There was an ask about preparing for Rally by changing how we do the Orientation, and that is READY. I scrapped the whole thing and rebuilt it. It was a ton of work but I’m feeling good about having it done.

And then there were my Silent Retreat asks, which I had to look up. It was four different things, and three of them happened exactly as I’d wished for. The other one turned out to be the wrong question, but I had a massive shivanautical insight about what the right one is. So that was all good.

Weekend full of work stuff.

I mistakenly learned as a child that working evening and weekends “doesn’t count”. It’s just this thing that you do. And if you’re teaching or facilitating, then it’s not work either.

And of course, in this world of internal distortions, there is no such thing as, say, getting to work fewer hours in the day if you are doing more work in the evening. Yep.

There were so many things that absolutely had to be done this weekend because otherwise this week would be a disaster.

In addition to my birthday, and The Fluent Self turning six (but kind of sort of seven!), this week also marks ten years since the day I got divorced.

I want turning inward, reflecting, gwishing, time for cheshbon nefesh.

Literal translation: soul accounting.

This week had about a hundred weeks inside of it.

Hi, Friday.

I’m a little dazed, but glad we’re here.

We’re here. It’s March.

On March 7th, my company turns SIX. Six!

Six years since I marched into City Hall in San Francisco and declared this a business.

Six and a half years since we launched this website. Seven years since the idea and the first vision.

And nearly two years since we opened the Destuckification Playground, our fabulously crazy not-like-anything-else-in-the-world center in Portland, Oregon.

Here’s what I want:

I would like to remember what it’s like when things can be easy, fun and magical.

Because sometimes they can.

This coming week has a HUGE number of wonderful but potentially challenging things.

I’d like to meet them all with grace and presence.

And not just to be able to handle it but to skip down the street in technicolor, singing Life’s a Happy Song like I’m in the muppets movie.

BECAUSE I AM.

Thing 1: More yoga during Rally.

Here’s what I want:

Tonight is Erev Rally and we are welcoming in Rally (Rally!), and this is wonderful because Rally is my favorite thing in the world.

Rally #17!

You know what? It used to be that during Rally I’d get way more yoga than in a normal week because we do old Turkish lady stretching all the time and then I usually do an hour of asana in the afternoon.

But lately (thanks to past Very Personal Ads), I’ve been back to having much more yoga in my life, and now I’m finding myself wanting to make sure that there will be enough time for physical practice.

And! I’m thinking it might be useful and important for people to have some context for what it actually costs to run an event like Rally (Rally!).

Because if anyone is imagining that I’m drinking daiquiris while reclining on top of a gigantic pile of fifteen thousand individual dollar bills…that is so very much not what’s happening.

There is no pile of money. Also I wouldn’t be caught dead ordering a daiquiri. But that’s beside the point.

So over the weekend the Director told me that I needed a chrysalis. To hide in.

For three days and three nights.

And she was right. As she invariably is.

Her track record of being right is pretty stellar.

So I listened.

And then, from deep inside of the chrysalis (which turned out to be a very sexy hotel room), I listened some more.

Oh man, big stuff is happening!

We have a date to sign the lease this week for the new Playground space.

(The current Playground is still going strong, the second one is bigger and crazier and will be the home for a fabulous new thing.)

We have a date to start painting.

Everything is moving. It is all very exciting/terrifying/wonderful. Anyway…. hello, week! Hello, very personal ads. I really need this.