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.
Roadblocks and what to do about them
Roadblocks! The symbolic, metaphorical kind! Yes, they are not fun. And yes, they happen.
It is the nature of roads that sometimes things will be blocking them.
Like this:
You have a plan.
You think it’s a genius plan.
You do the work to move through your fear, anxiety, etc about doing the plan.
You run with the plan …. and uh, oh, something is going weird with the plan.
This is a scenario I know pretty well. You know, from being alive and stuff. I imagine you do too.
Since this issue has been coming up all over the place, I thought I’d give you my Three Things to Do About Roadblocks spiel.
Okay, maybe not all over the place, but definitely in my inbox as my clients and some of the participants in the non-icky self-promotion course have been having some mini-freakouts. And who doesn’t need help with roadblocks?
The three things to do about roadblocks?
Thing #1: Be as upset as you want to be.
Allow your feelings. Give them legitimacy. What you’re feeling right now is what you’re feeling. It’s where you are right now.
On the road. In front of the stupid block. Dealing with frustration, anger and sadness.
Maybe there’s also some fear that you’ll never get past this. Maybe some “Ugh, I never should have even bothered.” Maybe some resentment that these things keep coming up for you.
Well? If that’s how you’re feeling, it’s okay to let yourself be a real, live human being who sometimes has uncomfortable feelings.
Screw all that “think positive” and “it’s all for the best” stuff. You don’t have to find a silver lining right this second.
You can do all that later when you actually feel like it, instead of doing it right now when you’re doing it out of guilt and not even believing that these fake, forced positive thoughts are actually true. Don’t ever turn positive thinking into a “should” because it doesn’t work that way.
What you’re feeling is temporary. What you’re feeling is normal. Let yourself be there for a little while instead of trying to claw your way out the second it shows up.
What would Selma do? Exactly.
Thing #2: Be James Bond.
Okay, now that we’ve let ourselves be upset and throw some chairs, now it’s James Bond time.
Which means? Roadblock schmoadblock, as our Mr. Bond would say if he’d thought of it. It’s not a block, it’s a chance to do something different.
And anyway, in any situation, there’s always an opening. There’s always a way out.
What would 007 do?
So you’re James Bond. Maybe you can drive around the roadblock. Maybe there’s another road. Maybe you can dump the chic little roadster and climb over it. And what about your jetpack?
There’s always an out. In fact, there are always going to be more than two options. Just take one.
Because otherwise your whole life story is going to be “I was on my way and then there was this boulder.”
This is where you remember that you’re free: to play, to change course, to innovate. Even to ask for help.
Thing #3: Ask for help.
Seriously. Just ask. Don’t go it all alone.
Also, something to keep in mind: help can be external or internal.
External is when someone out there (whether a friend or the Google gods or someone in your way extended network) can give you information or assistance that makes it easier to achieve and/or receive what you need.
Internal is when you go inside and ask yourself, and surprising, wonderful answers come up.
Either way, there is help for you. Because you are not alone.
Chances are, you are not the first person in the entire world to ever have had this problem. It’s very likely that someone you know has some perspective on this that is useful and insightful. Ask for help.
Make sure, though, that you don’t ask for help with the solution you think is the right one. You don’t want to ask for something too specific, like help tying a rope around the boulder and then lifting it with a complicated machine to dump it over the side of the cliff.
Because it might be that among your friends and connections there is someone who knows a shortcut that starts half a mile back — something that avoids the block altogether.
You don’t want the people helping you to be so busy planning ways to blow up the roadblock that they miss the real point — which is that you only wanted to get back to Milan before the charismatic, sexy, evil woman in black blows up the opera house.
Instead, you want to identify the challenge: I think I need to get here and this is what’s blocking me. So your friends can say, “Oh, what you actually need is over here!”
Let me tell you a story.
I have a really great story that I’m not going to tell you. Okay, I’ll tell you tomorrow.
It’s about all of these roadblocky issues and about how The Fluent Self got its name — a roadblock story with a happy ending.
Right now I want to tell you about the prison that is not a prison.
This wonderful spiritual teacher I studied with in Israel used to like to say that being stuck is like being in prison.
You rage and you yell and you bang against the bars until your arms are bruised and sore.
You come up with complicated, impossible plans designed to move one of the bars just enough so that you can get through.
You plot and scheme. You give up. You throw temper tantrums. You dream of escape.
And then one day you turn around and you realize that this prison cell only has one wall.
One wall. It’s open space all around you, and you’ve just been so close to this barred door that you never even noticed.
We’re the most effective roadblocks of all.
Enough said.
Tomorrow: how The Fluent Self got its name. Best roadblock story ever? Hmm, it’s pretty darned good.
And hey, you’re more than welcome to share some roadblock stories of your own in the comments section. Who knows … maybe the help you need is right here.
Thanks to Deb Owen for pointing me towards this video which is so, so perfect. Hope it makes you laugh rather than want to throw things:
Argh. Crap. Happy new year?
Oh no! I mean, hey! It’s that time again!
So it’s funny we were just talking about chickens (well, I was — read the last post if you don’t know what I’m talking about and hey, maybe you still won’t) because I’m kind of running around like one of them with its head cut off.
Yeah, yeah, you can have all that “Hi, I’m a calm, centered destressified expert” stuff nailed and still there are going to be some things that will set you off. As we say in the yoga world: “Baby, that’s how it is.”
Oh, how I wish we did say that. We don’t. Never mind, back to things that set you off. I mean, things that set me off.
For me it’s Rosh HaShana. Actually more the fact that despite it being on my calendar months in advance, it still sneaks up on me every single freaking year.
If you’re not Jewish or jew-ey or actively jew-positive or whatever, be warned. Because there will be heightened levels of jewiness on the blog in the next week or so as one holiday after another hits the shore.
Some of this will be beautiful and heart-warming and soul-nourishing. And some of it will be neurotic and scare you. Hey, it’s a package deal. Or something.
A little background, yes?
So Rosh HaShana is basically New Year’s, except if you imagine that New Year’s were meaningful and spiritual and scary … and happened several times a year.
Crap. Is there anyone who isn’t confused?
I’m starting over. Okay. We do like this:
Jews like distinctions and separations and divisions.
But also unity and connection.
And paradox. We love us a good paradox.
Celebrating a new year is all about stuff like that. The old that was, and the new that is coming. Standing on the line between past and future and being fully aware that it’s NOW.
And at the same time also being aware that this particular distinction is, on the one hand, arbitrary and ludicrous, while also being equally moving and powerful.
So for some screwed up reason (aside from, you know, the more the merrier!) we have four new year celebrations each year. This one is the big one. The head of the year.
And since I like a big, symbolic clean-slate new-beginning moment as much as the next person, I like baking raisin challah, and the liturgy is outrageously beautiful, it’s probably my favorite holiday. Well, definitely in the top three.
It’s Selma’s #1 favorite holiday, no question, but that’s only because I’ve never let her dress up for Purim. Anyway …
Why I’m going on about this.
So since my as-yet-unresolved life pattern involves forgetting (okay, fine, “repressing”) the fact that Rosh HaShana is sneaking up on me until the moment when it’s practically right there, a bunch of things always go a bit wonky.
One of these things is that my, um, “editorial calendar”, as it were, is going to be altered slightly. Because crap, I forgot all about this holiday thing again.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ll write some stuff that generally relates to some of the holiday-themes … if I have some time this afternoon … and put those up for you.
Or maybe I’ll dig up some unpublished Ask Havi posts so you have something fun to read while I’m off with my duck tossing bread crumbs into moving bodies of water and eating pomegranates and dipping apples in honey, but then not eating them because honey makes me hyper and crazy.
Or maybe I’ll tell you a little bit about why I’m out there tossing bread crumbs. Or maybe I’ll just take a break for a couple days. We’ll see how it goes.
What I’m going through right now:
A lot of self-reflection. A lot of wanting to get certain things in order.
A lot of reviewing and reconsidering all sorts of things, including my position on what it means to be someone who practices rituals without necessarily always or ever believing in what is behind them.
Deciding who the people are I want around me at this time, and what activities I need to steer clear of.
Realizing that of course my parents are going to call and ask for forgiveness for anything they said or did this year that hurt me, which means I’m going to remember what all of those things are, and then ask for the same thing.
Because it’s tradition. And even traditions that sometimes kind of suck are grounding, as long as a. you choose them, and b. they aren’t unhealthy in and of themselves.
I guess this is all still a pretty incoherent description of what’s on my mind and why I probably won’t be answering much email this week.
But I’m glad you’re here. In fact, if you’re reading my blog, you’ve officially become a part of one of the very best things that happened in my year.
Thank you for that. I wish you a sweet, happy, healthy new year if you’re celebrating, and a sweet, happy, healthy year if you aren’t.
∗Still not clear on what Rosh HaShana is? This piece will totally clear that up for you. (Uh, no, it won’t actually, but it might at least make you laugh).
Friday Check-in #8: the Nick Cave 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.
Yes, it’s a check-in now.
A check-in. Or a chicken, if you prefer.
Anyway, the Friday RoundUp is no more, except that it’s really the exact same thing only with a chicken. Never mind, it’s too hard to explain. People weighed in, mostly by email, and nobody likes rounding up. Checking in it is.
Okay, on to the hard stuff of this week. And then the good stuff.
The hard stuff
Goodbye, again.
I went to see Nick Cave Monday night. Keep in mind that it’s been a looooooong time since I saw any sort of live music that wasn’t mantras or chanting or something.
In fact, the last time it wasn’t, I was in the lesbian bar in Tel Aviv because my friend who killed himself was playing there. Four years ago, maybe. Seeing Nick Cave and not being able to tell him about it is one of the six hundred things each week that pisses me off about my friend being dead.
Anyway, it’s been a while. I don’t go out. It’s not part of my life. But I couldn’t not go to Nick Cave because it’s kind of like, hey, seeing Nick Cave is one of the privileges of being alive.
If my friend were alive and he found out Nick Cave was coming to town and I wasn’t going to see him, he’d drag me there. And then make me tea and play mantras and stuff.
Right now, in this moment, I am alive and I’m going to get up and do something that the living do. It was a good show. It’s still hard, though.
Goodbye, hearing.
The opening act was so loud that I put my head in my gentleman friend’s lap and cried until it was over. And not from the sadness. From the pain. From the brutal ear-thrashing violence of the volume.
Nick was loud too. Amazing, but loud. And thump-ey.
I can still feel the vibrating, five days later. So now I have to stop making fun of my gentleman friend, who spent his fabulously troubled youth at punk rock concerts, for being half-deaf and requiring me to shout at him.
The good stuff
This blog has fans and stuff.
So whatever, I’ve never gotten fansocks or anything, but some of the smart, interesting, oddball people who read this blog have been sending me presents.
Douglas Buchanan, who is 79 and quite possibly the coolest person in the entire world, sends me and Selma neat little things.
He also begins his messages with “To Havi the Happy and Selma Anas Flava Superba, Greetings” and ends with “Blessings and quacks”. Oh, the joy of communicating with the wonderful, wonderful Douglas.
I wish each and every one of you a correspondent who is half as interesting and entertaining.
Then Tim Brownson over at A daring adventure sent me a copy of his book. Which has an entire duck-related chapter! With a sweet little note. What a lovely thing to do.
Speaking of lovely things to do, how kooky is this?
Ohmygod this is so crazy and cool.
So you remember how obsessive I became about the cafe in Vancouver where I had a glorrrrious day … and how happy I was when Mario, the owner of said cafe, sang me a little song about milk?
Because that was so, so great.
Well, Pace and Kyeli — two readers of this very blog — were inspired to um, take action:
Havi! We sang you a song about milk! It’s to the tune of “Drink!” by They
Might Be Giants. Have a glorrrrrrrrious day!
That’s right. They sang me a song about milk. A very nice song.
You should listen to it. You cannot not have a glorrrrious day while listening to this song.
There’s really nothing I can say after that.
Sure, lots of wonderful things happened this week.
My clients are having huge, awe-inspiring breakthroughs.
My acupuncturist does witchy poking magic that rocks my world.
My gentleman friend is the sweetest, kindest, goofiest, funniest, most loving, accepting, surprising person in the entire world and he makes me pesto fettuccine that is ridiculously fantastic. Plus he doesn’t even complain when I sing the egg song every single morning.
But whatever, these girls sang me a song about milk. And recorded it. And sent it to me.
That kind of makes anything else that happened this week fade in comparison, you know?
That’s it for me ….
And yes, absolutely join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.
Yeah? What was something hard and/or good that happened in your week?
And, as always have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Insert non-sexual vibration joke here
I get some pretty fantastic stuff in my email inbox.
Sure, there are people who have bizarre requests, or want me to fix all their stucknesses for free, or to advertise the most random, irrelevant crap on my site (huh?!). That’s why I have an assistant.
But there’s a lot of stuff that is just pure joy.
Just this week, for example, a woman in Thailand wrote to say that she’d listened to the freebie Recoding Your Mind meditation thing that you get when you sign up for the destuckification sampler, and it actually resolved a painful, physical thing she was dealing with.
[Aside: if you want me to open an email you’re sending, and you’re sick of using Can I steal from you? as a tease, this one is pretty good: How you cured my broken blood vessels. Very effective.]
Or, you know, people will share various sweet, wacky, wonderful things happening in their lives and attribute all this fabulousness to things I’ve said or done.
And sometimes people really do just write in to say thanks, without wanting you to solve all their problems or anything. 🙂
But here’s the funniest email I’ve ever received. EVER.
This is from Sandie Law, who, by the way, is awesome and runs a great site (Macaroni and Peas!) for parents who want help figuring out how to feed their picky-eater kids healthy, yummy food. She’s also in our non-icky self-promotion for people who hate self-promotion course and we like her.
So yeah, I’d pretty much be happy to hear from Sandie whenever even if she weren’t flattering me and making me laugh so hard that I spit all over my computer screen.
Actually, it wasn’t her so much (not that Sandie isn’t funny, because she is), as the mind-boggling absurdity of the situation. Because that was what hit me straight in the funny bone, which resulted in me completely losing it for at least a couple minutes:
I just finished listening to Recoding Your Mind. May I just say, I love you. I agree with Naomi, your voice is delightful.
I would love to purchase the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic, but I can’t seem to get to it. My company is blocking it as a site with sexual context.
While that sounds fun and naughty, it doesn’t really make sense. Is there another way I can order it?
After I stopped laughing/crying and peeled myself off the floor (and we made sure she had the correct link, which she did), I knotted my hair in an austere bun and put on my sexy librarian glasses to peruse the Dissolve Procrastination website with a discerning censorship-hungry eye.
Plunging the depths of the sales page, probing for hidden dirtiness … if you know what I mean.
Right. So I went over the page twice, scanning for “sexual” content or context or anything really. You know, maybe some inadvertent bits of lasciviousness or something.
A slip of the marketing tongue, if you will. Or a Freudian slip. Really, any kind of slip at this point.
Because who knows? Maybe I am the queen of double-entendre copy-writing and I don’t even know it. Maybe I should team up with Naomi and she can do her filthy marketing whore routine and I’ll teach the art of smutty selling.
Okay …. so of course there wasn’t really anything weird about the site. I was pretty much being my usual sweet yoga self with just a tiny bit of snark for balance.
Though I did notice that the word “insert” (as in “insert your own self-deprecation here”) and “frustrated” are in the same paragraph … and I do say “hard copies“.
ROWR!
I know. That’s seriously hot.
But even after I took the glasses off and let my hair swing out luxuriously and dramatically (in slow motion, of course) … I still had no idea whatsoever as to what could be prompting some suspicious robot to block my site. The site about dissolving procrastination. Not a clue.
And yeah, if any of you have ideas for dealing with this (preferably ones that aren’t fun and/or naughty), please advise.
(Aside: I just reread Sandie’s email in my gmail account, to see if the Dissolve-o-Matic reference popped up any sexy-content ads in the side bar … but they were all for BMWs. Yeah. I don’t get it either.)
All’s well that ends well. Except in bed …
So Sandie and I were all hot and bothered by this point — by the fact that we still couldn’t get her to the actual website. Fortunately for everyone concerned, we figured out a compromise (it’s not what you’re thinking, get your head out of the gutter!) and everyone’s happy.
I got to have fun imagining what my work would be like if you were feeling especially innuendo-centric and/or channeling Groucho Marx. And I sent Sandie her own copy of my Emergency Calming Techniques package, which is a perfect example of how it always pays to make people laugh.
Though I really gave it to her because I actually think Recoding Your Mind doesn’t even hold a candle to the Emergency Calming Techniques. If she’s already impressed, this new level of destuckification will knock her socks off.
Only in the metaphorical sense, of course.
I swear I’m going to stop being such a tease.
Or that was the plan. But then when I was on the Dissolve Procrastination page this morning I remembered that when it first came out (five months ago), I planned to keep the cheap intro newbie launch sale price thing up for three months and then put it back up to the real price.
Which I never did because it always seemed like, Oh, come on, be nice for just a little longer! You can put it back up at the next biggification meeting! And then somehow it got back-burnered.
Well, here’s the thing. The Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic is hot stuff. So hot that your company might not even let you access the page. Because it’s all tingly and spicy and, uh, things like that.
So I’m giving everyone one week to jump on this thing. Yeah, you heard me. Just ravish it six ways from Sunday. Sunday? Okay, fine, we’ll make it a week from Sunday.
And then I’ll be putting the price back up to what it’s actually supposed to be.
The VIP packages all sold out early, of course, but I had so much fun doing them — and people had such ridiculously insanely great results — that I’m doing it again.
Ten VIP packages (i.e. an hour of me zapping you with yummy magic procrastination-dissolving zappiness) for people who like to go all the way. I’m guessing these won’t last more than a couple of days, but give it a try.
That’s it. Send me mad fanmail.
Or socks. Tell me stories. Make me laugh. I’ll be back to my serious yogacentric self tomorrow probably, so enjoy the goofiness while it lasts.
You don’t have to face your fear. Really.
We had some pretty intense discussion happening in the comments section of last week’s talking truth to fear post.
And not intense in a bad way. The opposite, in fact. Really good points being brought up, people showing up and respectfully debating ideas and, in some cases, respectfully disagreeing. I’m loving it.
These intelligent, compassionate conversations have been continuing in email exchanges and on other people’s blogs, and it was really cool to see how my thoughts inspired a ton of other blog posts which work with these concepts and take them in different directions.
One of the weirder things that’s coming up, though, is that several people have been writing in to thank me for getting them to face their fears.
And yeah, it’s completely awesome that they’re having breakthroughs (yay, breakthroughs!) and of course it’s always sweet when someone gives me credit for sparking or facilitating that kind of fabulous moment of bing!
It’s just that I’m feeling a little bit worried that maybe my actual point was lost.
Or partially lost.
Because I’m not trying to get you to face your fears. I don’t even think you have to face your fears. In fact, I think that — quite often, at least — facing your fears is totally the wrong approach.
Of course it might be that we’re actually all saying the same thing, and it’s just a semantic misunderstanding.
Because words can be pretty loaded with subtle, often hidden connotations. And I totally get that what one person means with a certain word can be very, very different than what another person means. So I’m going to do my best to be very clear about what I mean by “face your fear”, and then we can see if we’re all on the same page or not. And who knows, maybe we are.
The problem with “Oh, you should face your fears.”
Actually I have two problems with the “you should face your fears” sentence. Both from the linguistic standpoint and the more theoretical change-yer-habits standpoint.
The first thing not working for me with this sentence is the “should”.
There are no shoulds in habits work. You don’t have to face your fears.
Sure, you can if you want to. If it’s empowering for you and it works. But you don’t have to. There are plenty of ways to resolve fear and even to heal it that don’t involve direct confrontation or meeting it face to face.
Face being the second issue I have with fear-facing. More about that.
“Facing” fear is scary. And not fun. And often not even necessary.
To “face” your fear is, in fact, a thing which causes fear. Which it should. Because it can imply direct confrontation. Face down. Face off. Face up to. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Sometimes confrontation involves violence. Or at least potential violence. Standing up to a bully. Readying yourself for a classic old-timey Western movie showdown. Pistols at dawn. Stuff like that.
And sometimes a confrontation is more about the emotional discomfort. Like holding an intervention to get someone to realize he has a drug problem.
Either way, this kind of uncomfortable facing stuff isn’t something most of us would actually want to do with our fears. Which is good, because you don’t have to.
So I vote we reframe this whole “facing” thing so that it can start working for us instead of tripping us up. And yeah, if it’s not tripping you up and you’re having fun chasing dragons, go for it. As long as you’re feeling good about it.
What we want to do with fear is meet it.
Meeting, facing, whatever. It’s all the same going right into the horrible, right? Actually, no — it’s not. This might seem like a small distinction, but it is in fact huge. This part is important.
Meeting fear is not like facing down a dragon outside of its lair.
It’s not like holding an intervention.
It’s like noticing that there’s a trapped and terrified kitten in your closet.
When you face fear, you have weapons. You’re prepared to fight. Someone’s going to go down and it might be you.
When you meet fear, everything is different.
When you meet fear, you just acknowledge that it’s there. You say, “Hey, there you are! I know you!” You remember that it’s natural and normal for you to be scared, and you agree to let that fear stay there just a little longer until it gets its bearings.
You remember that you are not your fear, but something larger than your fear. Something larger than any thought or feeling or idea. That you, in fact, have created this fear for a reason that must have made sense at some point, and then you try to figure out what that reason is.
You talk to the fear. You talk it down calmly and quietly, with sweetness and logic and as much compassion as you can stand.
And eventually the scared kitten calms down enough to find its way out of whatever tangled pile it got into, and then it curls up in a little ball and dozes off.
How not to deal with fear:
This is one way the “facing fear” scenario can go, if you’re not careful.
Fear: Arrrrrrgh! Crap! Everything is going horribly wrong! You screwed it all up! You’ll never be good enough and you’ll end up living in a box on the street and everyone will say I -told-you-so and they’ll be right! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
You: Shut up shut up shut up. I’m the boss around here, so you’d better start listening to me right now. You have no right to be scared. Everything is going to be fine because I said so.
Fear: Oh, yeah? You’re a moron. I’m not listening to you. Remember that one time that you messed up everything? Remember how horrible that was? Remember how you couldn’t even do that one basic easy thing that everyone else could? Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
You: I’m hit! Man down!
Here’s another way that works somewhat better:
This is how I try to do things. Not that I always remember to do it (in the heat of the moment, and so on), but at least I’m in the process. And more often than not, we manage to talk things through.
Havi’s fear: Arrrrrrgh! Crap! Everything is going horribly wrong! You screwed it all up!
Havi: Wow, you sound really upset and worried. I’m noticing that I’m really frightened right now when I think about the stuff you’re saying. It’s hard for me to concentrate when I’m so scared.
Okay, fear, I just want you to know that I know you’re there. I see you and I hear you and I feel you. And even though I hate it when you show up, and part of me wishes I could just kick you to the curb, I know that this is temporary and that you’re here for a reason.
So I’m just going to let you be here — just for now — and I’m not going to be impressed by all the stuff you say about me. I’m just going to try and have a conversation and figure out what useful information I need to get from you.
Havi’s fear: God, you are such a stupid freaking hippie loser. Don’t even bother trying that stupid I-feel sentence crap on me. You know, you were way more fun when you were a drunk. Right now you suck.
Havi: You’re probably right. I was more fun. Listen, I get that you’re upset with me. I’m also sensing that you’re worried about me.
It seems like there are two things going on. One, you’re worried about me because you think I’m not going to be safe and taken care of, and two, you’re worried because you think I’m going to lose our sense of humor and become a boring grown-up.
Is that true? Because if it is, it’s kind of sweet. Would it help if I promised you that I’m going to do everything in my power to stay fun and keep enjoying things?
Because it’s kind of easier for me to be in fun mode when I’m not scared of all the impending disasters you keep telling me about.
Fear: Oh. Well, I just want you to be safe from harm and not to be a boring loser that I’ll be ashamed of.
Selma: !!!
Havi: Oh. Okay, I can live with that. How about I promise not to be a boring loser and you do your best to express your concern in ways that don’t hurt so much?
Fear: Whatever. That works. I’m going to come out of this closet and take a nap now. Please rub my belly.
Summing this up:
Your fear is not intentionally out to get you.
It’s just scared that things are going to go horribly wrong and that no one will be there to take care of you.
And it doesn’t know how to say that in a helpful way, because no one ever taught it how.
When you face it — in a confrontational way — you put it on the defensive, and it’s going to become louder and more forceful. When you use violence, it will fight back. When you apply guilt and manipulation it will fire that evil stuff right back at you.
When you meet it — in a conversational way — (I know, it’s crazy) you learn stuff!
You’re not kicking yourself out of the comfort zone, you’re interacting with discomfort from a safe place.
I’m not saying you have to be all mushy and goo-ey and lovey-dovey. You don’t have to love your fear or be happy that it’s showing up. You don’t have to think the whole world is made of pink ribbons and dancing bunnies or whatever.
You certainly don’t want to be fake or dishonest. What you do want is to be working on consciously and intentionally meeting the fear and noticing that it’s hurting. Reminding it that it’s hurting you.
That’s it.
Belly rubs for everyone!