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.
Chicken 341: like a mermaid
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Beautiful containers. And permission to care about this!
I was talking with a friend about lip color, and the many mysteries thereof in my love-hate-love relationship with it, and how a good color in an unattractive tube just doesn’t work.
And she said, YES THE CONTAINER IS EVERYTHING!
Anyway, that was kind of the theme of this week, in a variety of ways.
Putting things I like into beautiful containers, both literally and symbolically…that’s what worked for me this week.
That, and acknowledging that I care a lot about packaging, and this is okay. This is something I can know about myself, and it doesn’t matter that the monsters want me to think it’s shallow. The container changes the experience. For me.
I took my favorite makeup and squeezed it into an empty tiger balm jar, and now I don’t have to look at the stupid plastic case that I never liked, and I smile whenever I see it.
I emptied out all the iguanas from the nook where I used to nap, and now it is a beautiful container for me. This is important for me to remember. Beautiful containers are helpful for a Havi.
Next time I might…
Release comparison.
It causes pain.
I mean, it brings momentary ease when I use to it to artificially feel better about myself, but that isn’t real ease, and mainly it brings pain.
This week I had minimal use of my knee, and found myself focusing on people who can do things I can’t, and that was not fun, so let’s not do that.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Knee still very painful. A breath for relief.
- Not being able to do things is emotionally painful right now in addition to the physical discomfort. I get so depressed sitting around and not being a gazelle. Both my housemate and the beautiful boy took turns moving everything out of the Playground, and I felt frustrated and vulnerable watching them do everything, not being able to help. A breath for perspective and remembering truth.
- Some very old, forgotten memories got stirred up this week, which is useful, and also I experienced deep heart-pain while this was happening. A breath for healing in the form of easing and releasing, the themes of this year.
- Missing my lover so very much, and wishing we were on the road together. A breath for trust, and for peacefulness.
- Still letting go of everything, so much letting go. I sat on the floor of the Playground and cried my eyes out. I love it so much, and this is right, and this is how it needs to happen, and oh, letting go. A breath for goodbyes said with love.
- Big reactiveness. Deep in old patterns. I am being given a pretty obvious opportunity to look at the less-than-helpful ways I try to protect myself when I am in pain: I am cold/negative/judgmental/harsh/distant with people, and use my pain as the story or the excuse. This is not what I want. A breath for safety, for new choices, for the legitimacy of grumpiness, for meeting myself with love.
- Oh god, looked at a website I should not have looked at, instantly regretted it, kept looking, the whole thing turned into an evening of monster-distortions and I-am-not-good-enough. A breath for this, for comfort, for releasing comparison in all forms.
- 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.
- I am now almost back to full range of motion with my knee! And while it hurts all the time, it hurts less than it did before, and it doesn’t hurt more when I walk. I have also been slow-walking through aerobics classes. I can’t plié or lunge or do anything with a level change yet, trying to not give my knee too much to do, but I can walk around to music, and it feels so good to be moving my body again. A breath of appreciation and gratitude for this.
- Thank you so much to the woman who yelled from her car window about how cute my shoes are, when I was deep in distress about Life Stuff. That totally helped, and it got me back to breathing and smiling. A breath for the reset button.
- It’s software, not hardware! I find this endlessly reassuring. It’s just a pattern that past-me installed because she wanted to keep me safe, and I can replace it with something that works better. A breath for the cage not being a cage.
- Wednesday night with my lover. Curled up on the couch making plans, talking about living intentionally, and radical sovereignty. Falling asleep on his chest, feeling peaceful, at ease, blissfully content. A breath for a full heart.
- Perfect simple solutions. A breath of thank you.
- Marisa and I went for a Regrounding. (Shhh, it’s a pedicure, something my monsters think is indulgent, however they were impressed by evidence showing my life is better when I feel grounded). I care a lot about the name of the color of a nail polish, I think this is related to my love of beautiful containers, and all the colors had the worst names. Like, mysteriously terrible names. Almost as if they were reflecting my moodiness. You would not believe the names of these colors! I Accomplished Zero Today, A Rose At Dawn Broke By Noon, Cherried Away, In The Park After Dark, Skating On Thin Iceland. What?! I know. So then I found a color called Metamorphosis, a gorgeous sparkly green-blue, and now I feel amazing, like a mermaid, and I never would have even looked at that color had the reds and pinks not had these awful names. A breath for being redirected, for fun surprises, and for all the superpowers of mermaids.
- I practiced Enter As You Wish To Be In It this week, and this made everything better. A breath of love.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!
Operations completed. Wham boom!
Emptied the rest of the Playground! Did a bunch of writing. Took care of five interactions I’d been avoiding. Thank you fractal flowers and thank you, FLOOP! Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise words from past-me.
This wonderful practice of noticing: my toes lift up in a little dance…
Superpowers I had this week…
I had the power of seeing the connections between seemingly unrelated memories.
Powers I want.
I want, again, the superpower of Totally Unfazed By Any Of This. And I want the power of clear seeing.
The Salve of Beautifully Redirected.
When I wear this salve, I smile at red lights and missed buses. I laugh when we get to the bridge, and then the bridge goes up to let a ship pass beneath it.
I trust in right timing, and I trust in the redirection. If I think I am supposed to go to point A, and the way to point A is full of obstacles, then hello, Point B. I can’t wait to meet Point B! I trust that there are good things being sparked for me at Not-Point-A.
This salve is so very grounded, and just a little spicy: vetiver and something that reminds me of cinnamon.
When I wear this salve, I smile more and fret less. I don’t care about sunk costs. I go when something says go. I pause when it is time to pause. I take sweet naps and I dream of faraway lands and I awaken feeling invigorated and full of life.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is from my brother, it’s called You Have Gentleman Caller, their latest album is Slow At Birthdays, they are based in Indonesia and it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
There is still time to join the Secret Sword Society, embarking at the end of February! It’s the only thing I’m doing this year, and it’s also temporarily half-off for current members of the Floop…
And I am still recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, since they are keeping things good around here for me.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re feeling quiet. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. We’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way. Feel free to leave pebbles (or petals!), hearts, warmth, sweetness. Those always work.
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!
The Red Box Clues.
What’s in a red box?
I have been busy emptying and releasing, letting go of [a wide variety of things], and part of that has involved unpacking three red boxes I hadn’t wanted to look at.
These boxes are full of things I’ve written. Though, really, to be more exact, these boxes are full of notes to myself about other things I’m writing? Yeah, okay.
These are the boxes of a writer, and therefore they hold treasure. Both of those realizations are also treasure.
And it will not surprise anyone who hangs out here that these boxes had also become a temporary home for iguanas.
Iguanas.
Iguanas are what I call things I dread-avoid dealing with, and this is why the boxes hadn’t been opened, because I half-remembered there might be iguanas inside. A breath for the legitimacy of avoiding.
And yes, there were iguanas. A breath for this.
There was lots of processing about the painful breakup with my mentor.
Much strategic planning about the business venture that had been my big dream, and which Flailed Spectacularly. Yes, Flailed. It was a Flailure of epic proportions, and this experience also treasure, but/and it also hurt like hell. A breath for releasing.
And maybe ten love letters from the jealous ex, as well as a number of notebooks filled with conversations that were mostly me trying to untangle his misunderstandings for him, forgetting that this is not actually my job. A breath for remembering sovereignty.
There was also unexpected treasure. A breath for the delight of unexpected treasure!
Treasure.
It was good to notice how many things I hold onto that do not spark joy, to use the wonderful phrase of Marie Kondo. It was useful to see old, unsovereign patterns, documented. It was wonderful to say “goodbye and thank you”, and fill up the recycling bin.
Also, going through the boxes was like an accidental clue hunt!
I found so many beautiful clues in the red box, mostly scribbled on post-it notes, and I want to share some of them with you.
Clues about me.
- What I do, in my life, is transform spaces. This is why I’m here.
- Oh! I try to block provision because I am afraid I will exhaust myself with it.
- My friend A: “You’re like a beautiful walking shavasana dispenser, your energy is so healing. Your energy is going, Come to me bubbaleh you’ll feel good…“
- Huh. Often I don’t let myself write because I’m afraid of what I will discover when I do, except it is already there, and discovering it actually helps.
- I have a small green praying mantis who feeds off of panic. My job is to learn to never feed him panic, so his only choices are a) going away, or b) transforming into an entirely different kind of creature who contributes to good in the world.
- Ugh, I feel strongly that grief over exes/break-ups should be societally legitimate. There should be a designated week or two to cry, and then a day every month that is like national wallowing day.
- Person: “How do you survive without speaking?” Me: “Happily.” Person: “But doesn’t it drive you crazy?” Me: “Why would peacefulness drive me crazy?”
Clues that are wise.
- My friend Alon says, “Be allergic to vagueness.”
- Welcome to the Thanking Hour. It is okay though if first we need to have a Grumping Hour.
- You can’t hurt anyone by choosing what is truly good for you. Ruffled feathers doesn’t change the rightness of what you’re doing.
- Let’s ask Assertive Me about this.
- How you approach a dance changes the dance.
Clues that are just very mysterious.
- Do you ever think, “Good lord, we’re surrounded by vegans!”? Oh, yes. They can smell us, you know.
- The best part of Agency and being a spy is no one knows we just saved the world.
- Clue! A Stakeout is really S Takeout!
- How does an alligator solve a packing problem? It doesn’t care!
- My brother: “Remember the buttery Hare Krishnas?” Me: “So much butter!”
- On Yawning: Welcome to the Land of Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahs!
Clues I want to remember.
- [Famous dance coach] practices tripping, every day, in front of a mirror, so that he can dress it up. That way his body knows how to trip beautifully, and he doesn’t need to fear tripping in a competition. Applicable to everything!
- M: “Some people just don’t dance well together, and that needs to be okay.”
- Trying to please/placate/calm monsters is actually impossible. Today I finished an enormous project, and I wasn’t calm or pleased for a second. Monsters went straight to, “Fine, but what about all the other projects? What about the things you abandoned while you were working on this?” Screw that. Rally is magic! I finished this gigantic project that had been completely stuck. I am going to be happy about this, dammit.
- Incoming me: “My love. All you get are blessings now. So if it doesn’t look like a blessing, get quiet and find out how. Or trust and say thank you. Or let go of it and say thank you, because letting go might be the blessing. It is all for your good. Smile at all the broken pots.”
Clues that made me laugh with delight.
- I have some truth bombs. Haha, truth balms! It’s true. Truth illuminates, truth soothes, truth reveals beauty and spaciousness. Not that truth doesn’t destroy because sometimes it does, like shiva destroying so things can be rebuilt. Truth deconstructs.
- The superpower of being Slightly Scandalous!
- I skipped the stone “what needs to be illuminated?”, and the answer was SILENCE. This puts a whole new twist on the phrase “silence is golden”. It is golden because it is shining with light!
- “I respect a good obsession.”
- What if urgency is just a mispronunciation of AGENCY?! If I feel urgency, that means slow down and adjust crown.
Clues I love right now.
- “I was born very far from where I was supposed to be. So I’m on my way home.” — Bob Dylan
- Whoa, I think I just figured out what remembering how to roller skate (my proxy project) means! It has to do with my habit of thinking, “Ugh, I hate this project, how can I make it fun?” Instead I need to remember that these things are fun. If I have forgotten that a project I chose for myself is fun, then I need to re-see it. Oh right, I can roller skate! Oh right, this is fun! I have made it not-fun by stressing out and panicking. The project itself is just something past-me thought would be a good adventure.
- Clue from a dance movie. They dance way better when they dress up and have hair and make-up done. Costumes change presence, attentiveness and glow. Dress like it’s opening night, babe.
- “The Playground is like methodone for the internet. It has everything I like about the internet, none of the bad things, and it’s not addictive in a bad way.” — Agent Anna.
- I now invoke the superpower of I Only Have Good Options.
Come play!
Since these clues have now been released through the emptying of the red box, you are welcome to enjoy any of them that speak to you.
If a clue doesn’t resonate, no worries. It’s probably someone else’s clue.
You are invited to leave joy and appreciation, share things that are sparked for you, or deposit clues of your own.
The way we keep this safe space is through the intentional practice of Not Giving Each Other Advice, and remembering that everyone has their stuff.
Feeling love in my thank-you heart for everyone who reads.
Wish 291: whatever the garden wants
Very personal ads. They’re … very personal!
♡
What do I want?
Freedom.
When I say freedom, what kind of freedom is this freedom?
- Spacious.
- Anything is possible.
- I follow my guided, indicated desires with curiosity and joy.
- I am a bell. I reverberate with qualities.
- I am not tied down to places or obligation, other than my commitment to my own well-being/bell-being.
- Ah, this is my theme song!
What will grow? Who knows.
I have been thinking a lot about what it means to really commit to Shmita.
Shmita is sabbatical, pausing the work of planting fields, finding out what happens when I let my fields lie fallow. What happens when I choose Intentional Not-Planting?
All I want to plant this year is qualities:
Trust and possibility. Ease and delight. Rest and releasing. Love and sweetness. Glowing clarity. Bold joyful presence.
No projects. No plans.
I don’t believe in later anymore.
There is now, and there is now.
This is deliciously simple, and yet it gets tricky in my mind, when so many of the things I am currently doing are for future freedom, and future joy.
For example, getting different spaces ready to rent out so that I can step out of this current cycle of [working my ass off to create things that will bring in money to cover overhead so I can eventually stop working my ass off except that part never happens].
Since there is no later, I can’t just power through and suffer now for future joy.
I have to find ways to let this be joyful now.
Even when I choose [work], I need to approach it with sabbatical mind.
What is sabbatical mind?
Being curious about everything.
Choosing towards joy.
Planting qualities, not goals or projects. I might think the garden needs peas and onions, when actually the garden needs rest and love. My only job right now is to love the garden, and trust that whatever the garden wants to give me is right.
What else do I know about this?
Do things that are pleasurable. Do them twice.
Layer on experiences of sweetness.
If you want to plan a wild escape plan for a lion in a cage, you need to do things that help the lion feel lion-like. Return to lion state. Stretch and roar. Remember what that feels like. You are not helpless. You are a LION, and you are full of the intensity of life.
Anyway, the cage is maybe 90% imaginary at this point. You’ll see that more clearly when you start to feel like your lion self again. Stop thinking that remembering your lion self requires being completely outside the cage. Be your lion self now.
I don’t want a someday life. I want a now life.
I want to live a quiet, body-aware, true-yes life.
Aware of my yes. Honest with my yes. Committed to my yes. Yes to my yes!
And I want to do that now, and at all times, and not have this wish be contingent on things like [getting to a more supportive location] or changing my environment.
I mean, of course I am still working on making intentional changes in my environment, because external space influences internal space and vice versa, and all the corners of my kingdom are important.
Similarly, I’m still working on a grand master plan to exit the places I no longer want to be.
The point is though, no more waiting for X in order to be-or-feel Y. That is just unbelievably silly.
I know that intellectually, of course. Now it is time to know it in my body. In my lion body.
What do I know about my wishes?
This requires more patience than I currently have, and that’s okay.
That’s one of the skill sets I’m developing. That’s one of the reasons I have a Mysteriously Injured Knee that won’t let me walk and dance. Patience with the garden. Patience with the wishes. Patience with everything.
I need to undo any old ideas or notions that “joy will come when [I can dance again]”.
Joy comes now, when I invite it in, when I give legitimacy and permission to the very real feelings of not-joy, when I remember that everything I am feeling makes sense and is okay, when I am allowed to be as I am in this moment.
Joy comes when I look for it. When I choose away from not-a-joy-spark. When I follow the instinctive pull of my desires. When I discard the lip balm that I never liked. When I smile at a pink tulip in a jar.
Joy comes from perspective.
What else do I know?
I am so fortunate, in so many ways, and it is very easy to forget this.
Side note! I’m not into the current trend of labeling things “first world problems”, I think that often just shames people into forgetting to acknowledge that it’s okay that their current experience of pain is painful, which is the first step towards perspective.
We don’t want to reserve the fountain for people with “real problems” — the fountain is for everyone.
At the same time, sometimes I find it helpful to pause and breathe and laugh, and remember that my many of my current problems and challenges are kind of amazing.
I’m divorced! I love being divorced! I don’t have kids! I love this too! I have a job that allows me to work from anywhere. I can actually take off from my life and go wander the desert with my lover, or visit my wonderful uncle and play in the forest.
Sure, there’s money stuff to sort out, and that’s legitimately scary. And there’s the ongoing challenge of still having a chocolate shop that I never wanted. But there are no big, painful upheavals that need to happen for me in order to have the freedom to follow my desire. I have freedom, I just forget this.
Like the lion.
What else do I know?
I said this last week, and it’s still true:
Taking care of myself first is always the right answer.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: Oh Havi Bell, the answer to every question is either a) be a bell and resonate, or b) do something that supports your bell-ness.
Me: Sometimes I can’t remember this.
She: Then ask. Be a bell of asking. Be a bell of curiosity. Questions are just someone wanting love. So reverberate with wanting. Reverberate with love.
Clues?
The thing about walking very slowly because my knee is in a brace is that I am much better at seeing clues in my surroundings. Guess what is painted on a wall that I actually walk by fairly often? A quote from Rumi, speaking of lions and imaginary cages of our own design:
I have gotten free of that ignorant fist that was pinching and twisting my secret self.
Yes, this is relevant to my wish, and to the garden.
This also reminds me of something Orna Sela, my teacher in Tel Aviv, used to say: When someone is in distress, they rattle at the bars and curse them for not bending enough to create an opening. If they’d just back up, they’d see that the cage only has one wall.
You can go in any direction except right in front of you. Back up. Breathe. Look around you. The cage is a misunderstanding.
The superpower of seeing beauty everywhere.
Ah, beautiful transition. The quality for January on the 2015 Fluent Self calendar is ANCHOR, and the quality for February is APPRECIATE.
Anchor appreciation. Appreciate the anchoring.
And the February superpower is I See Beauty Everywhere.
That’s the trick. That is the trick to joy. See it everywhere. And where it isn’t, change something. Even something very small.
Or back up and look around…
Ongoing wishes.
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I have the best time dancing in my ballroom.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things, I state my preferences clearly, calmly and easily, and it is not even a big deal, yay.
- I am ready to come into my superpowers and receive gifts that are winging their way to me. Superpower of Everything Enhances My Superpowers!
Things I find helpful when it comes to wishes…
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka exit as you wish to continue…
Okay so while that one was hard to write, it actually turned out to be a surprisingly helpful wish. The Playground, the center I’ve run for nearly five years, is close to being empty, and that process wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be. My house is also steadily emptying out.
Big healing has been happening with my leg, which can now BEND ALL THE WAY, and while I still don’t like stairs, I can walk again, and this is big.
Also a big breakthrough with incoming me, and I have been practicing doing things with sabbatical mind, which is helping me Enter As I Wish To Be In It, Exit As I Wish To Continue.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I wish to whisper a whisper about the Monster Manual! It comes paired with the world’s best coloring book, which does so much monster-dissolving magic that even if you wait to try the techniques, you’ll still feel better about everything.
Self-fluency is hard enough, we need ways to to interact with the thoughts-fear-worry-criticism that shuts down creative exploring. And when people get the manual, I am able to me spend more time writing here. So if you don’t need help with monsters, get one for a friend. Or plant a wish that someone gets it for you! And bring people you like to hang out here. The more of us working on our stuff, the better for all of us. ♡
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent 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 340: yes, with peacefulness
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
Good grief.
Can I just say that this week had so many hard things in it, I could have completely filled up that section of the Chicken by last Sunday evening if I’d wanted to?
What worked this week?
Looking for the reason behind the reason.
When it comes to my body and pain, it’s invariably emotional.
The best things I can do are:
- Remember this.
- Ask what I might be angry or upset about.
- Keep asking, with love, curiosity, permission and legitimacy.
- Look for symbolic reasons that pain is showing up. Like Wally pointed out, it makes sense that my knee and ankle would be unsteady and wobbly when I am letting go of my beloved Playground, the place that for the past almost-five-years has been where I go in order to feel grounded, anchored and stable.
- Consult Louise-who-is-always-right-about-my-body. If she says knee pain is indicative of fear of moving forward, don’t argue with it. Just get curious about how this might be playing out for me right now. I mean, yes, it is both possible and likely that I can sincerely want to move forward and also be scared of it at the same time.
This week I was able to do all these things, and to remember them right away!
And I did that instead of first getting bogged down in the muggle way of thinking about bodies — if X hurts, then something is wrong with X itself and I probably did something to X that resulted in the hurting — which may be helpful for other people and is never helpful for me. Thank you, wise me.
Next time I might…
Breathe and wait and hope.
My housemate says that whenever something goes wrong with my body, my mind goes into a tailspin.
Like, I am pretty sure I will NEVER BE ABLE TO DANCE AGAIN, and there is no point to anything if I can’t move, cue eternal despair.
I always think this, and it always gets better, and it is always okay that healing takes time, even if it takes a lot longer than I think.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Inexplicably damaged my knee and ankle on Saturday. I have zero recollection of doing anything even mildly strenuous. Hadn’t gone any dancing or done anything for four days previous, because of being busy (see: the rest of the hard). Anyway, ta da! I have a damaged meniscus! Fingers crossed that it’s tweaked and not torn. Can’t do stairs, in pain all the time, getting around is not fun, and now I can’t do any of the things — yoga, dance, aerobics, walking — that keep me generally functional instead of panicking about life. A breath for this.
- The knee pain coincided with the second worst experience of menstrual cramps I’ve had in my entire life. And as I sank to my knees while walking down a hallway towards the bathroom, overcome with dizziness and overwhelming pain, I suddenly remembered the last time this happened, maybe twelve years ago, when I actually did pass out, on a bathroom floor at a fitness center in south Tel Aviv, and ended up in the hospital, an experience which was not fun and very expensive. That was also the day I had decided to leave my beloved apartment in Florentin, so, again: see body pain always being emotional stuff, for me at least. A breath for deep healing.
- Related to the above: since quitting gluten last March, my cramps have gone from [hellish nightmare that renders me incapable of anything for twenty four to thirty six hours each month] to [huh, what is this odd and uncomfortable sensation of invisible gnomes hitting me in the ovaries? Ohhhhhh, cramps! I shall take advil!”]. So I kind of thought I was over this. Also the joy of not having miserable cramps has pretty much been the one thing keeping me from falling off the wagon and eating delicious things like lasagne. So that’s distressing. A breath for comfort, and for patience, and for hope.
- Feeling so very low for much of the week, finding myself deep in the perception aka monster-narrative of being trapped, that Shmita will never happen. Sometimes it seems as though I have been chasing this elusive and possibly non-existent light at the end of the tunnel for so long, and I’m not even sure it’s real, and I need things to change. A breath for trust, and for beautifully unexpected interruptions.
- Still letting go of everything, so much letting go, and sometimes it is easier and at other times it is just so much crying. A breath for goodbyes.
- Ahahahhahaaaaaa the old familiar Mystery of why does everything take so much longer than I think, and is also more complicated and expensive. Somehow we mailed out the deluxe Rally Kits without the stone skipping card sets inside, so that’s another hundred dollars to fix that. And we ran out of calendars and had to redo all the packages, and the fancy toner was only good for thirty three BORKs, and some of our emails delivering the last ebook didn’t go through because [technical bullshit] and everything that could possibly go wrong/expensive on this op has done exactly that, and I could go on about this for a while, so let’s just put down a pebble for this and take a breath. A breath for trusting that all is well in the world, even when I fall into old patterns of work stress and forgetting that Nothing Is Wrong and monster-worry about everyone hating me. Time to breathe in truth: I am safe and loved.
- Saying goodbye to my Playground is right, and also I can’t stop crying about it. A breath for things that are right and still hurt.
- 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.
- There are so many kind, loving, big-hearted people in my life, and I feel so fortunate and appreciative. Wally, the most amazing bodywork person in the world and the one reason to stay in Portland, did some seriously good magic on my knee and ankle. My housemate came when I collapsed, and did acupressure on me until I was okay. When I was panicking, my lover texted to say, “As much as you are freaking out, I am kissing you with peacefulness a lot more.” A breath of deep appreciation for the vast resources of compassion and support available to me right now.
- Such a lovely goodbye party for the Playground. It was wonderful to see old friends and play. Rhiannon brought her baby Scarlet, who is just such a very fun person, which is pretty much the best thing I could say about a baby, and we played a hilarious game of our own invention which I believe is called Be Alarmed By Sudden Duck Sounds. The Vicar cheered me up by being the vicar, he is very good at that. People wore ridiculous costumes and we blew bubbles and colored monsters. The beautiful boy listened and stroked my hair while I puzzled out all my problems. A breath for new beginnings.
- It is very good that the Puerto Rico trip fell through because I don’t know how I could have ever been able to go with all the health and business stuff going on. More proof for my internal scientists that it is always right to trust my no, even when I’m saying no to something that sounds amazing (a month on the beach with the boy I like, on the cheap, in the sun…yeah, still sounds incredible). It was perfect that we said no, and the next yes is going to be such a better yes. A breath for trust.
- My housemate did a million errands for me when my leg stopped working, and delivered all my mail to my bed — “Anyone miserable and dejected in here?” — and generally cheered me up. And Leni sent the best get well card ever, which arrived at the exact moment when I needed it most. A breath for being taken care of when that is what I need.
- Someone misunderstood me (my least favorite thing) and then made it all about him and threw a shoe at me (said something mean, which happens to be my second least favorite thing), and I immediately recognized that his reaction had nothing to do with me, and then, here is the good part, I did not engage. Even better, I recognized that my desire to Set The Record Straight is really my desire to perceive that I am understood, and there is a better way to give myself the sensations of [safe, loved and understood] that is not trying to explain myself to the shoe-thrower. Instead I texted a red balloon emoticon to Briana, who always understands me. And she said, “Now that is a freedom-loving joy spark!” And I was like, EXACTLY OHMYGOD THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING ME. Ahhhh. So good. A breath for peacefulness. May peacefulness prevail.
- Found the best proxy in the history of proxies, and now I am a campanologist, and this solved ALL my problems, and miraculously everything is fine now. It’s almost like I’m at Rally all the time. A breath for how play is magic.
- On Thursday morning, I woke up and WAS ABLE TO BEND MY KNEE for the first time since Saturday. Not a full range of motion, but bending! It is happening, you guys! My leg can bend! Stuff is moving and changing and I am on the mend. I credit the beautiful boy who held me in his arms all night and whispered sweetness in my ear. A breath of thank you.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Lovely people care about me. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Emptied out 3/4 of the Playground! Went through three giant boxes stuffed with paper and iguanas. Donated 102 POUNDS of art supplies to SCRAP! Wrote the letter I had been avoiding because of [past pain]. Thank you fractal flowers. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
I used the OOD technique this week, and it helped a lot!
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I had the power of The Answer Is Letting Go, and the power of knowing about bells.
Superpowers I want.
I want, again, the superpower of Totally Unfazed By Any Of This. And I want the power of Marvelously Surprised By Good News.
The Salve of Marvelously Surprised By Good News.
Sometimes I forget that things can change for the better, suddenly and unexpectedly.
When I wear this salve, everything sweetens and I remember that I have no idea what wonderful things could come. I invite them in. I feel sparks again. I remember to ask for perfect, simple solutions, and to look for them.
I assume that there could be a door I just don’t know about yet. I am receptive to SUUTRAS (Spontaneous Unsolicited Upgrades: Treasure Radiance Abundance), thank you to Max for the first half of that acronym.
This salve makes everything lighter, my mood, the weight on my shoulders. My feet are planted. I stretch and breathe.
I pick up an envelope and think, “I only receive good news now”. And whether that envelope is full of delight or not, it doesn’t even matter, because suddenly I am someone who is regularly Marvelously Surprised By Good News, and I feel quietly joyful about life.
This salve also has some of the magic of being kissed with peacefulness.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is from Fi, it’s called Banana Still Life, they are on tour in Spain and it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
There is still time to join the Secret Sword Society, embarking at the end of February! It’s the only thing I’m doing this year, and it’s also temporarily half-off for current members of the Floop…
And I am still recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, since they are keeping things good around here for me.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re feeling quiet. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. We’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way. Feel free to leave pebbles (or petals!), hearts, warmth, sweetness. Those always work.
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, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
These are the thoughts I think while hiding
There are a lot of things I think about while hiding.
There are a lot of things I think about while hiding in the alcove next to my refrigerator, huddling close to the smooth wooden cabinet, appreciating the way it juts out, blocking any view of me from outside the house.
For example.
For example, I think…
It’s okay, babe. Nothing is wrong. And this will pass.
The person banging on my door will give up and leave. My shoulders will relax again, my breath will return, my heart will come back to rest in its usual spot, its usual rhythm, and I will forget that I was here behind the refrigerator.
It will become a regular evening again.
It always does.
Well, unless this time it doesn’t.
I wonder about that too.
I wonder…
How long do I plan to stay here.
Why am I holding this spoon.
My tea must have cooled by now, the mug is getting heavy in my hand.
I wonder how long it’s been.
I haven’t heard them leave the porch.
I haven’t heard them leave.
Do I dare peek around the corner at the clock on the stove?
But maybe then they will see me, maybe they are still there, maybe they’ve moved to the side of the porch and then they will see me because the curtains facing the kitchen are slightly open.
Slightly open.
I wonder what it would be like to be someone who didn’t flee in terror at an unexpected knock on the door.
I wonder what happened to me, what made me into someone who immediately, automatically, unthinkingly intuits the worst case scenario and seeks the nearest hiding spot.
And also, what is wrong with people. Who knocks on a door unannounced in the middle of the night?! Who even does that.
And yes, okay, it’s only 7pm, but it’s pitch black and I’m not expecting anyone, and there is no way I’m opening that door. There’s no way I’m even going near the door.
There is no way I’m going near the door.
I have heard too many stories from women friends.
Too many stories, told in that eerie flat voice. I have heard the words, “I knew I shouldn’t open the door, but…”
Never open the door.
Never open the door.
Why am I thinking about the Swedish girl, what was her name, the one who was leaving for India. Nina. I took her flat in south Tel Aviv after my divorce.
It was a small loft in a corner of the fourth floor of a (loosely) converted clothing factory in a not-great neighborhood. It had bars on the windows and the shingles were asbestos, and I loved that place.
Oh right, the door. It was a wide metal door, very wide, with a sliding lock.
People would come and bang on it. And shout threats. Nina owed a lot of people money. And it turned out my boss at the bar had no intention of taking care of all the tickets we’d gotten for being open past midnight, which all had my name and address on them, and I don’t remember exactly what happened with that but there was drama.
One time I got a call from someone who said they were at the bar looking for me, to arrest me, and that Omri, the owner, had gone out the back door instead of explaining that it wasn’t me they wanted. I stayed with a friend for a while.
Mainly when I think about that door, I remember being curled up in a ball in the corner, waiting for the angry people outside the door to leave. They would yell about how they knew I was in there, and I remember wanting a cigarette so badly, and shaking.
Sometimes they would slip an envelope under the door, strategically placed halfway so they’d know if I moved it, and I would leave it there for weeks. Mostly I just waited.
Lots of waiting.
Lots of waiting.
While I am waiting now, I try to think about this as a systems problem.
Like, how about a good sign for the door.
For example: No Soliciting.
Or possibly, better, what about this?
A Person With PTSD Lives Here, Do Not Knock On The Door Because She Can’t Handle It.
Or maybe just PLEASE GO AWAY.
Or maybe the signs need to be inside of me. Maybe see a hypnotherapist, create new responses to knocking on the door. Seed calm and steadiness. I still don’t have to open it. I can just be calm in my not-opening, in my non-response.
Preventative measures, it couldn’t hurt.
It couldn’t hurt.
I am wishing I had my cell phone in my pocket, why don’t I just carry it with me.
No, that’s nuts. Do I really want to be someone who can’t walk a few feet to the kitchen for half a minute to pour herself some tea without having a phone for company?
Actually, yes, maybe, because it would be so nice to have right now.
And because this is not the first time I’ve been right here, cowering, frozen, waiting, shallow breath, trying to feel the ground beneath my unsure feet.
This has happened dozens of times. And if I had the phone I would know how long I have been waiting, and I could text my housemate and tell him what happened.
This is always comforting. He’d say that it’s probably the kids of that couple that look like spies, collecting money for the basketball team. And I’d say no, because they didn’t knock next door, I would have heard, it was only here. And anyway, this wasn’t kids. That was an adult knock: firm and determined, and it repeated.
And he’d say maybe it was the neighbors. He would run through all the possibilities and ask if I wanted him to come home, and I would feel better.
I would feel better.
I think I hear a car driving off.
I wonder what it is like not to have PTSD. What is it like for a knock to just be a knock, just information. Oh, someone is at the door.
I wonder about whose fear this is.
Tiny me, maybe. When I was little I had recurring nightmares, for years, about people breaking into the house to kidnap me. They’d surround the house, and then one of them would bang on the door, and I’d hide.
Or maybe it’s older than that, from before I was even here, fear that is energy residue or cellular memory, inherited genetic or cultural fear, Jewish fear. Maybe this is the received collective memory of the Inquisition, of pogroms, of Gestapo pounding on the door.
Or maybe it’s from my adult life. Maybe this is the fear that comes from Not Having Safe Space, maybe this is the fear that comes from the lived experience of being without a home for eight months, maybe this is the fear I didn’t let myself feel when things were desperate.
Maybe I don’t need to know.
Maybe I don’t need to know.
I am gripping the spoon and my hand hurts.
There is a small cut on my finger.
I have been staring at the can opener on the counter for a very long time.
It is okay now, I can peek around the corner at the clock, it’s been seven minutes since I last looked.
I could walk to the couch. Or crawl, maybe crawling is better. Not going to crawl.
I make it to the couch and sit there for hours, not moving, keeping myself as distracted as possible, because who wants to feel this much nervousness, who wants to listen to the monster chorus of Why Can’t You Just Be A Regular Person Who Can Deal With Shit, This Is Not A Big Deal, It’s Just Someone At The Door.
One day this will pass. This will pass, this will pass, this will pass.
It passes.
I find my way back.
To breath, to steadiness, to trust, to this moment which is now, where I am safe.
I sleep peacefully through the night, and the next day in the light of morning it is just a remembered moment, without a charge to it (remember when I freaked out completely when it was probably just a neighbor?).
The next time will be a little easier, and then the time after that.
I get back to the daily work of taking exquisite care of myself, cultivating steadiness, resting and breathing on the floor, talking to my body, talking to me-from-then, talking to incoming me, talking to me-now.
Being a glowing beacon of warmth, permission, acceptance, safety. And of course, the tricky art of self-forgiveness.
Asking curious questions. Changing bits and pieces in the video game.
I practice the tools from the emergency calming techniques kit so that I can access them faster next time.
I find the thank you in my thank you heart. I name everything around me. I am here. I am okay.
I am here. I am okay. I am practicing
How commenting works here, and an invitation to play.
This is exquisitely vulnerable territory here.
And while each of us comes to this with different background and different experiences, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. And: people vary. We have different needs and different approaches, and that’s okay.
In order to ensure safe space in this sweet corner of the internet, we commit to not giving each other advice, not analyzing each other, not telling people what they should try or how they should feel. We make space for each other so that everyone can have their own experience.
We do our best to meet ourselves and each other with as much grace and warmth as we can.
You are welcome to leave hearts, pebbles, flowers, soup. You are welcome to share things that were sparked for you.
May we all have safety, comfort, clarity, everything we need. May we all have the spaciousness and presence to meet our patterns with understanding, and layer on new experiences, rewrite expectations, let go of all that is done.
♡