The Fluent Self

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?

* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.

Chicken 364: Seven Years of THIS!

by Havi Brooks | Jul 18, 2015 | my personal practice

Reflecting on both the hard and the good parts in the week that was…

It is Friday Saturday and we are here.

{a breath for today, for this space, for being here when we get here.}

We have reached SEVEN YEARS of this Chickening ritual! Sure, occasionally we chicken on a Saturday instead of Friday, but the chicken always happens. Past-me would not have been able to imagine this.

Thank you, everyone who reads: you are the reason I am still doing this.

What worked this week?

Reconnaissance!

There’s this burlesque dance class I’ve been eyeing for a few years but too scared to try.

This week I decided to go on RECONNAISSANCE. Reconnaissance is awesome because all you have to do is check out the situation.

So if all I do is find the studio and go straight home, I still win. Or if I just observe the class, I still win. And if I walk through the moves and make ten thousand mistakes and fall on my face, which is what I ended up doing, I win. It’s reconnaissance!

Imagining that I was gathering intel on potentially scary things instead of making myself do them made it easier to gently sneak my way into doing.

Renaming.

I scheduled a photo shoot, and I was very nervous about it.

Then I remembered that the reason I was doing it was to document Shmita.

And the process of documenting my Shmita experiment seems vitally important, and also very natural, like, of course, why would I not want to have photographic documentation of this undertaking.

Names. Names are everything. Once I stopped thinking “photo shoot”, it was easy and light-hearted.

We drank tea. We teetered on teeter-totters and laughed, and it was the most relaxed I have ever been in front of a camera, so there.

Next time I might…

Talk things over with the internal scientists.

I had this idea this week that if I just brought enough bubbling positive energy to places I don’t like, this would transform the experience.

However my internal scientists have shown me all the data which indicates that these places drain energy, no matter how much joy and confidence I bring.

Not everything can be or needs to be transformed. Some places just need to be off the list, and I am slowly learning to be okay with that.

And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…

What Just Happened.. The Havi Brooks Story.

If you feel drawn to leave comments on aspects of my week, I will take love, hearts, breaths, pebbles, I do not need advice or cheering up, though presence and sweetness are appreciated. Hearts or pebbles are great if you don’t know what to say, often I don’t know what to say either so we’re in the same boat.

Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

I thought being offline would be hard, but it was so completely pleasurable that now I don’t really want to go back. Like, oh hey remember when I used to walk through that giant field of dog poop every day just because there were some pretty flowers there and I like flowers? Why would I want to do that. It’s not like there’s a shortage of flowers in the world. So now my monsters are terrified that I will not have a community for my business if I’m not out and about wandering in the shit fields every day. A breath for remembering that however this turns out, it’s going to be fine, and there are lots of ways this can go that won’t involve an either/or choice between destroying my business or being knee-deep in metaphorical excrement. Yes, a breath for remembering that, and for enjoying the quiet right now.
I saw someone on the street, someone who used to be a close friend, and she gave the “I don’t want to do this” look and put on sunglasses and walked past me briskly. Which is a completely okay choice for her to make, obviously. Nothing is more important (in my mind) than self-care, and if her self-care in that moment was avoiding an awkward interaction with me, then I fully support that. It was also a moment of sadness, for me, and it also reminded me of leaving Tel Aviv. When you get to a point that a place has more people you’d rather not run into than people you’d love to surprise you, time to leave. A breath for love, trust, and safety, for everyone involved and everyone who needs it.
I am under this weird curse or something right now, and every time my fingers touch a glass of water, it spills, and it doesn’t just spill, it goes everywhere, immediately, and soaks everything in sight. I guess that could be a metaphor for something, but it’s just my current reality. A breath for pausing, for getting centered, for taking this reminder to get steady, as well as the reminder that things spill and it’s okay.
My passion for dance is back (“Ugh, finally“, say the monsters, forgetting that they actually used to be AGAINST both dance and passion), and there is a big gap between the activities/classes/training my heart is excited about versus what my body can actually do. Sometimes because of pain, injury, fatigue, HSP stuff, trauma and just not having the energy/spoons to do as much as I would like. Sometimes because of my OLD LADY KNEES that can’t do floor work, even with knee pads. Sometimes because I have to just be in bed. A breath for staying in a state of love, taking care of my body, cultivating the flame of desire while not pushing myself to do more than is good for me.
Is there a name for this phenomenon? You know you will need something later — really, really, really need it — so you lovingly put it aside for future you so they’ll have it in that moment of need. And you are very intentional about this, you think: I AM GOING TO REMEMBER THIS. And then the moment of need comes and the only thing you can remember is that past-you very intentionally hid something for you, but you have no idea where, and you can’t find it or re-create the thought process of past-you, and you only remember the determination to remember the place, and not the place itself. A breath for needing something and not having it, and for This Is Why You Always Leave A Note.
I have been on a mission to retire from being a Stew Maker, and it is unbelievable how often I find myself stirring a pot of stew. Very often it was a Comparison Stew, which is the least tasty stew there is. I’m back to dancing and suddenly I’m in the kitchen stirring the stew of Everyone Is Better Than You. Or the related stew of Seriously They’re Twenty Years Younger And Have At Least A Decade More Training So Why Don’t You Just Give Up. A breath for remembering that I quit this job, and I am no longer a stewmaker, and any time I want, in any moment, I can put down that wooden spoon and turn off the flame and exit the kitchen.
Went to the local westie dance for the first time in ages, and had an absolutely miserable time, and had to work very hard to not stir the stew of Why Is It Like This. I think if I want to maintain my passion for my favorite dance, maybe it’s better to focus on other dances for a while until I find the kind of dance community that I want to be a part of. A breath for may this hard moment turn out to be beautiful.
Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.

Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.

The end of the heat wave. Temperature makes such a difference in mood, energy, ability to function, and somehow I always forget this. Cool air. Light drizzle. Walking in the park in the middle of the day. Doing some Star Training (the thing that used to be spirals) outdoors at 10am? UNHEARD OF. So much opens up when it isn’t too hot to do anything more than limply exist. Lazily teetering on a teeter-totter on a peaceful afternoon: heaven. A breath for this, and for a return to all-night snuggling.
Dance and being motivated to dance and having energy to dance, oh this is so good, you guys. Such delight after these long months of knee injury and mysterious chronic pain. I signed up for a four hour blues-connection technique workshop, assuming I’d only be able to handle an hour, and then — astonishingly — lasted three hours and twenty minutes. Plus I enjoyed some absolutely transcendent dances just during the warm-up songs in between workshop sessions. My lover dragged me to the Portland Dance Festival and I danced my feet off until 4am, before we fell asleep in a sweaty, sticky, happy heap in the parking lot. Mainly though I just feel JOYFUL about feeling joyful about dance again, if that makes sense. I watched this video of a contra dance flash mob, and it had me in tears just thinking about the magical moments of people coming together, and seeing dancer friends I know. Even though what they’re doing is not even really related to any of the kinds of dance I do, I don’t know, just feeling this intense tenderness about how dance does something, how movement changes energy. A breath for this welling up.
I did brave and scary things this week Marlena (Incoming Me) took me to burlesque class and hip hop, and we didn’t die. A breath for play and discovery and trying new things.
Feeling fortunate to such many sweet and supportive people in my life right now. Whether it’s big life stuff like letting go of my home, or taking steps towards something challenging that I want. My sweet lover, my wonderful housemate, my wise uncle and my far-away friend Annabelle all cheered me on this week with encouraging words and endless warmth and love for me. I’m not really used to this, but I want to be. A breath for appreciating how special this is.
I slept a lot. I mean, a lot. One of my big wishes for my Shmita experiment is to be someone who can do lots of nothing without worrying about something being wrong. Like, maybe I’m doing nothing because I literally can’t do anything else, and maybe I’m choosing to do nothing, but either way, I am able to experience it as a desirable place to be. That’s happening. Lots of staring into space. Lots of delicious percolating and puttering, and not calling it names. Our culture is big on name-calling, we like to call this procrastination or avoidance, when actually the labels just add guilt and make an otherwise useful process sticky. It is good to give things time and space to ripen. I’ve always felt strongly about this, but this is the first time I’ve been able to just be intentionally slow and meandering with life. It’s switching little connectors on for me, and big fractal flower magic. A breath for deep healing, for patience, and for naps.
I am slowly getting better at remembering that I am not a stew-maker. A thousand sparklepoints for me for each and every time I choose not to make stew, start a stew, stir stew, or do anything related to stewing, and for each time I notice that I’m doing it and call a timeout. And another breath for love, because it really is all love.
Last-year-me decided that this year would be the Year of Easing & Releasing, and ohmylord, this is changing everything in my life, and I am finally able to see how this is so very good. A breath for having found the joy and the freedom and sweetness in letting go. It took a long time to get here, but all timing is right timing.
Thankfulness. So much is good. Epsom salt baths. Shoulders to cry on. Marlena is witchy in the kitchen and blended frozen bananas with pumpkin seed butter, cocoa powder, vanilla, cinnamon and himalayan salt. My lover whispers sweet words to me that happen to be just what I need to hear. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong, even when I think it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thankful for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.

Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!

Operations completed. Wham boom!

Whoosh Ha Mastodon Boom is secret agent code meaning: this thing is done! Shortened to wham-boom.

I sorted through even more boxes, made gigantic progress on the BOLTHOLE op, coordinated with other Agents, and only cried ten times. We shall call that a successful mission, and I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.

Superpowers I had this week…

I had the superpowers of Noticing Useful Things, Annexing New Space Into My Comfort Zone, and being okay with being a High Sensation Seeking adventuress who enjoys very specific types of risk-taking while simultaneously being someone who likes to hide a lot.

And last week I wanted to be able to See Beauty Everywhere, and that happened too!

Powers I want.

I want the superpowers of Wildly Appreciating Myself and I Bring The Fun.

The Salve of Wildly Appreciating Yourself.

These invisible salves are distributed here by way of internet magic. Help yourself! Take it in a bath, as tea, a cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.

One of the things I’ve noticed in thirty eight years of being alive is that the best and most wonderful things about ourselves tend to be invisible to us, along with any magic beans of good fortune.

This salve undoes that effect, smoothly and efficiently, so that suddenly, in quick flashes at first, and then for longer periods, you can see what is magical, beautiful and effortless.

You notice the sweetness of your own smile, the things you are good at, the ways you are unique, and these suddenly seem important.

There is both a boldness and a tenderness to this salve, like a flower, and once you wear it, you see these things (and flowers) each time you turn around.

Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!

My brother and I make up bands, which are all just one guy. The Meme Beach House is the venue.

This week’s band is called Breathing Is The Best Plan. Their latest album is Truth Be Told. They play acoustic emo covers of disco songs, and it’s just one guy.

Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.

I am recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, aka the thing that keeps me from falling apart. This is how I get through weeks like this one.

How was your week?

Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.

Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.

Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.

Shabbat shalom.

p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!

Wish 314: quarters

by Havi Brooks | Jul 12, 2015 | my personal practice

Personal ads. They’re … personal!

I write a Very Personal Ad each week to practice wanting, and get clarity about my desires. The point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), the point is learning about my relationship with what I want, and accessing the qualities. Wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…

♡

March?

On March 12, exactly ten years and five days after this business came into being, I set off on Shmita, my sabbatical experiment, something I have been ~~threatening to do~~ dreaming of for many, many years, not thinking I’d ever be brave enough to go for it.

It has been pretty much exactly as sweet, exhilarating and terrifying as I imagined it would be (okay, maybe more).

It’s intense and unnerving to not have a plan, to intentionally let all my fields lie fallow. To stop working. To have no idea what I’m doing in life. To let myself fall apart and release, over and over again, while trusting that it’s all going to be okay.

And all of this is also beautiful and important and healing.

For the past four months I’ve been on the road with my lover.

A truck and a tiny camper and no plans.

California, Utah, Nevada. We hiked and slept and cooked and held hands and were quiet together under the stars.

It was equal parts recovery time and adventuring time, and then things changed, as they do, and I ended up coming back to Portland, and two weeks later my lover followed suit.

Monsters.

I was feeling anxious and out of sorts about being here, lots of monster-thoughts: it was a mistake, this would break Shmita, I was ruining everything by coming home.

Sure, we hadn’t had plans-plans, but we’d more or less agreed to spend July camping in Colorado, then head to Wyoming, two dance conventions in California in August, followed by finding some quiet, pretty places in South Dakota into mid-September.

And now I was back home and none of that was happening, and my lover was selling the truck and camper, and it was all very surreal.

Being back unexpectedly in this urban environment, doing boring day-to-day things: maintenance, house stuff, errands, laundry…

Everything felt tight and cramped, both inside me and all around me, and my monsters were whispering that I had failed at Shmita, and at adventuring. Just look at yourself slinking back to Regular Life, tail between legs, they said.

They said Shmita was over now, life was just going to quietly turn back into working all the time, or to listless hanging out and hating everything, either way I was doomed to all the usual patterns.

And I worried they were right.

But of course they were wrong.

That’s the thing, right?

The monsters are best at three things: worrying, shaming, being wrong.

Remembering.

Remember back to Wish 296 when I wished for a way to track all of our ever-changing roadtrip plans? And the next week of Wish 297 when I turned “tracking” into Gathering Star Points?

Well, thanks to past-me wishing those beautiful wishes, I now have a google document called Operation True Yes, and every time plans change, the thing I was previously going to do gets put in a section called JOYFULLY SKIPPING!

This makes me smile. I remember skipping (joyfully) with my lover down the dusty path in the Red Hills, which we did right after we decided to (joyfully) skip Salt Lake City and stay in our sweet hidden campsite, back whenever that was, maybe in April.

Anyway, I was updating the document this week, feeling sad about all the adventures we aren’t currently having, conflicted about my/our decision to be in Portland, even though, yes, this is exactly what is indicated right now.

And then I realized something.

Three months.

It is exactly four months since Shmita began, and since my lover and I embarked on our roadtrip.

And four months is exactly one third of the year.

And three months is a quarter of the year. And the first three months of Shmita were incredible, and the last month has been a slog.

If my year is a compass, and of course it is, then the first three months are the progression from North to East.

My eight compass qualities for the year Shmita are as follows:

North: Adventure. Northeast: Rest. East: Horizons. Southeast: Security. South: Passion. Southwest: Sweetness. West: Clarity. Northwest: Presence.

This means the first three months were to have been about ADVENTURE-REST-HORIZONS.

Yes, that’s hilarious. That is exactly what they were about.

And guess what else this means.

Now.

I have been looking at this all wrong.

I’ve been telling this story in my head about how Shmita was this beautiful grand adventure until [I got sick and stuff happened and I had to come back to Portland], and now I’m stuck here getting my house ready to be rented out.

But that’s not what’s happening at all!

What’s happening is that I am in the second quarter.

Second. Quarter.

The second quarter is the part of the compass that goes from East to South, which means that this is the quarter of HORIZONS-SECURITY-PASSION.

And of course in a quarter anchored by security it makes sense to be in my home.

And of course if I want to focus on passion, what better place to be than in the city where I can go to Waltz Brunch and take Hip Hop Cabaret classes and choose between multiple burlesque classes….

And of course if the next indicated step is getting my house ready to rent out, and possibly find new quarters (yes, quarters) for me, then a QUARTER comprised of three months is a wonderful container for that secret op.

And of course renting out my house is about security, which allows me to pursue both horizons and passion.

Here is what I love about quarters.

One, they’re intentional.

A three month period is a chrysalis, a gestation time for something to come into being.

I don’t need to know what that is. I’m just making space for it. I’m intentionally choosing Portland, because that’s what’s indicated. And I’m naming the qualities.

This feels way different than “ugh I couldn’t make adventuring work and I had a health crisis and I had to deal with the house”.

I can be in a story about Everything Breaks And Nothing Works, or I can be in a story about Voyages Have Segments Or Chapters And I Can Welcome Myself Into This One And It Can Be Beautiful.

The other thing I love, no surprise here, is that QUARTERS is a double meaning. Quarters = time (like a fiscal quarter), and quarters = space (welcome to my quarters!).

I’ve actually written about this before.

Back in December, 2011, in a post called Metaphor Mouse helps me vacate my quarters.

That was about making peace with the calendar, and I allowed the quarters of the seasons to become living quarters! The winter cabin, the spring cottage, the summer gazebo, the fall treehouse. Metaphorical spaces to play.

And this year, on my Shmita year, the quarters are a little different.

There was mid-March to mid-June, which was about adventuring and expansiveness.

Now I am in this new quarter which is about security, foundations, things subterranean. Until mid-September when I will set sail into the next quarter.

Sailing.

My lover and I have already been talking about going to Kentucky in mid-September, which might or might not happen, and I am going to find a way to heal my tent phobia.

And whatever happens, I will be sailing South to West on the compass then, which means it will be a quarter (and quarters!) of PASSION-SWEETNESS-CLARITY.

Then the fourth quarter of Shmita, mid-December to mid-March, circling back around from West to North: CLARITY-PRESENCE-ADVENTURE! This feels so good, my toes are wriggling, and I can’t stop smiling.

I don’t even know what’s going to happen then, but I can feel Incoming Me glowing love from West and from North, waiting for me to join her, waiting for me to become her.

What is my wish about?

This shift in thinking/feeling for me has been so immediate and so all-encompassing. A complete about-face from Everything Sucks to Oh Wow So Much Beautiful Possibility.

It reminds me of when I used to do coaching, and we would have so much fun and my clients would be like, whoa wait what just happened how come everything is good right now. That kind of magic.

I no longer feel stuck in Portland. I feel excited to be here, to be investigating this quarter and these quarters, finding out what is here for me.

So my wish is to bring this outlook, this thrill of anticipation, and this playful intentionality into every aspect of my day, especially into things that feel tight or stuck. My wish is to play.

Invitation.

You are invited to share many !!!!!! about this big realization, to share anything sparked for you about QUARTERS or time or play, to say “oh wow, what beautiful wishes” to me and to each other, to wish your own wishes.

GUESS WHAT ELSE! Fluent Self Care packages!

I made FOUR playful and play-filled Care Packages filled with clues, at least one squooshy companion for whatever you’re working on, and various other inspiring, calming Playground goodies.

One is for anyone who teaches. One is for anyone who needs some SPARKLE. One is for someone ready to set off on an Adventure and in need of some light-hearted, playful energy. And one is if you need sweetness.

And because I am feeling filled up on THANK YOU right now, I will also throw in either the Monster Manual & Coloring Book (basic version) or the Art of Embarking course, whichever you like, if you get one of these.

These care packages are gone. More to come, though! Price: $65 including shipping for one of the care packages and one of the above bonuses. Make your choice and email the First Mate with your preferences!

Now.

My toes are painted in a secret spy color: AFFAIR IN RED SQUARE.

I am drinking my favorite tea because it is finally cool enough to drink tea in the evenings.

I am thinking about snakes shedding skin, about kaleidoscopes, about blues dancing, about my beloved apartment in Florentin (south Tel Aviv) where I lived after my divorce, and about flowers and how they make everything better.

What does Slightly Future Me have to say?

Ze: You are the queen of bolt-holes, and you are an absolute genius to recognize that this is the Quarter for working on your Quarters.
Me: That is hilarious, but I love that you think this.
Ze: Let this story forever be a reminder of the truth of Nothing Is Wrong.

Clues.

I have these pirate cushions from my former retreat center, which I’m planning to bring to my brother’s nautically-themed wedding.

On the one hand they show water and sea and ships and pirates: ADVENTURE, and, on the other hand, they’re cushions. So they are actually about softness, comfort, resting, security.

I put Adventure and Security into this year’s compass, not sure how they’d work together, but actually this is all going to be fine.

The superpower of this is a badass way to live.

June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and now July is LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.

This is a badass way to live.

Choosing safety AND freedom instead of safety OR freedom. Choosing adventure AND security instead of believing in the myth of Either/Or.

Choosing love, and choosing from love, and making change from love. From love, towards more love. Not out of shame or regret or guilt. From love into love. It’s wildly subversive and yes, a badass way to live.

Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…

Nap, dance, write, play, labyrinths. Get quiet. Sweet pauses, yes to red lights and purple pills, thank you to the broken pots. Costume changes. Skip stones. Body first. Thank you in advance. Eight breaths in eight directions:

Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

So. Last week aka Subterranean…

All of this releasing work to get my downstairs quarters ready, and then this week I had a massive understanding about being in a new quarter, how perfect is that.

Also I am now feeling excited about that project rather than overwhelmed and resigned, so that’s a new and beautiful development as well.

Thank you, process of writing about wishes. Thank you, me who asked.

Ongoing Wishes. Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere. Ha, this doesn’t require my input! My business is thriving happily without me. I think like a dancer. It’s so perfect it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS. I have what I need, and appreciate it. I am fearless and confident. I state my preferences clearly, calmly and easily, no big deal. I claim my superpowers. Love more. Trust more. Release more. Receive more.

Keep me company! Or just say hi!

You can deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads, superpowers, qualities, seeds, secret agent code, whatever you’d like, there’s no right way! Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is sharing anything sparked for you.

Comment culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play and throw things in the pot! With amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.

Here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: Oh, wow. What beautiful wishes.

xox

Chicken 363: times a thousand

by Havi Brooks | Jul 10, 2015 | my personal practice

A look at the good and the hard in my week, a ritual of reflecting.

It is Friday and we are here.

{a breath for Friday, for this space, for being here when we get here.}

Next week is SEVEN YEARS of consecutive Chickens. I am genuinely astonished.

What worked this week?

Eight breaths of safety.

This week was hard for me in so many different ways.

Each time I remembered to take eight breaths, I felt better. Breathing around my body, breathing the compass directions. Inhaling safety, dissolving in safety. Exhaling safety, glowing safety.

Sometimes the first few breaths don’t really seem to do anything, but by the time I complete the circle, I feel better.

This week required doing this on repeat, then forgetting and falling apart, then doing it again. It helped.

Noticing.

The hard things of this week were…sequential? Cyclical?

It wasn’t like this: Okay, here is this hard thing and here is this other hard thing, and here’s how they might be connected.

It was more like a chain:

Awful thing A triggered hard thing B, which launched challenging C, which resulted in uncomfortable D, leading me to miserable E.

So that wasn’t fun, but noticing this was actually really helpful.

It helped me (and my monsters) recognize why self-care is so important.

In fact, my monsters changed their tune pretty fast from “Ugh you’re a big baby who needs to grow up and be able to handle a couple hours of fireworks” to “If you had just avoided the trauma of being near explosions and taken better care of yourself, none of these other bad things would have happened!”

Anyway, that was really useful to notice. Everything leads to something else. Lots of places to interrupt the pattern, and also I am going to remember that avoiding known triggers is a deep act of love.

Next time I might…

Turn inward.

I craved connection so much this week, because I was in so much trauma.

And I looked for it in the least helpful places, facebook and twitter.

Next time I would like to turn inward, and connect with myself. I can ask Incoming Me or Slightly Future Me or Slightly Wiser me to keep me company or share encouragement. We can journal together or color monsters together. I can ask them questions. They can tell me comforting things.

I would like to stay offline and not go looking for substitute connection which of course just results in separation and distance.

And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…

Oh right, of course, these are Moontime Tears. The Havi Brooks Story.

Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

I thought I could handle the Fourth of July explosions, and I did really great for the first couple hours, but they lasted until one in the morning, and I gradually lost the ability to experience it as anything other than an assault on my home and senses, to know that it wasn’t a war zone raging outside, to believe that I wasn’t about to die, even though I could hear stupid boys proclaiming drunken everlasting dudebro love to each other outside. I was still reliving the terrorist attack and the aftermath over and over. I hid in bed and my breath scared me and I couldn’t feel my body anymore. A breath for remembering that I am safe, that now is not then
The next day, it was like I didn’t have skin anymore. Everything was just so unbelievably raw. Like, just being alive was raw and exposed. My ears were ringing, and kept ringing for days. All sounds were intensely amplified, and noises that I normally find medium-annoying were agonizing torture. I thought everyone on the street wanted to attack me, and I took complicated detours to avoid any interaction. It was so much like then that I almost believed it was Then. A breath for me, who is so very lost without her force field.
Because of the rawness, I couldn’t do any of the things that would normally be healing or grounding for me. I tried to go work out but the music was suddenly so loud that even hiding in the back with ear plugs was unbearable. I couldn’t take a bath because my skin hurt. I couldn’t go dancing because the thought of being around people made me want to cry. Chronic fatigue, pain, anxiety and fear. A breath for this state of perceived helplessness, and forgetting how to take care of myself.
Because I couldn’t do things to take care of myself, I lost my ability to feel and trust my instincts, to tell the difference between real and perceived threat, to recognize the best move. A breath for remembering that I am safe and loved and held in grace.
Because of not knowing where I was, I couldn’t remember that now is not then. So when my lover decided to sell the truck and camper (an excellent decision, which I fully support), I got completely triggered clearing out my stuff and giving up my keys. I thought I was homeless again. Even though I literally own a house. I couldn’t remember anything that is true. A breath for truth, because truth just is, even when I forget about it.
Because I had lost my connection to myself and to my sense of being at home in the world, I turned towards outside instead of inside for connection. I lived on Twitter. I shared every thought with no filter. I absorbed the pain of the internet. Having lost my boundaries and force field, I lost my ability to hear my steady and true yes or no, so I clicked on links I normally wouldn’t have, and learned just how many people I know apparently want to defend Bill Cosby, and oh how I let myself be dragged into entire worlds that I do not need to spend time in. I reacted to things not worth reacting to. I let everything about this exhausting internet world of click-baiting think-pieces get under my skin, the skin that wasn’t there. I vented in the wrong places. I even forgot the golden rule of Yes Do Not Click On These Things Ever But For The Love Of God Especially Not The Day Before Your Period Because It Is Not Worth It. A breath for remembering: none of this is real. Love is real. Let’s remember our way back to love, sweet girl.
Thanks to the above, every possible miscommunication and misunderstanding ensued. A breath of love, to dissolve the misunderstandings, and a breath of safety for everyone who needs safety
Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.

Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.

The heat broke, and everything got better. Being able to go for a walk in the park at 7:30pm and jump in the fountain instead of having to apply ice packs: heaven. Cool air. Deep sleep. Even at my most PTSD-ed, I am a much more functional person when it’s not 99 degrees Fahrenheit. A breath for this sweet respite, and for going to sleep without a hundred fans.
My beautiful lover came back from Utah and drove a million miles to get to me, after sixteen long days apart, and my heart filled with joy. Three sweet and steamy beautiful nights of holding each other and smiling and breathing together. A breath for this feeling.
So much tenderness, so much deep vulnerable sweetness. I didn’t even know I could be this raw and uncovered with someone. And when I panic at night and he is asleep, he rubs my hand with his thumb as if even asleep he just radiates comfort. A breath for being unselfconsciously present with another human being in this way which I didn’t know how to do before like this.
The plus of not being able to do anything because of ptsd was that I just took care of myself and rested. Remember last week and the salve of Self-Care Is My Extreme Sport? It was. I basically just slept through this week and stared into space a lot and made very simple food and cried when I needed to cry. This too is part of Shmita. And taking too much in and being raw and hurting led me to a new commitment to Reducing Input In All Forms. A breath for taking care of myself.
I was able to remember that Shit Is Not About Me, and that when there are misunderstandings with people I love, it’s just two beautiful people in their stuff, each with our personalized misperceptions that make total sense because of our unique and sometimes matching pain filters. A breath for may all misunderstandings dissolve in love. I trusted the process, and didn’t do that thing where I try to sort it out, and I reminded myself that all these misunderstandings can heal themselves under the surface. And another breath for love, because it really is all love.
So many good surprises coming out of all the releasing I’ve been doing. Two big things I have secretly wished for but not allowed myself to know that I was wishing because I never thought would happen came true this week, completely out of the blue. I am convinced that this is not unrelated to the twenty boxes I released from my basement, and all the pain that was in those boxes. A breath of love for the healing superpowers of fractal flowers.
I had the most wonderful realization that is hard to explain, so I will just say that I understood that everything I thought was not good about this week was actually just right, and is leading me to all the right things. So I was able to feel thankfulness even as I was in this raw, exposed state of pain. A breath for appreciating the threads that go into the tapestry.
Thankfulness. So much is good. Eating sabich at Wolf & Bear. Watching Chef’s Table with Richard. The other side of the penny of [having no filter and being completely raw] is the superpower of IDGAF x1000, and while I’m very much looking forward to not saying everything I think the second I think it, there is also something very powerful hidden in there. Lira sent a hug and then I found it when I needed it. Agent Annabelle kept me on track. My lover really and truly doesn’t mind that sometimes I just cry all the time. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong, even when I think it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thankful for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.