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.
Want an example with that?
Wait, what are you talking about?
Okay, I just wrote a whole noozletter about breaking your patterns down into their various components.
And about how you can then use that information to figure out which part of your pattern is going to be the right doorway for you. The spot that will let you sneak in so you can start making some changes to the pattern.
Or you can think about it like this:
If your pattern is a big complicated knot, some threads are less tightly wound than others, and those are the places where you’re going to want to start gently tugging.
If you still have no idea what I’m talking about … or even if you think you do, try reading my piece on disentangling your patterns. Because that should clear things up for you.
And if you do know what I’m talking about, you still probably want an example.
Wait, I need a real life example.
I thought you might.
Meet a client of mine who gets really, really stressed out when she suspects that people are disappointed in her.
The stress causes her to freeze up, and then everything starts going wrong.
We talked about this idea of breaking the pattern down into individual elements, and then went ahead and deconstructed like so:
1. The trigger
For example, someone appearing to look dissatisfied
- 2. Initial reaction
Sense of alarm bells
3. Emotional reaction
Fear, anxiety, worry, “Uh oh! “
4. Mental reaction
Disconnecting (everything goes hazy)
- 5. Body reaction
Sharp burst of adrenaline accompanied by a loud GO!
6. Initial action step
Trying to do the thing you think will please them
7. Accompanying feeling
Rushed, stress, anticipation
Once we had a clearer sense of all of the pattern elements, it was way easier to jump in and start evaluating the different access points:
Starting at #1 was too hard in this case, because learning how to notice the first trigger before it goes off takes a ton of practice.
And you can’t start much past #3 because once you’re in reaction mode, there’s already panic and disconnect to distract you.
It seemed clear that our best access point was link #2 — “alarm bells”. That’s where there seemed to be the most wiggle room, so that’s were we decided to start focusing our attention.
When we applied our various wacky techniques (and if you hang out on my blog or go to my teleclasses you know that there’s no shortage of these), our goal was to create more space around step #2, and start disentangling.
Okay, so what does this mean for me?
As a rule, you always want to look for an access point that’s right at that sweet spot, chronologically speaking.
Your access point needs to be at some point before you’re already deep in emotional chaos. And after something that you could easily identify as a trigger point for you.
Before your resistance kicks in and after you know something’s been set off for you.
Three quick exercises to help you get started.
It’s helpful to start off by talking through your pattern as if you were telling a story.
Next: once you have the story, try writing it all down.
Finally, see if you can break it down into steps. Treat the “this is my pattern” story as if it were an instruction manual or a screenplay.
That’s it! Good luck and don’t forget to let me know how it goes…
Disentangling those patterns
Wiggle — it’s good for you
So you’re going about your business of living your life and just doing your thing. And all of a sudden you’re in a bad mood.
Bang! Just like that, the whole world is miserable and annoying.
How’d that happen?
Well, sometimes you really have absolutely no idea. Sometimes you have a just a little prickling of a thought.
And sometimes — even though you can’t necessarily say for sure — as you moodily contemplate your emotional state, a mini-theory emerges.
Maybe you stubbed your toe, experienced a flicker of pain which somehow led to thinking about your ex, and then you realized you’re not as happy as you thought you were …
A chain of associations starts to emerge. A pattern. Are the connections “true”? Does the equation add up? Doesn’t matter. Not important.
What’s important is: Houston, we’ve got a pattern!
Do not skip this step
Any pattern — whether it’s stressing out on trains, fighting with someone you love, reaching for the comfort of a cigarette, whatever — is made up of individual components.
Tiny, individual elements that all link together.
A chain of events. Well, not so much events as moments — moments that trigger emotional and physical reactions. You might not be able to see it, but the pattern is always there.
If you want to get anywhere with your problem pattern (or with any pattern), it’s really, really helpful to try and reduce that pattern (that chain) into individual steps.
You may not be able to figure out every single one — and that’s okay. It’s where you start.
Here’s where it gets interesting
It’s much easier to figure out what’s going on with you and your patterns when you can identify the different components. That’s the first step in separating them from each other, and it’s this act of separating — even a tiny bit — that makes all the difference.
If you’ve ever taken a yoga or pilates class, you’ve probably heard the teacher talk about creating space between the vertebrae. Which is really the thing that gives you that awesome “whoah, I’m an inch taller than before class” feeling.
Creating space (or accessing space that’s already there) gives you wiggle-room to maneuver, extend and grow — in your body, and in your mind.
Think about it this way: when you focus on a knotted shoelace, there’s that moment where you find a minute gap or two. Tiny openings between the tightly bound laces.
These “access points” give you room to tease open these knotted bits of stuck — and a place to start.
And now I will stop hitting you over the head with my analogies. Because I think you get it.
Important point #1
Shift your focus to the gaps and spaces, instead of focusing on what a horribly tangled mess you’ve got.
Important point #2
Even a tiny bit of wiggle-room is helpful.
Important point #3
Once you’ve reduced your pattern into individual steps or elements, it will be a lot easier to figure out where your best access point is.
It’s easy to choose the wrong access point to work on. For example, when you’re trying to quit smoking and you think “Oh, I’m noticing that I want a cigarette. Okay, let’s work on this pattern.”
This is only one link in the chain — the hardest link — so it totally doesn’t work.
But once you know that a certain situation will always trigger the tension that triggers the wanting, there’s your opening — now you can start working on the pattern.
Once you’re aware of the sequential chain of reactions you have an easier entry point. Don’t start in the middle of the stuck where it’s hard. Start where there’s wiggle-room.
One for the road: Important point #4
Trust that the knot will eventually come undone. You’ll tease out some threads. You’ll make more room for yourself. At some point you’ll find the thread to pull … at least you’re looking.
It’ll be okay.
Uh huh. Seriously. So start breaking down your patterns into steps and get thee some wiggle-room. What your wiggle-room looks like will vary from pattern to pattern. Physical, mental or emotional, it doesn’t matter.
The point is, if you can wiggle, it’s good for you.
Ask Havi #2: The “Fine, let’s take a look” edition
Aw, what the heck, while I’m here …
I know I just wrote a whole post the other day about why I’m not going to be a helper-mouse goshdarnit.
And how all those people who write to me wanting freebie advice and help with their websites can forget about it.
But now I’m going to. Give one of them freebie website advice, I mean.
Because I thought about it and I can’t help myself: they really, really need it. I can’t help them all because it will drive me crazy, but I can help one.
Okay, last person who asked me for advice. How about we start with you?
Let’s do this thing! In fact, let’s do it Dear Abby style.
Confidential to Avivit in Charlotte, NC
Re: your website that you asked me to review (and gave me permission to link to).
First of all, good for you for starting a brand new business (importing yoga clothes!) and putting up a website (website!). That is huge. Big scary stuff and I’m for it!
You’re doing the thing! Love it love it love it. Pat yourself on the back and repeat at least once a day.
Because web sites are like babies — they grow fast — and you won’t have time to remember how great you are. Remember.
So yeah, a website is an ongoing work-in-progress, and I’m sure you’ll end up doing lots of interesting stuff with it as your business grows and changes.
Now. Since you asked. Here’s what I’d change.
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The icon
I LOVE the little flower icon you’re using as a logo and favicon. Gorgeous. And it works. Very very nice.
Now sneak that in more and embed it here and there into different places on the site. The cuteness factor wouldn’t work for a lot of websites, but it absolutely works for you.
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The header
The photo header image is attractive but the gigantic size means people have to scroll down to figure out what your site is about.
And the high-fashion-meets-goth-ness there doesn’t necessarily mesh with the whole yoga/pilates-ey vibe either.
You could either take it out or get something that’s about a quarter of the size at most.
While you’re at it, take out “High performance & style apparel” since that’s just more blah blah blah. Then you can make the Yoga, Pilates & Fitness Activewear from around the world be your title at the top of the page.
And keep in mind that putting your keywords (yoga, pilates, activewear) in the images is not the most search-engine-friendly thing to do.
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The name
Hmmm, not to stress you out too much, but are you married to the name? Do you *love* it and want to live with it forever and ever?
Because ActiveWearUSA doesn’t really have any emotional or mental associations for me, “sticky” or otherwise.
Actually, it kind of sounds like it might be a lot like every other online clothing thing that ever was. Which of course it’s not, right? It’s yours. It’s special.
So if you’re not 100% taken with it, maybe try brainstorming up something a little more fun, because your brand is clearly all about easygoing lightheartedness. I wanna to hear some sparkle in the name.
(Plus, if you ever want to go international, you don’t want the brand name to limit you.)
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The “About Us” page
The About Us page should be either really personal or really “yes, we’re a serious company” but not a mix of both. I think it will flow much better if you commit to one.
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The “Our Brands” page
I don’t think Our Brands needs to be a top navigation link. That could be folded into the About section or be a bottom link. It just won’t interest most people. Unless your audience is not individual buyers, which it appears to be. Correct me if I’m wrong.
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The copy
Have a native English speaker go over the copy and tweak a little. When I got back to North America after eleven years abroad there were all sorts of “not-quite-right-nesses” happening all over the place in my site too.
Okay, there still are, but now they’re slightly more intentional.
Generally speaking, my favorite parts are where you speak personally about your experience with the clothing (size chart, descriptions of the different pieces) and my least favorite parts are the cold, formal ones (the brand description, the return policy).
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Links (sidebar and bottom navigation)
The small-type horizontal list at the bottom of each page looks like it’s meant to be navigation of some kind. It’s not. Link these or take them out.
The sidebar is filled with links but I can’t tell by looking if they actually go places. Make them look more link-ey, especially since I just got fooled by the bottom ones.
And if you don’t want to underline, you can at least give them a roll-over color.
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The biggification
Don’t be an slowpoke introvert like me. Start blogging it up right away. Write about what you do and what you think and what you care about.
Hang out places where yoga/pilates type people hang out and comment like crazy. Be helpful when you can. Be honest when you can’t.
Follow all my advice about 1. usability testing, 2. website analysis and 3. asking people for advice.
And last but not least, or — as we say in Hebrew — acharon chaviv …
For the love of god, wear your eye-catchingly gorgeous clothes EVERYWHERE. Be your own walking advertisement.
That’s it. Good luck. Go forth and conquer.
And here’s the disclaimer for everyone who’s wondering.
No, I’m not a designer. No, I’m not a web optimization person.
I’m just a. a person with strongly held opinions and b. (for some reason I can’t fathom) someone that everyone asks.
If for whatever reason you still think you want my advice, read this first.
Learn from my amusing mistakes
Speaking of “coping with anxiety” …
Remember when I mentioned the other day feeling just the tiniest bit anxious around the whole “Hmm, I wonder what I’m going to teach at the yoga festival this weekend” thing?
Well, that got resolved pretty quickly. In what’s probably the most ridiculous way ever.
I was sitting on the couch, wondering which technique of mine would sort it out the fastest …
…when I got distracted by the unexpected news that RBB (German television station) wanted to interview me for their evening news program that oh, everybody in Berlin watches.
Whoah.
Nothing like perspective to knock you over the head.
So, yeah. All of a sudden the idea that I would feel even the slightest bit of anything about teaching on a stage in front of a gazillion people seemed pretty silly.
After all, — or so went my stream-of-consciousness autopilot rambling — I’ve been teaching for years. I’ve lectured in German plenty of times. How could that be the slightest bit intimidating? What was I thinking?
In fact, why even bother getting nervous about some silly festival when you can get nervous about your first television appearance ever being an interview in a foreign language?
And isn’t is so typical that my first television interview would be in German? I mean, that’s so the story of my life.
What’s that? A learning curve? Is it steep? Oh, well then, take me straight to the top of it and drop me … hahahaha … it’ll be fun!
Then the silliness kicked in …
It suddenly occurred to me that if my nervousness about Unknown Thing #1 could disappear so completely in the face of Unknown Thing #2, it couldn’t really be all that deep a pattern.
Which made me laugh out loud because the whole situation was just so absurd. Scaring yourself out of the scary? What, it’s like hiccups?
Apparently it does work like that sometimes. Because: hey, no more Schmetterling im Bauch (butterflies in the stomach). No feelings at all, other than: Alright, let’s do this thing!
Report from my first ever television interview:
Because of course you want to know how it went, right?
It was fine. They loved Selma (I’m telling you, my duck is a superstar). They were thrilled (thrilled!) that I speak German. They asked me seriously difficult questions. And they filmed part of one of my workshops.
But the weird thing is, I’d always imagined that during a television interview it would be impossible not to think about everything that you’re probably doing wrong.
You know. Stuff like … “I wonder what this looks like. Is my hair a mess? Am I smiling like a maniac?”
Except, because it was all in German, I was mostly thinking about nailing all my prepositions. Which was actually kind of a welcome distraction.
Report from the Berlin Yoga Festival:
First of all I have to warn you that yoga festivals are full of yoga people.
Normally I’m pretty much the wackiest person on the block. But the nice thing about being at a yoga festival is that even I get to feel pretty darned straight.
Your obscure brain training techniques seem way, way less bizarre when the person teaching right after you is a European-lookin’ dude in orange robes, with a beard down to his pupik, as my mother would say. Who’s the weirdo now, huh?
Like I said, perspective is everything.
Also, in case you’re wondering: no, I didn’t make it to the class on not being judgmental.
Anyway, it was raining cats and dogs but luckily, since both my programs took place inside tents, they were still full. *blows kiss to programs coordinator*
So yeah. I managed to deliver a 60 minute lecture in German without looking at any notes, answered lots of interesting questions, didn’t knock over the microphone and enjoyed the hell out of the 90 minute practice session that Selma and I taught.
Lessons learned:
1. Be German
No matter how many times you give people your bio, they can still (and will) make up an entirely new and nonexistent way to spell the thing that you’re teaching.
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→ Get someone to go over all the brochures and posters that other people produce.
2. Make fun of Germans
Yoga-ness trumps German-ness. Just because you’re supposed to start teaching at two in the afternoon doesn’t mean you will.
→Bring a book or something.
3. Be accessible
It’s always good if you don’t have to shrug your shoulders in bewilderment when people ask you excitedly when your next workshop is.
→Glue or staple a little info sheet to your gorgeous postcards.
4. Get a raincoat that a grownup would wear
I don’t care if you do carry a duck. You need a new raincoat.
→ I think that says it all.
5. Avoid potential embarrassment
Let’s suppose you’re (hypothetically, let’s say) going to be demonstrating an incredibly complicated movement technique in front of an audience and television cameras.
It’s probably easier if the thing you’re standing on isn’t made of rickety, widely-spaced slats covered with felt.
Which might just be the least stable thing ever to be danced upon in the history of dancing upon things.
No, I didn’t fall down. That’s the benefit of being the #2 world-expert in a coordination technique.
→ Have someone check out anything that has a suspicious name like the “other” stage.
6. And finally: Take notes
No matter how many times you’ve learned all these lessons before, you haven’t.
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→ Write them down somewhere where you can find them. Like, oh I don’t know, online?
Coping with anxiety
Because anxiety sucks. That’s why we need coping tactics.
Some woman contacted me this week kinda randomly because she was hoping I could give her some techniques to help her deal with anxiety.
Which always makes me wish you could hug people over the internet. Because I’d totally do it.
And because: ohhhhhhhh. Anxiety = not fun.
Normal, yes. Anxiety is generally pretty normal for anyone who has lead even a slightly interesting life, but no, not fun at all.
Let’s talk about that.
Point one: Anxiety is normal
Now this is where I’m probably supposed to give you the whole “don’t listen to me, I’m not a shrink” spiel and direct you to my fancypants disclaimer, but pretend I’ve done that so we can get to the point.
The only people who haven’t ever experienced anxiety to some extent (and I know you’re thinking that “some extent” is hardly as crippling as yours but trust me on this) are not people you want to be.
People who have not been writhing on the floor in terror at some point in the past few years have either been leading extremely boring lives …. or are so repressed and overly-self-disciplined that it’s going to come back and bite them in the ass. And you don’t want to be there when that happens.
The rest of us deal with anxiety. Life is full of hard and scary because it’s always in flux. And believe me, it’s normal and it’s human to freak out when the scary shows up.
In fact, I’m feeling slightly anxious right now, wondering what I’m going to say in my brain-training lecture at the Berlin Yoga Festival tomorrow. Normal.
I work with a lot of people who deal with everything from minor “whoah, having a moment here” freakouts to full-on panic attacks, and believe me, it’s common as a headcold.
That is, if you can imagine for a second a world in which people didn’t admit to getting headcolds.
Point two: Thinking that it’s not normal makes it worse
Know what? I used to have panic attacks too when I was in university, and the more I convinced myself I was going mad, the more often they’d show up.
Of course, my family’s habit of dropping hints that I probably was going mad: less than helpful.
You probably can’t imagine the relief I felt when I met with a smart, funny, beautiful, capable psychologist, but try. Because she assured me that I was remarkably well-adjusted and that anyone who said otherwise was clearly off their rocker.
In the most perfect reframe I’ve ever witnessed, she said — and I’ll remember this forever —
“Hmmm … so you left home at 17, went halfway across the world all by yourself with no plans and no money, had a hundred things go horribly wrong at the same time including getting dumped, having a close friend die, and getting kicked out of your flat, and now you’re dealing with some fear.
“Well, yeah. That’s pretty much the healthiest reaction you could possibly be having.”
OH.
It took about five seconds for that penny to drop. After which I stopped worrying that I was losing it and decided to start taking better care of myself so that I could start noticing what was setting me off and what was grounding me. And that was the end of the anxiety.
And, you might say, the beginning of my interest in the mysterious and fascinating ways of patterns and habits.
Point three: There are *so* many things you can do about it
It used to be that your only option for dealing with anxiety was years and years of therapy.
Or — if you were a quick study autodidact like me — a nibble of therapy, a library card and a lifetime of intentional self-practice.
Today, though, is probably the best time in the history of the planet to be flipping the heck out.
Because there are a million great techniques out there from acupressure tapping to vipassana meditation to yin yoga to NVC (compassionate communication) to hypnotherapy …. and on and on.
Plus there are much easier ways to get started. Things like my Emergency Calming Techniques package if you’re into serious shifting and instant relief. Or things like, I don’t know, books that Oprah reads, if you’d rather just dip your toe in.
There’s choice out there, is what I’m saying.
So start reading, start journaling, start actively and passively tracking down those patterns so you can learn about how they work.
Start picking up those useful clues that are going to give you important information about how you interact with yourself and the world around you.
And when the hard and the scary show up, take a deep breath and allow yourself to be terrified. Just for a minute. Just for now. Remind yourself that you’re letting yourself be terrified, which is way more powerful than your fear.
Who knows, maybe you’ll even find out what your anxiety is trying to tell you.
*internet hug to you*