It is Friday and we are here.

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

What worked this week?

Asking people who know.

I’ve been off gluten for fourteen months, but as far as I can remember, partaking in gluten usually just results in feeling sluggish and headachey.

This week, I had an ongoing health crisis, and wasn’t sure how much of what I was experiencing might be gluten-poisoning-related.

Texting Julie made everything better. She confirmed that my symptoms were EXACTLY what she goes through when she gets stealth-glutened, and hearing this took the edge off of my Oh Shit What Is Happening To Me panic.

Next time I might…

Say no when I don’t have a yes.

Not sure why I have to keep learning this.

Or why I keep dismissing it in the face of Logic — well, we traveled X hours and paid Y sum of money so we might as well do this thing that we know we don’t want to do.

No more. Let go, let go, let go.

Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. A perfect storm of health issues, with stealth-gluten being just one of many pieces resulting in a very unhappy and uncomfortable Havi. And a wildly complicated bureaucratic nightmare trying to get help with them. A breath for trust and for healing.
2. Much panic regarding the above. It isn’t helpful, but there it is. A breath for presence.
3. Exhaustion due to both of the above. Even by the time I was mostly back to functional after seven days of hard, a five minute “workout” knocked me out completely. A breath for this.
4. Why is the world. Oh, I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. After Memorial Day we stayed in the forest, and it was completely trashed. Just awful to see. Or the news that France’s parliament has voted to forbid big supermarkets from destroying unsold food, encouraging them to donate to charities or farms instead, as part of a national campaign against food waste.This is GOOD news, obviously. And yet, why do we still live in a world where supermarkets destroy their food — or worse, put bleach on it so hungry people can’t take it from their dumpsters. Why is not giving it to charities and feeding the hungry THE AUTOMATIC SOLUTION. Why do we live in such a terrible way that this kind of thinking, doing the right thing, is innovative. My heart aches for the world. It just hurts. A breath for healing.
5. Perceiving distance when I crave closeness. A theme. A breath for turning inward and being close with myself.
6. Being in pain (even mild discomfort) just makes everything that much harder. Unsure about decisions. Unsure about everything. A breath for this.
7. Oh, plans changing in big and small ways. Mostly big. Many mysteries, including the Mystery of How Did I Make Plans And Buy Plane Tickets But Get The Date Wrong By A Month, the Mystery of How Do I Learn To Treat Myself Like The Most Sensitive Deer, the Mystery of Loving Downstairs and healing Downstairs at the same time but in a way that works for me, and the Mystery of Releasing and More Releasing. The Mystery Of Ohmygod Literal Gunshots Right Outside The Business I Own In Portland. Oh, and the Mystery of Why Does Stomach Ease Tea Contain Gluten When Gluten Is Why I Need The Tea To Begin With. A breath for hidden solutions, and for trusting the process.
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 worst symptoms have gotten better, pretty amazing to not be in constant pain. A breath for this.
2. Leaving Fresno early and heading for the hills. A breath for how healing it is for me to be outdoors.
3. Sleeping in the woods! I slept like a baby. Twelve hours each night. Peeking out of the camper skylight at night to see the big dipper right above us, waking up surrounded by green. A breath for joy.
4. Oh the woods and the rocks and how good this feels. We went for a lovely hike at Courtright Reservoir, and a two and a half meandering wander through woods and meadows. We saw many, many deer. And a bird catching a fish. And it was just quiet and peaceful and just-us. A breath for all of this.
5. Still loving Shmita with all of its challenges and wonder. A breath for easing and releasing
6. A decision that feels yes landed at the right time. And then another one. A breath for hearing the yes.
7. My wonderful friend the vicar calmed me down when I was panicking and gave me sound medical advice and took me seriously without taking my jewish-hypochondriac-monsters seriously. And he said the exact right thing at the exact right time: “I adore you, you’re in pain, you’re far away, it’s a crappy situation and I’m sorry”. Yes. That actually made everything easier. A breath for this, and for pain meds and for really bad puns and for comfort.
8. Thankfulness. So much is good. Holding hands with my traveling companion and smiling like dorks. Roasted beets and potatoes and garlic in the camper. Fixed the soup by adding potato and sauteed mushrooms. Amye cheered me up at the exact right moment. Wrote a post because I felt like it. Said no to one adventure and yes to another one, because I am a grand adventuress. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. 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!

This was a week of magically using up all the food in the fridge, good writing, good thinking, good processing. Thank you, Mission of Less, and fractal flowers, thank you Shmita, thank you Switch/Swoop. Wham Boom.

Superpowers I had this week…

I had the superpower of Twelve Hours of Healing Sleep Every Night, and the superpower of remembering to Twizzledaddle (that’s what the boy calls spirals).

Powers I want.

Last week I asked for I Joyfully Avoid Things That Are Unnecessary, and oh how I want more of that. I would also like That Was A Great Decision, and some Glow Like A Pro.

The Salve of Joyfully Avoiding Things That Are Unnecessary.

This salve makes it easier to say no, and suddenly the no becomes kind of fun.

Sometimes you don’t even have to say it, you just radiate it, and you laugh, and everyone understands completely.

When I put this on my skin, I feel a light tingling sensation and then I am somehow giddy and grounded at the same time.

I walk around saying yes to my yes and joyfully avoiding all things that do not support me. They are gloriously unnecessary now, and I delight in not doing them.

This is a secret sovereignty salve and it glows like diamonds.

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

This week’s band comes from Richard and it’s called Soup Rescue, and it’s actually just one guy.

And my upcoming Biopic…

It Looks Like A Bowl. The Havi Brooks Story.

Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.

I am recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, aka the thing that keeps me from falling apart, and the only way I got through this week of pain, worry and doubt.

Come play if you like…

Join me in the comments. You are welcome to take a breath, share something from your week, leave warmth or hearts, whatever works for you. 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 — join in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!

Bells.

Sometimes someone says something very, very wise, and it is the exact right moment for you to hear it, and the words reverberate within you and around you like a singing bowl.

You are a bell and the words are bells and you bell together.

And then, later, you can re-hear the words or conjure them up in your mind, and it’s as if that bell is still ringing, still sending faint vibrations through the orbit of your life.

Sometimes so much is going on in the moment that you miss the original ringing, but it happens anyway, and then later you remember and you feel that circular hum around you, clearing everything out with quiet steady truth.

Sigal.

Many years ago, in Tel Aviv, I used to trek to Sigal’s house three times a week for yoga. And by “yoga”, I mean intense body-mind-spirit practice. And by “house”, I mean a small falling-apart shack by the sea.

We were a small, devoted group of oddballs, and Sigal was our intense recluse of a teacher. She lived yoga, and we lived to learn.

Occasionally someone would yelp during shavasana when a rat scampered over their leg, and maybe Sigal would yell at us when we weren’t getting a concept, and at times we would all collapse in laughter, but mostly my memories from this time are about the potency of the quiet: internal and external quiet.

It was the quiet that rang in me like a bell.

Sure, things were blowing up (literally and figuratively) in the city and in my life, but these times with Sigal were for deep tranquility, turning inward, softening and releasing.

Her classes would go about two and a half hours, with meditation, and then we’d all kind of pass out on the floor for a while and then gradually we would emerge from this bliss-state into a slightly more functional bliss-state, and then we would sit with her and drink mint tea and be quiet.

Talking.

Sometimes a new person would show up, and they would either be scared off by the intensity of it all or dive right in. Sometimes they liked to talk, a lot, and you’d wait for the quiet to reach them.

One day this young woman came, and at the end, sitting in a heap, huddled in blankets, steady breath, the steam rising from our tea, she started talking about cellulite, and she wouldn’t stop talking about it.

I wasn’t paying attention at first, because I was too deep in quiet-state, but at some point I looked up and suddenly we were all listening.

She was saying, “I really liked the practice, I liked how physical it was and also all the resting, that was really good, but my main goal right now, like I said, is to work on cellulite since I’m already in pretty good shape. Is this really going to help me with that or should I just stick with pilates?”

Not my area.

We all looked at each other.

Sigal answered, “That’s not my area.” She sounded bored.

“What do you mean? You’re a yoga teacher. How is that not your area?” the girl wanted to know.

Sigal’s eyes flashed. “I deal with cellulite of the mind. Brain-cellulite. But the body kind, that’s not my area, I don’t know about that and I don’t think about it. Not my area.”

That’s not my area. Back to breathing.

This is the phrase that reverberates when my monsters have something critical to say about my almost-forty-year-old body.

Thinking something is wrong with how my body looks, deciding that the container which houses my beautiful soul and allows me to move and breathe is somehow unattractive or not good enough because it doesn’t look like it did twenty years ago or because it doesn’t measure up to the fantasy world of magazine standards, believing all the invented external reasons to feel bad about myself…that’s cellulite of the mind.

Not being impressed by the monster-critique…that’s the real yoga. By which I mean: that’s presence. That’s the ringing bell of presence.

“Oh look, I’m worried about cellulite and other forms of not-truth again. That’s okay. I can let it go. It’s not my area.”

Back to breathing. Back to presence.

Presence.

Presence is my area. Noticing the internalized self-criticism is my area. Saying thank you to my body for everything it does for me is my area. Legitimacy and permission to feel bad about myself if not liking myself is what’s temporarily true for me in the moment, because hey, we all have this intense cultural conditioning to unravel, that’s my area too.

Everything that falls into the category of “how can I take better care of myself, with as much love as I can manage”, that is my area.

Everything that falls into the category of “oh here’s another bullshit thing that is supposedly wrong with me”, that’s not my area. Unless I want to try to heal what’s behind that, because that takes me back to things which are my area.

Last week.

Every once in a while I make the mistake of reading stuff on Facebook, speaking of things that are not my area, and last week I saw that someone I vaguely know, a YOGA TEACHER of all people, had posted something about cellulite.

Specifically, it was a photo of a young, thin, white, tanned, toned, able-bodied woman with flawless skin and a phenomenal body (by current cultural standards), and she was pinching her butt, for no apparent reason, since, in this photoshopped picture, there was nothing for her to even theoretically object to.

The statement on this, from, again, AN ACTUAL YOGA TEACHER, a dude, was this: “Every woman hates to have cellulite! Those hideous looking fat deposits…”

I don’t remember the rest. I asked if his account had been hacked, and added that while not all woman necessarily hate to have cellulite, all the women (aka people) I know hate to be told that something about them is hideous.

He didn’t respond, and I unfollowed, because life is short and I have enough brain-cellulite and internal criticism of my own to explore without needing to see more external reminders of Things That Are Not Truth.

What is my area and what is not my area.

My area:

• Noticing my thoughts and feelings without letting them define me, without thinking that they are the whole of my existence.
• Permission and legitimacy to be where I’m at in the moment. This is me, this is my stuff, this is my pain, this is what I am experiencing right now.
• Cultivating an environment that supports my quiet knowing of truth, my bell state. And if that means removing people/situations/experiences that are not bell-friendly, so be it.
• Trusting that new people will come into my life who share my mission, it is safe to let people go.
• A body relationship based on trust, listening, support, caring and love.
• Breathing.
• Asking “what is true and what’s also true“.
• Creating my own culture, surrounding myself with reminders of what how I want to live.
• Talking things out with my monsters, and coloring together.
• Remembering that there is a huge difference between what yoga means to me (the gentle art and science of getting quiet enough to hear who I am, what I need, how to take care of myself and meet myself with love), and what yoga means to a lot of other people (pink leotards, a thing someone might do at the gym, handstands, stretching). Apply translation as necessary.

Not my area:

• Comparison.
• Trying to “fix” myself.
• Participating in a surrounding culture which values self-“improvement” and pushing past limits, and devalues listening to my body or trusting internal wisdom.

Words that are like bells.

It’s helpful for me to have these reminders of truth, these words that are like bells:

Not My Area. Now Is Not Then. Nothing Is Wrong. Not My Bus.*

If I can’t remember truth, a song will work too.

At Rally (Rally!), we used to sing sea shanties every night.

Singing is calming, steadying. It reverberates. It changes internal space (in your body, in your mind) and external space (in the room).

And sea shanties have a repetitive chorus, which means they work like secret mantras: they replace the things repeating in your head with something that rings at a different vibration, a different frequency.

So if my normal headspace is choppy, jumping from worry-thought to worry-thought in an endless loop: “He said X, and I should have said Y, and oh no what if everyone hates me, and how am I ever going to achieve Z if I don’t take care of A, B, and C, and what if people figure out that I’m no good at anything, and ugh, everything is a disaster…”

Replacing it with something else that is equally repetitive but less zappy — something steadier, a better loop — brings me back to quiet, presence, the ringing bell of truth.

Of the mind.

This is what I try to remember each time I get sucked back into things the bigger culture thinks are important.

Things like cellulite or imaginary numbers on scales or defining what I do for a living or business models and deadlines and accomplishments and “get things done” and “do epic shit” (because otherwise if we aren’t doing things — meaningful things — every second we are apparently wasting our lives?) and all the ceaseless pressure that comes along with this.

This is not my area. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. I can choose my area.

And right now I choose being a bell. A reverberating bell of remembering.

Comments! Aka come play with me!

You are invited to share things sparked for you while reading.

Or you can delight in saying NOT MY AREA to anything that is not your area! It’s surprisingly fun. Or ring a bell. That’s fun too.

I’d also love to hear other phrases that work like bells for you, or anything useful you’ve received from this site (concepts, phrases, reminders) which do this for you.

As always, we all have our stuff. We all have stuff and we’re all working on it, at our own time and pace. It’s a process.

We make safe space for this, and for each other, and we support this sweet corner of the internet by not giving each other advice, not analyzing each other, not telling people what they should try or how they should feel. We meet ourselves and each other with warmth and sweetness. We practice.

Love, as always, to the commenters, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads. And bells.