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.
The truth about procrastination
You know what people delight in?
Pointing out whenever I seem to have procrastinated on something.
Well, I’ll backtrack on that for the sake of clearer communication …
Backtrack backtrack backtrack. Try saying that out loud.
Okay.
- Not people, but some people. Let’s say a very small but non-insignificant percentage of the people who read this blog and email me about stuff. Let’s say six people in the last couple weeks.
- And not delight in but seem to delight in. After all, I could be wrong.
- And not in a mean way or anything. It’s not like people are rubbing their hands in glee saying “Caught ya!” though occasionally they do. It’s definitely all in fun.
- And I’m more than open about things I don’t get around to.
- And I suppose they’re completely entitled to their moment of glee given that I did, after all, write an entire book and a mini-guide and produced three recordings on dissolving procrastination and how to do it.
Obviously when a super-biggified “expert” screws up, it’s way more entertaining than when other people do. And god knows we all need someone else to slip on a banana peel once in a while or we’d never feel good about anything.
Hell, I subscribe to at least ten noozletters for the sole purpose of mocking (in my head, mostly) other biggifiers who I think are doing it wrong.
I’m feeling a little worried though …
The thing that’s worrying me about this?
That — given how much I talk here on the blog about the procrastination thing and other aspects of mindful time management — it seems as though maybe one of my main points just hasn’t come through yet.
Maybe I haven’t been clear enough. Maybe I haven’t gotten across what I’m really trying to say. Can we try it again? Because I’m feeling like I need to explain something here.
The super-important thing we all forget about procrastination.
Procrastination is fueled by guilt.
Guilt and fear. Once you take out the guilt and fear, it’s not procrastination anymore.
This is what most people in the “productivity” world aren’t realizing. Procrastination is almost never actual procrastination. It’s almost always just this:
You processing or letting something percolate + fear + guilt
That’s all it is. If you remove the guilt and the fear, it turns out that you’re not procrastinating at all, you’re just thinking about something.
Or getting ready to do something. Or resolving some emotional stucknesses around it. Or figuring out what you need to take the next step. Or taking a break to recharge and replenish.
In fact, if you own the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic (or if you’ve ever even looked at it), you already know that the subtitle is:
Beat procrastination without beating yourself up.
Without beating yourself up.
Because you’re not necessarily procrastinating if you haven’t done something yet. When you learn how to soften the guilt and the fear, what invariably happens is that you get very clear, very quickly.
Yay clarity. What that looks like:
Without the guilt and the fear it’s much easier to identify whether the thing you’re not doing is something you want (or choose) to do …. or if it isn’t.
If it is something you want (or choose) to do, and you’re not all bogged down by guilt and fear, you can actually start using the productivity techniques to figure out what the next steps are.
If it isn’t, you can skip it (or decide to check back in with it at a later date), and go about your merry, guilt-free way.
Why this is so important to understand.
It’s not so you have to stop making fun of me. Because of course you’re more than welcome to get goofy with me and my duck pretty much whenever.
You know that, right? Join us in the goofy! Do a little dance!
It’s not that.
It’s so you aren’t guilting yourself.
Let’s be honest. If you’re saying “Ha! Caught you procrastinating!” to me, you’re probably also saying it to yourself. And the whole point of every single thing I do is to help you not have to say stuff like that to yourself.
When you look at the people who are working with my techniques and making big crazy progress, the thing that’s so incredibly impressive is way, way different than what you’d think it would be.
Their progress is not confined to how much they’re getting done (a LOT) — it’s how much they’re enjoying the time when they aren’t getting things done. It’s how pleasant it is to be able to let themselves not always be in a state of doing. Or in state of needing to be doing.
I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t actually care how much I get done.
I also don’t really care about how much you get done.
Nope. I care about how we do it. How we are present with ourselves while we’re doing it. (Side effect: we get more done. But that’s not the goal.)
On the surface the Dissolve-o-Matic is about tricks to stop procrastinating. And yes, they totally work.
To the point that Shannon (one of my awesome clients) recently said after our session:
“Man, it’s not called magic procrastination-dissolving fairy wonder dust for nothing. I totally thought you were being silly but that’s really just the most accurate description possible for what this stuff does.”
But below the surface, what I’m really trying to do with everything that I teach — here on the blog and in the courses and programs I lead and with clients and in the products that I develop — is to provide how-to for the process.
To give you as many ways as possible for you to feel safe and supported losing the fear and the guilt, so you can stop accidentally sabotaging the process.
To help you recognize the individual elements that make up your patterns and habits so you have the knowledge — and the freedom — to take them apart and build new ones that will actually serve you.
It’s not about getting more things done.
Obviously you will. You’ll be more efficient and productive and all of those things. But that’s not the part I really care about.
The part I really care about is that when you’re not getting things done you’ll be able to meet yourself there with some kindness and compassion. And that when you’re not feeling compassionate, you’ll be able to let yourself not feel like being compassionate.
That’s what coach-ey people call “getting out of your own way”. I call it being your own way. But whatever, I’m a big old tree-hugger. You don’t have to call it that at all.
The important thing is that it’s not about guilting yourself up anymore.
p.s. If you’re feeling like you want to make fun of me about something, make fun of me about that. Seriously. I hug trees and do yoga and talk about compassion and stuff. Now that’s embarrassing.
And my duck and I deserve every smartass remark you’ve got. Bring it on!
Blogging therapy: When perfectionism strikes
Number five in our Tuesday series on how to take some of the scary out of blogging (or of anything else)
If you want to catch up — though of course you don’t have to — start with these:
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?
Today we’re talking about what to do when perfectionism strikes. The whole how can I write when nothing I say is good enough? problem.
This actually hadn’t been planned as part of the original series but last week a friend had a blogging emergency — Ahem, We interrupt this blogging series for a blogging emergency — so I decided we’d sneak it in.
Good thing too because it’s a pretty big deal. Perfectionism being, of course, an old friend here at The Fluent Self. Hello, I’m the one who took a year and a half just to get ready to start blogging.
And, as always, this isn’t really about blogging. It’s about working on your “stuff” and meeting yourself where you are.
So even if blogging holds zero interest for you — or if you’re a total rockstar who scoffs at my still-over-100,000 Alexa ranking — you’ll probably be able to find some useful stuff in here that you can apply to whatever else you’re working on.
Ack! Perfectionism! Stucknesses! Blogging emergency!
What it looks like …
My gentleman friend received the following email this week from a (mutual) friend:
I can’t do this! I’ve been trying to write all afternoon and am too much of a perfectionist. I can’t get more than a paragraph. Aaaargh! How does Havi do this every day?
And, since my gentleman friend is the sweetest, most compassionate person I’ve ever met, he came running to me and my duck to ask for help.
Since I’m not the sweetest, most compassionate person, I rolled my eyes and said, “There is no such thing as a blogging emergency.”
This is actually a reference to our friend’s husband who is semi-famous in a very small circle for having once said, “There is no such thing as a sex toy emergency.”
But it turned out that he was wrong, and if you extend the logic, so am I. Anyway, Selma and I decided to step up to the plate and pretend that we’re decent friends.
Back to the point.
Yeah. Perfectionism does make blogging harder kills blogging.
And I’m saying that as someone who has agonized over her posts, complete with shaking fingers hovering over the publish button.
No fun. Let’s talk about this. First: some things to think about. And then three techniques.
Things to think about …
Blogging is for you, not for them.
Ignore all the annoying experts who want you to be “strategic” and focus on your “target market” and their “needs”.
You can think about that stuff later — if you want to — when you’re famous. Or when you’re in marketing mode. You don’t have to think about it now.
Right now this stuff is getting in the way.
Instead, let your blog exist for you. It’s a place for you to practice being yourself. Out loud. But as quietly as you want. In tiny, tiny doses. Without everything you say having to mean something.
Start thinking about it as therapy that you don’t have to pay for.
The answer to the “How does Havi do this?” question is that Havi thinks of writing posts or bits of posts as a healing practice.
It’s just one part of her morning ritual.
Like meditating or making a cup of tea, it’s something I do for myself … something where the whole point of doing it to make me feel better.
Sometimes what I’ve written turns out not to be something I’d ever want to publish. In that case, it works like a journal entry. And sometimes what I’ve written goes out to you. Either way, I took conscious, intentional time to be with myself, so yay.
And stop thinking about it as a performance.
No one is judging you but yourself. And if they are? You don’t want them there.
You can always delete any post you don’t like!
And anyway, stuff disappears in the stream. You write. You write more. It all flows into the ocean. Things won’t disappear, but they also just won’t be as close to the surface.
And three techniques to play with …
Because yeah, food for thought isn’t bad, but it’s more fun to have something to actually do.
Pretend you’re writing an email.
What you want to do is to write each post as if it were an email. You can even write it in your email program. It could be a letter to a dear friend. Or it’s to a client who’s just asked you a really powerful question.
Either way, you feel comfortable being yourself and writing pretty much the way you’d talk.
Why this technique is helpful: usually when perfectionism shows up it’s saying things like “this isn’t good enough because you’re not a real expert” or “there isn’t anything useful here”.
But when you’re writing to a friend you don’t need to be an expert or to have something useful to say. You’re already being useful by showing up and giving love and responding to their pain.
That is how blogging should work. It’s valuable because you’re there. The value recedes when you’re lecturing people or distancing yourself from them.
Talk it out.
Some of us just don’t really write all that easily. So what you might do is take a theme or a question and just start talking it out. Out loud. And record yourself.
Nothing fancy or complicated. You can use a freebie calling service like Calliflower or FreeConferenceCall.com. You’ll get a number to call, and then you call in and just start talking until you’ve said what you have to say.
Then you could use Voice to Text software (a one-time investment of about a hundred dollars and totally worth it) to turn it into a blog post. Instant post! All you need to do is to edit.
Or if you have a recording you really like, you could podcast the result and give people the audio to listen to instead of a written blog post.
(Though — being a perfectionist and all — you probably won’t! We’ll work on that later.)
The journaling method.
One of my friends has a secret semi-non-existent blog that no one knows about. Yet. Because she’s practicing. She writes each post in a word document or a text file and leaves them on her computer.
This is the “dipping your toes into the ocean” method, and while it’s not for everyone, it’s working great for her.
When she started, it was all hard. The writing. The editing. The deciding on a topic. The casually mentioning to me that she might eventually get around to maybe starting a blog.
But now she talks about it all the time. She shares her posts-to-be with me. She’s even kinda sorta having fun with it. Easing into it. Which is fine.
I also keep some of my posts to myself. They don’t all have to go out to the world!
One final point: Perfectionism is not the enemy.
It’s just your “stuff” showing up. It’s fear and anxiety and a little guilt that have not yet been acknowledged and so they’re keeping you stuckified. We’ve talked about this.
Your perfectionism wants you to be this perfect, polished expert so that you can feel safe. It thinks it’s protecting you. But it’s actually ensuring that you either a. won’t have a blog or b. that your blog will be boring and stilted.
If this is freaking you out, no worries. We’ll be talking next week about the “But I’m not a #@%& expert!” issue. Maybe by then I’ll learn how to fake curse with little symbol things too.
In the meantime, try saying this to your perfectionism:
“Honey, I appreciate that you’re trying to protect me, but what I really need right now is to feel safe and supported. So I’m asking you to either give me some encouragement or to not say anything at all.”
Perfectionism is not the enemy. Perfectionism is another life pattern that you can spend some time deconstructing. It’s a reminder that you still have stuff to work on.
It’s a reminder of your need to feel safe and loved.
Which is human and beautiful and not a bad thing at all.
If you have enough resources already, ignore this last bit
If taking patterns apart and replacing them with better ones is something that speaks to you … this is something I go way into depth on in the Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic — and of course you’re already working with my crazy brain-training techniques, right?
The blogging therapy series continues next Tuesday with “But I’m not an expert!” Until then we’ll be talking about habits and patterns and how to change them. Stuff like that.
When you need support and aren’t getting it
Huge theme in my inbox lately.
You want support. You need support. And it’s just not showing up. We touched on this yesterday with the whole “how come my friends don’t comment on my blog” phenomenon.
And a number of Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic users have written saying that the techniques themselves are doing wonders … but what do you do when you start encountering criticism from the people in your life who are supposed to be supporting you in this process?
Plus it seems like my coaching clients are also all dealing with this right now in one form or another, though often the support they need (and aren’t getting) is actually from themselves.
Which reminds me: there’s a missing concept to deal with if we want to get any clarity around this stuff.
Useful concept of the day: internal vs external.
There are two ways we get support. Or anything, for that matter.
We have internal resources (thoughts, emotions, strengths, energy, ideas, epiphanies, concepts, reassurances, trust) …
… and we also have external resources (people we know, experts, authorities, information, even a higher power — if you believe in one — could be considered an external resource).
There’s probably a whole book just on this, but for now the point is that while there are many different forms the support we crave could take, they basically fall into two different categories — two main types of support that we can access.
The fastest way to get support when you’re needing it.
Don’t hit me. This concept is deceptively simple. As in, not simple at all. It just sounds like it is.
You gotta ask.
When you need support — and you’re not getting it — the most important thing you can do is ask for it.
And there are two places to ask. You either go inside and start asking your internal resources for support. Or you turn outside to ask your external resources for support.
Actually, ideally you do both. But they work a bit differently.
Argh. Stop. Let’s have an example
Because otherwise I’ll start geeking out on theory, with no obvious connections to actually applying this stuff in real life.
One of my readers wrote to me recently about this enormous fight she and her husband had.
Background: She recently bought the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic and has been applying stuff like crazy.
In fact, she had three days in a row of big, impressive accomplishments and — even more impressive — had actually been allowing herself to be impressed by them, rather than falling into her old pattern of automatically dismissing anything she did as worthless and not good enough. Huge, right? I know!
She wrote:
The fight was about his idea that I’m “not getting enough done”. He’s a very Results Oriented Guy, and currently sees the things I’m celebrating getting done as things I “should be doing anyway.”
Yeah, that does kind of suck. Sigh. Everyone send this woman a mental hug-offer right this second.
But back to the example. Here we have someone who is feeling frustrated and hurt because she needs some more support and encouragement in her life and she’s not getting it.
She’s noticed how she’s feeling. She’s recognized hurt and sadness and anger.
She’s identified what she’s needing (support, encouragement and positive motivation).
Now it’s time to ask.
The two parts to going ahead and asking for what you need.
Obviously the art of the ask is not something that’s easy for most of us. That’s why you need to start with internal asking before you go ahead to the external side of things.
This asking bit is a two-part process:
1. You start with asking yourself.
That’s the internal. Asking yourself for the ability to receive support. Asking yourself if it’s possible to become more open to receiving different kinds of support — and in different places.
Asking yourself if there are any internal limiting beliefs that are keeping you from getting support. Like, maybe you think you’re not deserving of it. Or maybe you think it wouldn’t help anyway because you’ll just mess everything up anyway. Stuff like that.
Ask yourself what it would feel like to be someone who has as much support as she (or he) needs. What would it feel like to be someone who can feel okay with asking for help?
2. And then you can practice the external kind of asking.
This means finding the people who are most likely to be supportive. And preparing yourself to have better communication with the people who aren’t generally supportive of you.
The best way to ask for support is to use Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication method — simple, but very powerful. You state your feeling and your need, and then ask for that need to be met.
For example, the woman who wrote to me might try saying something like this:
When I have a lot to do I feel really tense because I put a lot of pressure on myself to get things done right. And when I feel tense, I go into a state of internal resistance where I’m totally paralyzed and actually get less done.
When you say that I’m not getting enough done, I feel sad and I also go into this tense, paralysis thing.
So even though I know you’re trying to help me and I appreciate that, what’s happening for me is that it’s triggering some unhealthy patterns.
Right now I’m trying to get more things done, and to do this I’m trying to actively bring more support and encouragement into my life.
What I really need from you is more support and encouragement. It would be helpful for me if you would give me a few weeks to work on being able to get more done. I would really like to feel safe and supported, knowing that I’m going to be getting positive reinforcement from you with this.
Is that something you can do? It would help me feel a lot safer working on these patterns that I’m trying to change.
A few things to remember with asking
For heaven’s sake, be SPECIFIC.
No one can possibly know how to give you support if you don’t tell them. That’s true for your internal resources as well.
You don’t just want to ask for support and encouragement in general. Tell people what they can do to help you. Ask yourself what that kind of help would look like, sound like, and feel like.
It’s not about demanding anything. You’re just asking.
You either get it or you don’t. This is no time to pitch a fit because you think you deserve x, y and z. Sometimes people cannot give you what you need.
They have their own stuff. They’re blocked in their own ways. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people or they don’t love you. Just that right now they can’t give you what you need.
If you can’t get it from the person you want to get it from, you get it from yourself. If you can’t get it from yourself, you ask yourself if you can get better at receiving it.
And then you go out and find the people who can give it to you right now.
Surround yourself with people who adore you madly.
You need support and encouragement and motivation in your life. Find people who are going to give it to you. And give it to them. And give it to yourself.
You don’t always get what you ask for.
That’s why you have the inside stuff. That’s what the internal resources are for.
Sometimes you’ll ask for support and you won’t get it in the form you want it in. Or at all. But you can always turn inward and ask for it there. You can always ask for it in your heart.
You can always practice getting better at being that loving, supportive friend to yourself. Sometimes this will be a pain. Sometimes you won’t feel like it. Sometimes you just won’t be able to. But hey, we’re working on it, right?
One last thing about support
Yes, this whole process of getting ready to receive support is hard and frustrating. For me and for everyone I know. And oof oof oof, it’s even harder when the people around you don’t get how hard it is!
This is big stuff. Big, crazy topic. We’re working with really old, very hurt patterns here, so it makes sense that you’d feel uncomfortable asking. Asking for support is huge. Huge.
Even thinking about it is a pretty big deal. So no need to pressure yourself. It’s true that the support you need may sometimes be hard to access, but it’s also true that it will be there when you ask for it.
Ask Havi #11: the “jealousy meets fertility?” edition
Don’t ask about the title. Seriously. I don’t even know what’s going on today. It should really just be called the “random” edition.
Anyway. Two Ask Havi bits today. One relates to our blogging therapy series on taking the scary out of blogging.
And the other one kinda has to do with Non-Sucky Yoga Month … and is also the very first Ask Havi question that I’ve needed to farm out to a guest expert.
Shall we? Yallah.
First question: How come my friends don’t visit my blog?
This one was from Juliet who asked in the comments section of the “Why even bother bloggingwhen other people are doing it better?” post.
Hi Havi. Somewhere on your site I recall you saying that your friends don’t read your blog.
If you don’t mind sharing, how do you feel about that? And why do you think that is?
I know that none of my friends are particularly interested in even venturing near my blog to see what it’s all about. It hurts, I have to admit.
Either they have looked, and they don’t know what to say, or they haven’t…because they aren’t interested? Maybe jealous that I have found something I enjoy? (There have been other signs of the latter).
Okay. One thing at a time.
The weird truth is that I actually feel okay with my friends not reading my blog. Well, most of the time.
But I know enough people who get really annoyed about this phenomenon — and it is a phenomenon — that I get that it’s a big deal. And it’s definitely something I’ve given some thought to.
Here’s my take on it.
People don’t look.
They don’t look and they don’t want to look. Not because they aren’t interested, but because they’re scared. Scared? Well, anxious.
Maybe they won’t like what you’re up to, and then they’ll have to tell you (awkward and uncomfortable). Or lie to you (awkward and uncomfortable). Or pretend it never happened (awkward and uncomfortable).
Actually there are all sorts of things for them to be afraid of. For example?
Maybe they’ll discover that you’ve changed — and in ways that they don’t like.
Maybe they won’t like your online persona. Maybe it’s weird for them to see you as an expert in something and it feels like they’re losing you to this other, new, distant person.
Maybe they’ll get the sense you’re trying to sell them something and they’ll end up feeling uncomfortable.
There are all sorts of things that could happen theoretically … and any one of these could be enough to keep your friends away from your website.
My friends — the ones I’ve had for a long time — tend to miss the days when I partied like a rockstar. Sure they know I’m a freaky yoga chick and a successful businesswoman … but they don’t want to uncover stuff that might make them not want to be friends with me anymore.
It’s fear of losing someone you care about. I can identify with that.
Are they wrong? Yeah, probably. But I don’t think I can change their minds. Eventually they’ll show up. Or not. If and when the time is right.
The jealousy thing
You brought it up. So it probably didn’t come out of nowhere. And I have to say that it’s a real thing.
In fact, this is something anyone who wants to be successful is going to have to deal with because some people will be jealous. It’s no fun, but it can happen.
We talked about this quite a bit in the fear of success portion of the non-icky self-promotion course.
Jealousy happens. I have many friends who’ve had very different life experiences and made very different life choices than mine.
Like, they got married and got “real” jobs and had kids. Well, probably more of them are lesbian performance artists who live in squats. Which — weirdly — I identify with more.
But anyway, among all these friends, some are really proud of me and yes, some of them are jealous.
That I have my own business that’s totally successful. That I have a six week waiting list for seeing clients. That I can pick up and fly to Germany to teach at the Berlin Yoga Festival if and when I feel like it. That I make my own hours and do work that I love and just generally have a lot more freedom in my life than they feel that they do in theirs.
So yeah, jealousy can also be a reason. I wish it didn’t happen but it does.
Neither of these reasons really matters.
I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt because of course it does. It’s just that it’s not about you. It’s about them.
The only part that has to do with you is your reaction to it.
My way of dealing with it has been making new friends — online friends who completely get what I do and support the hell out of it — and keeping old friends for talking about other things that don’t necessarily have as much to do with what I’m doing right now.
Those friends don’t hang out here, and I can live with that.
The other thing to remember is that not all friendships are forever. Some are strong enough to work through stuff like this. And some aren’t.
Sometimes we need to let go of some old ties that aren’t supporting us anymore. When it comes to the jealousy thing, I don’t have a lot of patience for it. I don’t need that kind of energy in my life.
But it were someone really, really special to me I’d do the work to talk it out and see if we could work through that.
My suggestions …
- Find online friends who think the stuff you do is awesome.
- Let your offline friends be just that. Hang out with them in real life and do real life stuff. They’ll either come around or they won’t.
- Take a break from the people who aren’t in a position where they can be supportive and loving to you right now. Because you need support and love, and you deserve to be around people who are going to give it to you.
That’s what I’ve got. This is a pretty touchy issue so I’m sure people will make additional suggestions in the comments section …. go for it. Hug to you!
Second question … yoga for fertility?!
Hey Havi,
I know it’s ‘non sucky yoga month’ and even though you have thoroughly answered the question about yoga that doesn’t suck, is there any chance you could answer this question:
Is there any specific yoga practice that helps IVF / promotes fertility?
Cheers,
Jodie (a fan from Australia)
This seemed like a question that would require a little outside assistance so I asked Amelia Hirota aka The Fertility Acupuncturist — who happens to also be an internet-friend — if she could help me out.
Here’s Amelia:
Yes, yoga does promote fertility for two reasons.
One, it calms the mind and reduces stress. Easing the pressure on the adrenals (caused by chronic stress) is important in enhancing fertility.
Secondly, yoga promotes blood flow to the pelvic cavity, providing nourishment to the ovaries and uterine lining.
With a healthy diet, this increased blood flow to the reproductive organs often makes a huge difference in fertility levels.
I actually just reviewed a good yoga fertility book called Fully Fertile on my site.
In Fully Fertile, they talk about specific asanas (yoga postures) that are helpful during an IVF cycle. I like using yoga to enhance fertility because of the way it treats both the mind and the body.
Yay, Amelia! That was much more interesting than anything I would have said.
The only thing I’d add to that is that yoga poses all make use of internal and external pressure points on the skin and in the joints (marmas).
Every time you use the pressure of your own body to open or press on these points, you’re interacting with the nervous system which then sends messages to the brain to release hormones through the blood flow.
This is one of the reasons yoga often makes you feel like you’re on happy drugs … you’re gradually creating an altered (and ideally a more balanced) hormonal state.
Normally I talk more about this stuff in terms of how it can help facilitate your process of releasing emotional stucknesses, but there are absolutely physiological implications as well.
Either way, achieving hormonal (and emotional) balance could only help with your chances of getting pregnant if that were your goal. And with other, completely unrelated goals, if fertility is the last thing on your mind.
That’s all I’ve got …
Oh boy, I hope one of these answers (or questions) was vaguely related to something that interests you.
And if not, it was certainly sweet of you to come and hang out with me just because.
We’ll be back to slightly broader themes tomorrow. And anyway the Non-Sucky Yoga Month package thing goes away tomorrow which means I’ll stop with the yoga stuff for a while.
If you have an Ask Havi of your own, you’re more than welcome to ask, but keep in mind that it might not get published for a while. There’s a pretty serious line-up right now. Just saying.
Happy happy rest-of-the-weekend, guys.
Friday Check-in #13: the *spooky* 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.
Spooky halloween check-in
So our neighborhood is ridiculously halloween-obsessed.
To the point that pretty much everyone (except for us and the place I’m about to mention) is going mad trying to outdo each other by having more enormous glowing purple spiders on the roof than everyone else.
And then there is this one house with nothing. Just a tiny little wooden stick in the grass by a step that says … in sweet little letters:
*spooky*
Awesome. Okay, on to the week.
The hard stuff
Stupid transitions.
So the move is finally official — after two weeks of being on edge and not knowing.
Which is a good fantastic thing, of course. Because I am moving to the most perfect place in the entire world. Yes, I realize this is, at the core, happy news.
But all this in-betweenness brings with it all sorts of discomfiting layers of oof and aaaaaaargh. There’s the waiting. There’s the fact that — though perfect — it’s still a rental. One that might go back on the market in six months. Plus communication issues with the landlords.
And there’s me trying to stay organized and on top of things while knowing that soon everything will be different but I have no idea what that looks like yet.
And not liking the place where I am now. And trying to record audio while the neighbors are revving up their chainsaws and banging on their drumsets.
I know this really beautiful, wonderful thing is about to happen, and in the meantime meeting a lot of resistance to letting things be the way they are right now.
Just not being in the mood for stuff.
This could be winter hibernation mode, but man, I’m just not in the mood.
Usually I’m so full of crazy, brilliant ideas that I have to remind myself to stop. And what I want to do right now is just schnuggle in bed with a thousand blankets and a good novel.
So I’ve been doing a bit of that. Practicing doing it in the most guilt-free way possible. And at the same time I kinda miss the excitement.
It’s probably time for a mini-vacation. Especially with the move coming up. And of course I’m booked with clients through the first week in December.
And of course I’m not supposed to type that out loud because everyone reading this will hate me.
Not complaining about my good fortune. Just looking for the opening — the window — where I can take some serious time just for me. In the meantime, I’m finding pockets. Which are almost as good as windows.
And writing about time and my relationship to it.
The good stuff
I mentioned we got the house, right? We got the house! Happy happy house!
I cannot tell you how excited I am to have the rental agreement signed. Actually, much more excited about the prospect of having a huge, sunny, beautiful office.
Though I plan to spend most of my blogging time curled up in the window seat under the stained glass window on the stairs.
I’ve never really had my own workspace. Or, come to think of it, significant space for myself at all.
Only once, when for two years I rented my own apartment. It was tiny and in the second crappiest neighborhood in Tel Aviv. But it was beautiful and it was mine.
The “mine” part was so astoundingly great that for the first year I pretty much never left except to go to work. It was so freeing to just have space. Me-space.
And without having to be considerate of roommates or my husband (this was the place I moved to right when we were getting divorced). Knowing that every single thing in this place was there because I wanted it to be there.
Things have changed a lot since then.
I love living with my gentleman friend. I love living with my duck. And now my brother will be moving in with us as well, which is pretty much the best news ever as the rest of us are all crazy about him.
And one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is my big, wonderful office that doesn’t double as another space part of the time. A space just for me that I don’t have to share with anyone or anything.
Seriously I’m so happy I could burst into tears right this second.
One more thing. No. Two more things!
New mailing address!
If you’re the sort of person who sends me checks or fanmail or fansocks or whatnot please note that the Fluent Self has a brand new mailing address.
Though if you’re the type to send whatnot, and for whatever reason you absolutely must send hobo fingers, please send them to Jenny the Bloggess instead. She needs them more than I do.
Otherwise you can send whatever you’re sending to:
The Fluent Self
3527 NE 15th #220
Portland, OR 97212
Non-sucky Yoga Month is almost over!
Well, the month isn’t over, but the non-sucky yoga package thing goes away on Monday.
There were six left last I checked. If you want to do some non-sucky yoga with me, this is where you do it.
Or even if you don’t especially want to do non-sucky yoga but you want to have a happy, healthy back and be super-relaxed and feel generally good about life and know that the time you spend working is more productive and all that ….
Non-sucky yoga, baby. This blog is powered by it. Last chance.
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 and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good (or *spooky*) that happened in your week?
And, as always have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend that is not too full of the *spooky*.
And a happy week to come.