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.
Thank you.
Thank you, strong tired legs who walked today, and told me when enough was enough.
Thank you, past me from a few years ago, who learned the wise truths of Not Pushing, so that when my legs loved me by saying this is enough, I could love them back and say of course of course you are right.
Thank you, walking. What a beautiful miracle is that.
Thank you, Richard, who is taking care of the chocolate shop (and everything else) so that I can write, so that I can take long walks and clear my head, the gift of this is so big that I don’t even know to take it in.
Thank you, ocean. Wise beautiful Pacific ocean, with all its unfathomable superpowers of Vastness and Majesty and endless Possibility, with its incomparable ability to deliver truth directly to my heart, sometimes in the form of a smackdown.
Thank you, me of however many years ago in Berlin who suffered through the most terrifying ear infection, in the process becoming someone who can hear what the ocean wants to tell me.
Thank you, lungs, and each amazing breath of life.
Thank you, pauses and red lights.
Thank you for smiles that I get to share with people who pass by. Thank you for these quiet harmonious interactions, and for the healing in that. That’s what they are, for me, each and every time.
Thank you for a long hard (ongoing) practice of glowing healthy boundaries, this helps me trust myself to smile, knowing that I do not owe anyone anything, that I do not ever need to engage. Safety first!
Thank you for the knowledge, however hard-earned, that I get to choose Safety First!
Thank you, pink sunset clouds.
Thank you for this glance at my reflection where I didn’t need to think negative thoughts about what isn’t or what used to be, and instead thought, There’s Havi, hello!
Thank you, messy curly hair which somehow looks fantastic despite the desperate haphazard middle-of-the-night haircut I bestowed upon myself with a pair of scissors over the bathroom sink a couple weeks ago. Somehow my hair is forgiving of this and so much more, and if that’s not a glorious miracle, I don’t know what is.
Thank you, mind, which is choosing to focus on this, and not the stray white strands, or whatever aspects of me are currently harder for me to remember to like.
Thank you for this beautiful boy who smiles at me every single time he looks at me, who is so full of joy for my existence, who pulls me in tightly and whispers, I like being around you!
Thank you for this sweetness.
Thank you, every time a path or a door has opened for me. Thank you, times they have closed and I have been Redirected. Thank you, hard-won ability to say, Oh hey look a Redirection.
Thank you, what’s left of my sparkling pink nail polish from my morning with Lucky Lola.
Thank you, world of connectings and internet, that allows me to meet people like her, and like you, how crazy is it that we get to do this, that I get to share a breath or a hand-on-heart sigh of life and aliveness with people I haven’t met yet but somehow already like.
Thank you, years of processing things with my monsters so that even though the thing I just said might sound incredibly cheesy, I’m not going to delete it.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you, from the depths of my thank-you heart. I never say this but I’m going to say it: blessed. That’s how I feel. That’s what I know.
There are still challenges, still hard things to decide, sort out, figure out, as it goes with life. And, as always, I know that each of these things will turn into a retroactive thank-you, they will ripen into thank-you.
I will be glad for the growth they are giving me, even as right now I make a face.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here with me, some of you for as long as nine years, and an equal amount of thank you if this is your first time here. It means a lot.
And if you feel drawn to deposit any thank-yous of your own in the comments, whether internally or externally directed, I would love the company.
Wish 280: blessed
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
Simple. Not easy, just simple.
I came back from the funeral and I was exhausted and worn down and a mess, and Danielle said let’s go take care of ourselves.
She is wise about life, and it is funny how often I forget that the wisdom of life is so impossibly simple: Let’s take care of ourselves.
Let’s pause. Let’s get quiet. Let’s take care of ourselves.
That’s it, really. I fight this instead of softening into it.
A smile.
Danielle and I went to the dragontree spa for an ayurvedic treatment.
Sitting together in the beautiful airy waiting room, drinking tea, holding hands, breathing.
It was pretty perfect.
There is something about knowing you are about to be deeply cared for. I could feel my entire body relaxing into the safety of this moment.
A woman walked by, someone who worked there, and she smiled at me, and this smile was the most healing, transformative glowing moment, I could have stayed inside of that shared smile-moment for hours. Maybe I did.
What do I know about this smile?
It wasn’t a flirtatious smile. It wasn’t a polite officious smile. It was a smile of connection but it wasn’t a smile that needed anything from me.
Here is what it was:
It was a smile of LIFE and ALIVENESS.
And it was also smile of RECOGNITION: you also know about life and aliveness, and we are sharing a moment of being in this together.
It was a smile of the secret meaning of namaste:
“I am a secret glowing spark of truth-love, a fragment of god, and so are you, and I see you, I see this in you and we are allies.”
We are Secret Agents of Life. Do you see?
I have received this smile before, from trees and from the ocean, and once from an abandoned barn. But this was a person who is like me, but more so, because I don’t smile this smile at people.
I suspect she smiles this smile at everyone.
I would like to smile this smile at people more. My smile.
Then I learned something more about this smile.
She came out again a few minutes later. Someone asked how she was doing, and she glowed her smile and said, “I’m blessed”.
Normally when people say things like that, I find it kind of annoying.
I think in part because it tends to sound so automatic, you get the sense that it’s the thing the person thinks they should be saying. It doesn’t feel like a moment of blessing, or appreciating what has been blessed, it doesn’t come from a moment of presence and gratitude, it has the energy of jargon. Not sure if I’m explaining that well.
When she said it though it sounded more like this: “Thank you, I love being alive, I am so fortunate to be here in this moment having this interaction with you, what delight for both of us to be right here right now”.
This is how I want to be in the world.
I have moments of this.
At the Vicarage I have entire days where I just glow this.
It’s why I go. And it’s why I have to live in silence, so that I can remove as much interference as possible from these moments of true remembering.
And in daily life — I wanted to say “in real life”, but what does that even mean, I have sparks of this. Sometimes while dancing, or with Sam, or walking in the rose garden. Moments. Beautiful moments.
I want to grow these moments, spend more time connecting the dots between them, so I spend more time glowing in my thank you heart, and less time in the cramped worry-guilt List-Making corner of my mind.
She smiled that smile at me again, and then said, “I’m here for the lovely Danielle…”
I thought, this woman is in the right profession. What would that feel like for me? In what ways am I in the right profession, and in what ways do I need things to change so that I can say this about myself?
I know what I want.
Right now I am on Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic, and I am enjoying many of these sweet moments of thank-you.
My thank-you heart is glowing and expanding.
I want to figure out how to bring this home with me. To maintain and sustain these moments. To remember what’s important.
This glowing smile. This quiet pause. Being with the trees and the water. More breathing, less computering.
More appreciation, less tuning into the channels that steadily deliver bad news.
More movement, more stillness, more smiles, more knowing.
I want to choose my words with love, knowing that each thing I say secretly means “blessed“, whether that expresses itself in my words or not.
I want each breath to be a thank you. Holy holiness, right here.
What happens next?
I don’t know yet.
For now I am just wishing the wish, and noticing what happens.
I am going to keep walking, napping, dancing, writing, see what is revealed.
I am going to take time for conscious entry so I can turn on my bold glow and my smile of truth-love.
Trusting that more intel will come if I am ready to receive it.
What do I really want?
Same as the past few weeks. To trust my instincts more. To trust my yes and trust my no, and act on that trust immediately.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: It really is more simple than you think.
Me: It feels really complicated right now though.
She: Both of these things can be true, my love.
Me: What do I do?
She: Ask that again when you are peaceful. In the meantime, do things that support your peacefulness.
Clues?
Yesterday I was feeling so completely joyful, and I was walking by the ocean and twinkling at it, and the ocean said to me, May you feel this much joy every day.
Except the ocean wasn’t so much saying it like a wish, it was a lot more like, “Listen, dumbass. Pay attention, please! You should GET TO FEEL this much joy every single day. That’s why you’re here. What are you doing with your life that you aren’t setting things up to be in joy state? Think about how you are living and start making changes.”
And then I went and had joyful yoga with my adventuring companion and a joyful shower and an impossibly joyful dinner, beautifully joyful dancing, blissfully joyful sleep, and I am thinking the ocean might be right. Ready for the next clue.
The superpower of wearing my crown.
We’re in the month of Sovereignty, with the superpower of I do not wait in line for my own swing.
Current sovereignty challenges: oh, the usual.
Saying This is what I need, and Hey, this is not working for me, and No, this is not okay for me. Learning to do all of these. Not easy, but important.
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, including the superpowers of knowing that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, I Am Okay With Being Seen, receiving gifts that are winging their way to me. See also: The superpower of Everything Enhances My Superpowers. And adds panache.
Things I find helpful when it comes to wishes…
More sweet pauses, yes to the red lights, remember the purple pills, say thank you to the broken pots. Permission. Bright colors. Passion. Costume changes. Stone skipping with incoming me. Dance. Intensity. Writing. Lipstick. My body gets the deciding vote. And, as always, saying thank you in advance.
Give it to the compass: Eight directions, eight qualities, eight breaths.
Trust. Release. Love. Receive. Anchor. Crown. Glow. Boldly.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Tranquility! Recovery! Magic! Ta da!…
Everything I wished for came true, and then some. Including some wishes I hadn’t dared to even whisper to myself.
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 329: its own bold sexy reward
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Asking for what I needed.
It is generally not nearly as scary as I think it is going to be.
Next time I might…
Pause and breathe.
And ask sooner.
Also I would like to remember that the amount I panic before a trip is directly proportional to how great the trip is! Operation Tranquility Recovery has been seriously magical and even the parts I thought would be a pain have turned out to hold pleasure for me.
So. Yes. I want to remember this, because I did a lot of pre-trip panicking on this one.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Grief. I am sad about my mom. Pain. A breath for permission.
- Worry. A breath for comfort.
- Things are changing. So much change. I have been asking for answers and now I am getting some and they are kind of scaring me. A breath for ease.
- Doubt. A breath for patience, sweetness and courage.
- Things that are unknown. A breath for trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
- Forgetting truth-love, forgetting to take care of myself, forgetting that this is my job. A breath for remembering.
- And in the ongoing theme, the continued encounters with all the ways I relinquish my sovereignty, compromise my desires, neglect to state my preferences, avoid opportunities to treasure myself. Sovereignty challenges everywhere. Yet again, a breath for trust and more trust and even more trust after that. And for practicing.
- 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.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic: I LOVE IT! A breath for needing something very specific but not knowing what that is and then getting the exact right thing.
- Embarking, departing, sailing away. A breath for a Grand Adventure and new horizons.
- Beauty is healing. My adventuring-companion and I spent four days in spectacularly beautiful places in Oregon, Nevada and California. A breath for majesty and for transformative moments of quiet knowing.
- Sparks and sweetness. , and this is A breath of thank you.
- Water makes everything better. Thank you, Lucky Lola, who provided a shower after four days of being on the road. Thank you, beautiful Pacific ocean. Thank you, all the varied superpowers of releasing. A breath for releasing.
- Incoming me is brilliant and full of the best advice. A breath for knowing that I am never alone, because slightly future me is always looking out for me.
- Everything is okay. Traveling with The Boy I Like turned out to be fun, sweet and easy. Lots of things have been turning out fun, sweet and easy. And even when they aren’t, Nothing Is Wrong, and I can make new choices, and there are still people who love me and care about me. A breath for everything being okay, and for remembering.
- Thankfulness. Heart full of love. Tiny miracles everywhere. So much sweetness in my life, so much kindness, so much generosity and permission. So many things are beautiful. 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.
I am away on Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic, which means that I’m writing, writing and writing, while trusting the fractal flowers. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
This practice called a set of four questions.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I had the power of Trusting The Voyage, and the power of sweet sleep.
Superpowers I want.
The superpower of Joyful Full-Hearted Adventuring While Treasuring Myself.
The Salve of Joyful Full-Hearted Adventuring!
This salve contains many qualities, including:
Courage. Amnesty. Wonder. Delight. Presence. Spaciousness. Vitality. Readiness.
It is a warming salve, the tiniest bit spicy.
It makes you want to try things, without attachment to possible results. This salve makes the act of experimenting seem like its own bold sexy reward.
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 called Reserve Your Bird, they play klezmer versions of Guns N Roses songs, and it’s actually just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
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.
Wish 279: Tranquility! Recovery! Magic! Ta da!
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
On Wednesday night I set off on Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic.
It’s been a long time in the works, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
I mean, that’s a funny thing about planning for recovery.
Let’s see, I predict I am going to Completely Fall Apart in 3, 2, 1….
Ta da!
Yes, well.
One of the things I’m hoping to recover from is my tendency to do too much, fall apart, need to recover.
While planning for recovery is way better than suddenly discovering that I need Emergency Recovery Time because oh shit it’s too late and you can’t run on fumes anymore, this still is not the best system.
Hahaha RECOVERY.
I was trying to come up with a proxy mission or a cover story for this op, and then I started laughing because “I’m in recovery” is actually the most perfect thing ever.
I’m undercover. In recovery. It’s a recovery story of a cover story. It’s my recovery-cover undercover.
Okay. I’m having fun with this.
I mean, it’s a little close to home, yeah. But that’s part of what you get when you run away from what is familiar: a better look at what is actually there. To recover (yes!) the thing that is missing, even though it was always there.
In recovery from…?
From workaholicism? Yes and.
From grief? Yes and.
From the way I’ve been working for the past nine years since starting The Fluent Self. Yes and.
From incongruence. From thinking that things are wrong when in fact Nothing Is Wrong.
From exhaustion.
Yes, all of this.
What do I know about this?
It’s okay. I had to get to my edge to see I was at an edge.
Now I know where it is.
Testing this is part of aliveness.
What is Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic for?
For Recovery, obviously.
But also for other things. And not just Tranquility and Magic and combinations of those words.
This is also where I get to meet Bell West aka Mlle. Honeybelle, who is Incoming me.
More than that, she is alive me, she delights in aliveness. She is adventuring me, the me who bells the bells and tries things. She doesn’t think any of this is a mistake.
Right now I tend to think things are mistakes. I tried things with the [chocolate shop], I tried things with [the practice of the spirals], I tried things with dance. I lost everything and it hurts.
That’s not how she sees things at all. She thinks I’m brave and wild and fun, not a failure. She thinks it is absolutely marvelous the way I whole-heartedly throw myself into life and try things. So what if they don’t turn out the way I’d hoped? I went for it. She applauds this.
She and Sam have the same opinion here. I want to see with their eyes.
What else do I know about Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic?
I don’t need to do anything except be here and find out.
Yes, I brought projects with me. Probably way too many.
But mainly I need to sleep, eat, smile at my lover, let things show themselves to me.
They are already showing themselves to me, except sometimes I am not paying attention because I forget to take care of myself.
This op has to do with remembering that I count, that it is okay to come first, that I can joyfully choose to nourish myself instead of trying to figure out how to be of service.
I have monsters about all of these things, and yet: they are important. Vitally important. I can’t do the next op, whatever it is, without these skills.
What is next?
Trusting the voyage.
Skipping stones.
Adding “ta da!” to everything.
What if.
What if agreeing to recovery releases the magic of tranquility?
What else would I like from Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic?
Beautiful surprises.
Joyful laughter. I mean, like, that cosmic joyful buddha laughter where life is just so hilarious because nothing is wrong.
To clearly see the intel and to smile at it, to welcome it.
Checking in. How am I doing?
I feel peaceful and excited about discovery.
I feel happy that I am going on this particular adventure in companionship, with this particular companion. Usually I go alone. This is new and different, and right now, in this moment, it is right.
What do I really want? What is the desire behind this wish?
To become the person who can trust my yes and trust my no, and act on that trust immediately.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: This is right, my love.
Me: I know. It kind of scares me.
She:That’s good. That’s because you know that nothing will be the same after this. Tuck your hand into the hand of the you who is scared she will lose herself, and know that there is no lost. There is only more you to discover, more options, more ways to delight in life and aliveness, more vitality and more pleasure.
Me: Thank you.
Clues?
A spectacular sunset over the Sierras told me, in no uncertain terms:
Beauty is healing. Let it break you open, release and empty out, fill up on love, and allow beauty to heal what needs healing.
The superpower of wearing my crown.
Last month on the calendar was the month of embarking, and trusting the voyage.
Now we’re in the month of Sovereignty, with the superpower of I do not wait in line for my own swing.
It’s funny that right now I am on a voyage, and it is a voyage specifically made for sovereignty. Because, of course, the fact that I neglect to take care of myself and get to these points where I need recovery: this is a sovereignty issue. It’s time to close out this cycle, learn a new way of being.
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, including the superpowers of knowing that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, I Am Okay With Being Seen, receiving gifts that are winging their way to me. See also: The superpower of Everything Enhances My Superpowers. And adds panache.
Things I find helpful when it comes to wishes…
More sweet pauses, yes to the red lights, remember the purple pills, say thank you to the broken pots. Permission. Bright colors. Passion. Costume changes. Stone skipping with incoming me. Dance. Intensity. Writing. Lipstick. My body gets the deciding vote. And, as always, saying thank you in advance.
Give it to the compass: Eight directions, eight qualities, eight breaths.
Trust. Release. Love. Receive. Anchor. Crown. Glow. Boldly.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka pre-provisioned…
I had a lovely insight about packing! Pack by qualities and pack by identity.
So I kind of have a lot of bags. But. I have a bag for dancer me. A bag for adventuring me. A bag for writer me. And a bag for glamorous luscious secret agent me.
It was much easier to pack for four versions of me than it was to just pack. This was a good experiment.
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 328: reprieve x2!
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Renaming things.
I didn’t want to go to the Post Office, until I decided that USPS stands for Universal Sovereign Perspective Service, and then it was easy! Who doesn’t want some sovereign perspective? By post!
Similarly, everything got better when I remembered that Halloween can be turned into Hidingween. Or is that Hideoween? Actually it was more like Snuggle-o-ween.
I do not like this trick-or-treating thing. Loud knocking on the door triggers my PTSD, and I have a long list of things that are asking for my time — providing noisy sticky-fingered small people with candy does not make the top fifty.
Usually I turn out all the lights and hide in the dark. This year my housemate was out being social so I had to have Hidingween by myself.
Except then the beautiful boy came over, and hiding is more fun with two people.
Next time I might…
Choose steadiness.
Often I choose things that are not steadying (twitter, for example) because sometimes they are steadying or have that effect, and because I need a pause, and then I use an unsteady thing as a place to push for steadiness pellets.
This hardly ever works.
I want to remember to choose things that are actually steadying: get on the floor and breathe.
Steadiness from the north. Steadiness to the east. Steadying the south. Steady in the west.
To allow myself to be held by steadiness instead of grasping for steadiness. Also sometimes I wake up my lover because I forget how to access steadiness, and then I don’t know how to say that this is what I want, so I want to get in the habit of breathing, remembering, asking for a hug.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Grief. It just is. A breath for permission.
- Worry. I forget that I can seed a new song in my head. A breath for comfort, may we all have as much of it as we need.
- I feel the big changes coming, and with them some big decisions. A breath for perfect simple solutions, turnarounds or escape hatches: whatever the answers are here, may they reveal themselves in right timing.
- This week it seemed like everything that could go wrong did, and I was too tired and overwhelmed to remember that Nothing Is Wrong. I am convinced there is no greater challenge in life than remembering that Nothing Is Wrong. Nothing Is Wrong does not mean force yourself to stick with things that are horrible. Practicing Nothing Is Wrong often means changing the things that feel off, that is part of what makes them not-wrong: thank goodness this frustrating situation pushed me to interact with it and make things better. A breath for patience, magic, sweetness, changing things up.
- Related to the above: This week all kinds of things seemed to be unwieldy, full of complications, expensive. Something I ordered for the trip (and paid $12 extra for it to arrive in time) turned out to be back-ordered, and then taking care of that involved another $85 and half of a day to sort out. My monsters were a Greek chorus with their steady chant of “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, You Never Make Progress On Anything, Everything Goes Wrong”. A breath for trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
- And in the ongoing theme, the continued encounters with all the ways I relinquish my sovereignty, compromise my desires, neglect to state my preferences, avoid opportunities to treasure myself. Sovereignty challenges everywhere. I find myself afraid to state what I want, or acquiescing to a not-really-a-yes, because it seems easier, or neglecting to insist that people hold up their end of the bargain. Yet again, a breath for trust and more trust and even more trust after that. And for practicing.
- Too much work. Work and worry. Got myself all tangled up until my body was giving me the emergency warning signals of Impending Emotional Breakdown In Thirty Seconds To Twenty Minutes. A breath for knowing where my edges are, and for understanding that sometimes I’m going to test them and this is part of life and aliveness.
- 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.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- At some point around noon on Sunday, I suddenly realized it wasn’t Monday! I had a whole extra day. REPRIEVE! Also the clocks changed, so a sneaky extra hour of sleep, which means DOUBLE REPRIEVE. Reprieve x2! Superpowers of that, come in, come in. A breath for suddenly perceiving/receiving extra spaciousness.
- Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic, current status: ACTIVATED! Any longer and I would have probably fallen apart so hard, so really this was the exact right moment. A breath for a well-timed escape hatch that is also a Grand Adventure.
- Running away to visit my Uncle in Eugene. A breath of thank you for exactly what I needed, and for the magic that is being loved unconditionally.
- The person I want to have grand adventures with is the person who wants to go on grand adventures with me. How lucky is that?! A breath for all the sparks.
- There are so many supportive people in my life. When things started unraveling this week, I had Annabelle and Marisa to text wise, compassionate, understanding reminders of truth-love. I had Richard to do acupressure magic on me and come with me on all the errands. A breath for allies, resources, friends, love.
- Everything is okay. A breath for everything being okay, and for remembering.
- My wise body knows what is good. A breath for moving, stretching, breathing, getting on the floor.
- Thankfulness. Heart full of love. Wise friends gave good counsel. Tiny miracles everywhere. So much sweetness in my life, so much kindness, so much generosity and permission. So many things are beautiful. 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.
I took care of six thousand billion errands this week. Finalizing the 2015 Fluent Self calendar design (year 4!), and it is absolutely gorgeous. Operation Clear Bell is still in effect, as is The Sultry Speedy Chicken of Sanguine Secret Ops, Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic is good to go, and I am trusting the fractal flowers. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
This post about secretly turning the rain into different colors. The technique I use there (not turning the rain into colors, though that is fun too) is a really good practice for me.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
I had the power of Getting On The Bus, and the power of appreciating the good.
Superpowers I want.
The superpower of Calm Steady Trust Is Mine At All Times, and I Do Not Need To Carry Anyone Else’s Fears For Them.
Oh, and I was at a dance class this week, and the instructor said, “Whatever feels good in your body right now, do that!” Superpower of approaching life like this please.
The Salve of Reprieve X2!
This salve contains little beads that release Expansiveness and Comfort at the same time.
When it softens into your skin, everything breathes more. You feel cozy and self-contained on the one hand, and as if you’ve been granted all this gorgeous spaciousness on the other.
This salve reminds you that there is time, because look, there it is.
This is a great salve for doing, using that extra window you’ve just been given, and it’s also a great salve for catching up on rest.
This salve gives my skin a dewy glow, it works a little bit like Rally (superpower of Rally Glow) in that it makes me better-looking just by being around it.
Bonus effect of this salve: not only do you find your own sweet moments of reprieve but everyone you encounter feels this permission and spaciousness too. Suddenly there are these little ten and fifteen minute pockets of buffer available.
It’s kind of like when you quit [habit] and suddenly there’s money in your pocket. In fact, that’s a form of reprieve too, so let’s add that into the mix. This salve does that too! Best salve ever. Have some. And then have some more.
That’s how this works.
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 comes via Wendy (thank you!) and they’re called Cleo and the Gap, they play sultry lounge music that is heavy on clarinet, and it’s actually just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
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.