was ever going to change.
And my teacher said something like “Oh my dear, you’ve been carrying this pattern with you for what, thirty years? You’ve been working on it with these new methods for a few weeks? You’re allowed to have it for another day or two. It might need a little time.”
I remember thinking … I can give myself time?
I can forgive myself for not having fixed it yet? I can still have this horrible, embarrassing habit for another couple days or another couple weeks and it’s okay because I’m working on it and actively involved in the process?
It was the same thing my yoga teacher was also always saying. And of course the same thing I said to my own students.
But I got it. I was allowed to take my time. To give myself as long as it was going to take. And to give that time to myself with love and patience and understanding.
As it happens, not long after that I was a non-smoker. And living in Berlin.
I’m not going to end this.
One of the things I’m trying (well, hoping) to transmit to everyone taking the Screw Therapy Start Blogging course is that not everything needs to gets tied up at the end.
That you really don’t always have to have one specific point. Or any point.
That you don’t always have to hammer in some sort of big Important Lesson. Or ask a Provocative Question to get people talking. Or wrap things up for them in a neat little series of bullet points.
That people are going to get from it what they need to get from it anyway. And most of the time it’s not the thing you think you’re giving. Sometimes not even close.
But I am going to make a wish.
Well, call it a blessing for the New Year. Or if that’s too cheesy/annoying, call it my sincere hope for you (and for me). Who knows, maybe it will become a tradition.
Whatever patterns and habits you’ve taken with you into the new year, whatever you’re still working on … I’m not impressed by the fact that these patterns and habits are still there.
I don’t think they say anything bad about you. Not at all. You’re a real live human being working on your stuff, just like the rest of us.
It’s always easier for someone not right there in the hard to give you time and to be able to trust in the process and all that stuff. To remind you that giving yourself permission to be where you are beats the hell out of wishing you weren’t.
So I’m wishing for you the ability to remember that you have as much time as you need, that no one is judging you but yourself … and that we’re all here with you working on the same things, each of us in our own way.
And if I can remember this slightly more often this year too … oh, that would be awesome.
Happy day, guys. See you tomorrow.
New Year’s: The Great 2008 Chicken
Who are ya calling chicken?
I don’t know why I call it a chicken instead of a check-in. Because I’m a huge dork. I can’t help it. It’s just funny. Apparently only to me, but it’s still funny.
Anyway, people keep giving me crap about it, so for the record, yes, of course I’m a vegetarian. Good grief. It’s not that kind of chicken.
It doesn’t get eaten. It gets checked. In.
Never mind.
The point is that every single Friday I talk about the hard stuff and the good stuff from my week. What was challenging and what was rewarding.
I try to do it in the least-cheesy and non-annoying way possible, which is hard because we are, after all, dealing with self-reflection. And now I’m going to do it for 2008, because a little symbolic closure never hurts.*
*Caveat: I quote the lovely Victoria here: “Unless, of course, Dec 31st turns out to be a really crappy day, in which case I will just drink more champagne.”
The hard stuff
My friend is still gone.
Finding out about my friend’s suicide still wins for the crappiest minute of the year.
If we’re hanging out awards here, I’ll also give it Hardest Thing About This Year Period and The Thing That Screwed Me Up The Most.
Oh levity, you are not working.
I don’t have words for how much this hurts or how much time in my day it gets, but it’s so damn hard. We still talk every day.
Though our conversations mostly consist of me yelling. Mostly “How could you leave my like this?” and “Come baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!” And then he says, “Oh honey, I can’t. You know I can’t.” And then I cry some more.
It’s just full of hard. And I don’t know when it’s going to be less hard, but not yet.
Related crap.
His death — or my experience of it — has put out all sorts of strange roots.
I had a fight with my best friend in Israel. She’s been the closest person to me in the world since I was nineteen and we’ve never even disagreed on anything.
And then I learned that she and my ex had agreed together (with what were really only the kindest of intentions) not to tell me about my friend’s death. Well, to put it off until I was “ready” to hear it. Or something like that.
We worked through it. A lot of words. A lot of love. The whole thing was completely upsetting though. And frightening.
And it’s driven a chunk of space between me and my ex, who is one of my favorite people in the world. That he waited until I came to Berlin to tell me in person, but then told me the evening before a weekend of solid teaching …
Three days in a row of leading workshops. Two a day. Two to three hours each. Did I mention that I teach these in German? All I remember is waiting for the pauses so I could go to the bathroom and resume crying.
I don’t get it. But it was a hard summer. What can I say.
Moving. Twice.
First we moved to Portland in March and then last month we made the move to our beloved Hoppy House. Both of these were good moves.
Good for the soul. Good for us. Only good.
But moving? A big, huge, disruptive, uprooting process full of hard. Hard hard hard.
Still in recovery mode. Also known as hibernation mode.
Growing pains. Ow ow ow.
My business did a lot of growing this year, which was mostly awesome. But we were definitely dealing with adolescence in all of its varied aspects of horribleness.
I went through a bunch of assistants this year while trying to figure out how to get better at running this thing and oh boy, is that a hard process.
I do still have the very-capable Peggy running all the back-end stuff (gott sei dank) but that just wasn’t enough.
Let’s just say that if I hadn’t found and hired Marissa (my brilliant personal assistant), which was the second smartest thing I did this year … I don’t even want to think about the kind of emotional breakdown I’d be going through right now.
That’s pretty much it for the hard, right? Right?
Oh, and a completely disastrous trip to visit my parents, during which — among other things — we had to have the “Nu? So why no grandchildren?” conversation three different times.
The good stuff
Teaching at the Berlin Yoga Festival.
I don’t even know where to start. First of all, my duck was on television. Also, Germans get way more excited about my wacky yoga brain training work than most people do here.
Also, teaching a hundred people? So much more fun than teaching twenty.
I thought I’d be nervous about having to deliver an hour-long lecture in German. Or about being interviewed for the evening news in German. Or about standing on a huge stage and deciding what the hell I was going to say … in German.
But it really wasn’t a big deal. Selma was a total superstar and everyone fell madly in love with her. And we were very funny together and made everyone laugh.
Unless of course they were laughing at my German. But either way it was a blast.
Berlin!
A whole month in my favorite city on earth!
Teaching great workshops. With a ton of amazing students. With yoga studios that don’t suck. Ahem, Portland.
Long afternoons drinking Carokaffee (fake coffee made with barley) in my favorite cafe.
Seeing all my friends! Lars and Andreas, Jackie, Keren, Martin, Tino and Salomea. Meeting old students. Meeting new students. Making new friends with some local journalists.
Walking through the city with my gentleman friend. It takes three days for our German to come back and then we’re home.
Can’t wait until next time!
Best. Class. Ever.
So while I was in Berlin my schedule was pretty packed. And in the middle of it all, Jackie asked if I’d do her a favor and teach a special class that she would organize for her top students who apparently wanted a serious ass-kicking.
These women are all extremely gifted professional dancers and choreographers from Spain and Argentina. So yeah, I’m basically teaching coordination techniques to the most coordinated people in the world.
I’ve been teaching Shiva Nata for more than four years and I’ve never had to work so hard as I did in those 90 minutes.
They were so good. And it was so hard to mess them up. Like, I was throwing Level 4 at them and they were following it. With legs. It was out of control.
Things that I haven’t been able to teach most of my students in years, they were picking up in minutes. By the end I finally had them all screwing it up completely, but man, it was work.
I was sore for a week. So so great.
Cutting down on live events.
This kind of started out as a “hard”.
Scheduling live teaching events in California had been my biggest timesuck of 2007. So when we moved to Oregon I hired a programs coordinator to set things up for me with local yoga studios and the like.
Should be easy, right? I’m the number two world expert in a form of yoga brain training that helps people use the body-mind connection to change their habits.
Oh, and it doubles as a crazy coordination technique that makes you strong, hot and really, really fit.
I’ve also taught all over the world, studied with super famous people, and lead super-fun habits-changing programs on things like Yoga for Procrastination and …
Blah blah blippity blah. No one was interested.
My programs coordinator was great. So was our marketing plan. Plus I gave her terrific copy, gorgeous and expensive promotional materials, references from here to Sunday … and nothing. No one wanted to work with me.
I know this isn’t sounding like a good thing at all. But the truth is that planning, promoting and teaching two live classes a month had been enormously draining.
And I’d been funneling money from the very successful side of my business (doing coaching and training here at The Fluent Self) into the big money hole that is the more yogified side of my business.
I’ve had so much more energy this year. And so much more fun. And so much more money. And I don’t have to deal with flakerooney yoga people.
Will I go back to teaching live? Oh, absolutely. And I have plans to lead some retreats of my own as well. But letting go of my need to put on events — third smartest thing I did this year!
Twitter!
Oh how I love Twitter!
If we don’t hang out there yet, say hi. I’m @havi.
I generally follow back people who chat with me there … and as long as you don’t talk about Starbucks, repeat everything Chris Brogan says, try to interest me in a conversation about your relationship with Jesus or have “mom” in your username, we’ll have a blast.
We have Hoppy House!
And yes, I’m still singing it to the tune of “I am Iron Man”.
If you didn’t read my personal ad and witness the miracle of the most perfect house in the world coming straight to me, you missed out. Go write a personal ad for whatever you’re needing.
At the very least it will make you feel better. And who knows.
Creating the Dissolve-o-Matic.
The thing I’m most proud of this year is putting the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic out into the world.
It was a ton of work — especially writing the damn book which completely took over a few months and nearly destroyed me* — but it was so, so, so worth it.
*Actually it was the trying not to respond to the “I hope you’re not procrastinating on writing your book about procrastination” jokes that nearly destroyed me … never again!
So you’re dying to know what the smartest thing I did this year was, right?
Starting this blog. Smartest by a lot.
From the very first post I had a feeling that this was a great idea.
This blog has allowed me to stop doing things I never liked anyway.
Like writing the noozletter. Not to mention all other forms of marketing, networking and various other annoying things that grownups are supposed to do.
It’s allowed me to out myself as a writer in the least scary way possible.
It’s resulted in some amazing and surprising friendships.
And best of all, I got to meet you. You and a ton of other bright, thoughtful, insightful, fun, kooky, interesting goofball characters with whom I totally identify.
I like you. So this is pretty great.
I have to go play the lentil game now.
Yes, the lentil game.
Also, my gentleman friend and I celebrate our anniversary tonight, so I still have one of the best parts of 2008 to look forward to. Let’s see … I predict … happy tears, good food and me winning at Boggle.
Oh, and my brother is moving in with us tomorrow, so 2009 is already looking like good times.
My duck and I wish for you whatever it is you need most, and send you all the support, strength, comfort and safety you need for a healthy, happy year. Love, love, love and more love.
Havi Brooks & Selma the Duck