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.

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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
8. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.

Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!

Operations completed. Wham boom!

I sorted through more boxes. I made a secret document for Operation Subterranean. I did laundry. I went back to bed. We can 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 Staying Hydrated, Telling the Truth, and recognizing Good Surprises.

Powers I want.

I want all the superpowers of Seeing Beauty Everywhere At All Times, including in me.

The Salve of Love Is A Badass Way To Live.

July is the month of Love, according to the Fluent Self calendar this year, and this is the superpower of that month, and I need this more than anything in the entire world.

When I put on this salve, all the distortions and false separations melt away. I remember that everyone has pain, just like me, and everyone has preferences just like me, and no one wants to be misunderstood or disbelieved or falsely accused or left behind, or whatever our deepest fears might be.

I remember that there is love inside of the boxes in my basement.

And even though it is hard for me to be someone who is rubbed raw by sound and memory, I have so much love for me who went through the hard things, and future-me has so much love for me-now, and there is enough of this love.

Who is it who said, there is enough love in you to heal the whole world with one breath, so turn all that power inward and breathe it just for you, and then trust that this will do the healing work.

Something like that, but said so much better. This salve is like knowing that, in your body, and living it and trusting it. May it be so. Because that, my darlings, is a badass way to live.

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

This week’s band has to do with my giant epiphany and it’s called Everything Is A Sham. Their latest album is No Really What If Everything Is A Sham. They play polka-funk hula music and it’s actually 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.

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!

Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.

♡

Maybe.

I had an interesting experience/realization/epiphany Saturday morning, and I started writing about it and then stopped.

I wanted to tell you about it, to come here and talk it out, like I do, because maybe that will help me understand it better, because companionship is a lovely thing.

Except then I didn’t write about it because it was the Fourth of July and that evening explosions happened and kept happening, and I was hiding.

And then I didn’t want to come back to anything from that day, because it hurt too much.

Basement.

This past week has found me mostly in the basement. Easing and releasing.

Partly-mostly for the cooler air, and also to make progress on the enormous project that is clearing out the basement so that we can maybe-eventually sooner-rather-than-later rent out the house. 

I’m excited about this change, and yet the basement project — Operation Subterranean! — has been hard and frustrating and kind of awful, really. For a number of reasons.

There’s the pain of not seeing results…

It took six full days of blood, sweat and tears before I even made a visible dent.

At times, even after emptying so many boxes and filling the municipal recycling bin to overflowing, the basement actually seemed to be more of a disaster than it had been before. 

Of course it was. I just forgot that sometimes — often — chaos and disruption is a vital part of the releasing, not a sign that releasing isn’t working.

The part — ha — where I massively underestimated everything.

This is a theme in my life, as you know.

Here’s what happened. I made some extravagantly off-base guesses about the scope of this project, based on nothing? Based on the dismissive mutterings of my monsters?

For whatever reason, I’m not sure when or how or why, I apparently just decided at some point that clearing out the basement should take a week.

In fact, that’s kind of why I’d never attempted it. I mean, who has a week to devote to going through stacks of boxes.

Except I came back from Portland to escape the heat of Escalante, Utah, and I did have a week and didn’t have air conditioning so I had to hide in the basement anyway, and it turns out that my estimate was fantastically inaccurate.

It’s not a week-long project. Even now that I’ve hit a huge turning point, there’s no way I’m even close to halfway through. 

Sadness.

Some of you know this and some of you don’t, but I used to have a retreat center here in Portland, and it was absolutely breathtakingly magical, and also very successful.

When an opportunity fell into my lap to expand, it felt like my heart expanded with it: like my heart was a hundred times bigger, I was this vessel of love and potential, it was thrilling and overpowering and I was ready to bring the culture we have here into the big, wide world.

We went full speed ahead, and it crashed and burned, and I lost everything-everything-everything including this feeling of Big Heart, including my ability to trust my desire to create things. It was all gone.

So, over the past few years, six thousand feet of furnished space had to be dealt with, not to mention endless paperwork, boxes of notes and binders from bringing it into existence to calling time of death.

This week felt like an endless walk through a maze-like museum of loss and pain.

And then something happened.

Well, a couple things happened. 

First: VISIBLE PROGRESS. Two rooms now look totally transformed, and even though yes, they are still full of crap, it looks intentional, not like the aftermath of a tornado.

This feels so good.

And then I had this sudden lightning bolt of a realization: What if all this stuff is evidence of love instead of evidence of shame?

WHAT IF ALL OF THIS STUFF IS EVIDENCE OF LOVE INSTEAD OF EVIDENCE OF SHAME.

 
Whoa. 

New evidence.

I mean, I have been seeing all of this stuff in the basement as “the overwhelming evidence that I failed, I screwed up, I let everyone down.”

So of course going through it all has just been so much guilt and shame and grief and agony. 

What if I was looking at it all wrong though.

Love.

What if all of these things are signs that I LOVED and CARED and WAS INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE.

And what if — monsters freaking out over here just at the thought of typing this — what if it is not my fault that I lost this, that I made something and loved it more than anything, and it died and I couldn’t save it. What if none of that is my fault.

That is a thing that can happen in business. And anyway, what if crashing and burning is was what it was there to do, what if nothing is wrong, what if I couldn’t have saved it anyway, what if all my choices were legitimate instead of disastrous, what if I was just a person filled with love who acted from love and wanted to fill the world with love?

What if I was just ahead of my time, which, probably, yes, that too. What if I needed to direct that love other places but love was still the right ingredient?

What if it’s all love…?

What if it’s all love.

Nothing but signs of love.

I loved and loved and loved and loved.

Look at all this beautiful love.

That’s what this basement is. That’s what my entire past is.

And then laughter.

I left the basement and came upstairs, and in the kitchen I saw the Fluent Self calendar on the wall and laughed my face off because we are now in July, the month of LOVE.

We made it. To LOVE. After all that letting go. After the molasses-slow slog that was the month of RELEASE. 

Love follows Release.

Do you see?

Releasing and then: Love..

Transition between the months/qualities isn’t just Releasing into Love, though that is a wonderful way to release.

And it isn’t just doing the work of releasing so there can be more Love .

And it isn’t even just releasing my need for Love so that I can be Love.

It’s this:

RELEASING ALLOWS ME SEE THAT EVERYTHING I WAS RELEASING EXISTED BECAUSE OF LOVE.

It’s all because of love.

Everything in my basement is there because of love, and I’m letting go of it because of love. My big heart: it’s back.

Releasing makes room for me to experience love. Releasing allows me to find the love.

It’s right where I left it.

Here. In the basement. Here. In my heart.

What is my wish?

To let go, let go, let go, let go some more.

To see love where it is. To see love where I forgot to look. To see love where I’m sure it’s not there.

And, as always, Safety First.

To take exquisite care of myself to the best of my ability. To remember that nothing is more important than this, even though I often seem to think everything is more important than this.

To say WHOOSH GOODBYE to what is done, and to wave goodbye, with love. From love to love.

Invitation.

You are invited to share many !!!!!! about this big realization, to muse on the possible connections between love and releasing, releasing and love, to share in the joy of how marvelous the Calendars of Qualities are that we make each year, 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 was putting a care package together for my friend M. And then I was laughing because I need to send myself self-care packages. And then I have all these wonderful things left over from my center, so it’s fluent-self-care packages! Multiple meanings.

I am going to put some together for us. If you want a surprise Care Package of wondrous Fluent Self things, and you also want to give $50 or more to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund this week, I will put together the best care package ever just for you!

Now.

My housemate is upstairs, puttering and pacing. The neighbors are working on a project in the yard. The washing machine is rattling a bit. It’s nice, after the past week and a half of being alone in the house, surrounded by boxes in the basement.

The mood of mourning is lifting, this project is starting to feel less like emptying and more like spring cleaning.

I wouldn’t say that I feel energized, exactly. But the fog is clearing, and I am ready to see love in the corners, to bring love to the corners.

All the superpowers of that: may it be so, for all of us.

What does Slightly Future Me have to say?

Ze: You opened [the place that died] because of love, and love is still here. Try on that filter and look at everything you have ever done, tried, experimented with. Your whole life is just rotating molecules of love.
Me: I don’t think I’m ready to handle that yet, actually.
Ze: No worries, my love. Let’s just drop it, we can drop like a pebble in the water, forget the pebble for now, and just breathe with the ripples. Safety first, always.

Clues.

I found a bottle of sparkling apple cider that someone left at my chocolate shop six months ago, and decided that today is the day to drink it.

I was afraid the popping noise of the cork might set things off after I am finally calming down from the firework explosions, so I asked my housemate to open it for me.

I waited on the stairs, and there in front of me was a tiny anchor that I brought back from the center when it closed.

Anchored. And also sparkling.

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 — this — being in my love-heart, this is a badass way to live.

And I got here through releasing more, so I am going to keep releasing.

Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

So. Last week aka easing and…

I wished for ease with releasing, and — holy shit, it happened. I mean, first I got a lot of not-ease with releasing, but that’s how wishes work. You bring things up to the surface, and you see things you didn’t want to see, while in the process of transforming, healing, letting go.

Here’s to two rooms cleared out! Here’s to setting a date for a yard sale! Here’s to emptying out my belongings from the camper where I have been living with my lover since March. Here’s to this new moment.

And of course subterranean turned out to be exquisitely layered in meaning, and that is not a bad thing at all.

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

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