Yay. First dinner in the sukkah last night! Please note that I did NOT get eaten by moths/bears nor do I have sauce on my dress. Calling this a total success.

Breakfast out there, though? Somewhat less romantic.

Okay. On to the monsters.

The topic. It is a big one.

A lot of stuff coming up lately in the programs I teach. Related to feeling uncomfortable when other people are successful. Or appear to be heading that way.

Some of these questions are about what you can do when you’re feeling anxious because you’re intimidated by other people’s success.

Some are more about jealousy. Or the more existential I’m not good enough crisis.

Anyway. I have way too much to say about all of this, even without trying to define the elusive thing we call “success” or venturing into Imposter Syndrome territory. So this might have to be a series.

But today it’s envy. And what to do when it shows up. And even if envy is not your issue, you can apply some of this to other situations as well.

Legitimacy. Again!

I know. We always start here. But only because it’s such a good place to start.

When you encounter other people doing their thing and shining at it, sometimes you get reminded of the ways you want to feel radiant and appreciated and acknowledged. You see everything that seems to be missing.

And it’s unbelievably painful. It’s also REALLY NORMAL.

I have these moments too. So do the most fabulously self-aware people that I admire.

Feeling envy is a normal and perfectly acceptable part of being alive. We don’t want to have to stay there, because the staying there is not fun and it doesn’t help.

But discovering that you’ve landed there? Not a big deal.

The next piece.

If legitimizing being where we are is the first step, the second step is releasing as much guilt as we can stand about the fact that yes, we are still there even though we don’t want to be there.

Luckily, it’s the acknowledging and the legitimacy that eases the guilt.

If it’s natural and normal that I would feel envy sometimes, then maybe I’m not a despicably horrible person for not being able to stop feeling it yet.

This is where I forgive myself if I can. And if I can’t, I can’t.

The art of releasing guilt needs another sixteen hundred blog posts. But I’d start with something like this:

“Even though I really don’t like feeling this way, I am allowed to have envy. It’s not the end of the world. I’m not an awful person. It’s a temporary thing, and I’m learning about it so I can move through it.”

Then it’s about shifting focus.

One of my wisest teachers used to say (she probably still does):

Build your own tower instead of knocking theirs down.

There are enough people in the world who take pleasure from trying to sabotage each other’s towers. We’re not going to do that.

So the new point of focus becomes:

• What do I need to do to strengthen, support, encourage and love my own thing?
• What do I need? What does my project need? What can I do so that I feel safe, supported, comfortable and loved?

Normally I wouldn’t ask these out loud, because they can be used as what I call “inspirational harassment”. Like the well-meaning motivational things people sometimes post on Twitter (“What are YOU going to do today to blah blah blah?”).

But in your own head … these can be really useful questions. And if not, don’t use them. Make up better ones.

The point is: we’re shifting our focus from “Aaaaaagh they have what I want!” to discovering what options we have: “What can I do to build my own thing?”

You can use Metaphor Mouse for this!

One of my clients recently noticed that she was trying to pull herself out of envy mode by saying, “Okay, I’m going to run my own race”.

But that was not fun.

Because running a race — for her — included elements like [+ sweaty] [+ exhausted] [+ miserable] [+ competitive] [+ can't stop] [+ resentful] [+ no purpose] and [+ despair].

So we used Metaphor Mouse to deconstruct running my own race, and came up with exploring my new city instead.

Now working on her own thing has the qualities of [+ fun] [+ curiosity] [+ I can take my time] [+ resting] [+ discovery] [+ homebase] [+ joy] [+ appreciation] [+ hidden mystery] and [+ sweetness]. And she’s not obsessing over where everyone else is going.

Your metaphor mileage may vary, but I bet there’s something good in there.

The advanced practice.

When it’s possible, we work with it. When it brings up too much stuck, we drop it.

But here’s the concept. With bonus cliches!

“A rising tide lifts all boats.”

It’s true. The fame and fortune of the person you’re currently envying often as not ends up being useful for you.

I can feel envious of Jen Louden’s brilliant books. Or I can celebrate with her because I love her, and remind any small scared selves that Jen is awesome and is totally going to write the best blurb ever on OUR brilliant book.

Her glow adds to mine. My glow adds to hers. It’s good for everyone.

And if there’s interest in someone else who shares your message, then there’s going to be interest in your version, too.

Of course, we’re all human.

Even on my best days, when I can happily rejoice in the good fortune of people I admire and care about (whoo! advanced practice!), I’m still human.

So I’m not necessarily always capable of being truly happy for someone whose message I don’t like when it receives attention and praise.

But that’s okay.

You don’t have to be all joyous and fake confetti-throwing if you don’t feel like it.

You can still go back to building your own tower, though. And reminding yourself that there is room for you too.

Because what it comes down to is this:

It’s worth finding out what you’re really scared of.

That there might not be room for you? That you have endless possibilities? That what you have to say isn’t important? Or worse, that it is?

Those are the sad, scared selves and/or the fuzzy monsters worth having some conversations with.

And in the meantime, we get to work on our stuff. And do some tower-maintenance. And wear our crowns and our costumes and dance the patterns and not be so hard on ourselves. Or at least try.

Comment zen for today.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.

People vary. So use what you can and discard the rest. Try things.

And my wish for you is this:

May your tiny, sweet thing receive all the love and support it needs. And may you break all the rules, do some damage, laugh your head off and dance, dance, dance!

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• The stuck that’s not supposed to be there anymore
• Avoidance! Oh, and getting out of it.
• Ask Havi #9: smoker’s edition

Oh boy.

This delightfully incoherent question that I may have completely misunderstood totally made my day.

I like this person. You will too:

I kind of want to be you. I mean, I don’t want to be you (though a duck compatriot would be pretty awesome) — but I want a lot of your life.

You somehow manage to be completely insane (in a good way) and make money and everyone knows about you. But without actually like, doing all the marketing stuff that everyone else says there’s no getting out of.

I guess saying “what’s up with that” isn’t really a useful question.

But do you have some Wise And Helpful Things for someone starting out? Not motivational stuff. Most of the time I’m pretty sure I can do this. But where do I start?

Okay. I don’t know how to answer this yet. But some words of wisdom that could pass as business advice?

I’ll give it a shot.

10 possibly helpful things when you’re working on mindful biggification.

And no, I don’t always remember to do these myself. This is all wisdom gained the hard way, yes?

1. Work on your stuff.

And not just occasionally but as the main thing you do. Because:

There is no biggification without destuckification.

Well, there is but it isn’t much fun.

The biggest thing that helps you in business is a willingness to work on your stuff.

And the biggest impediment in business is internal resistance.

If you can work with the what-ifs, the doubt, the second-guessing, and the monsters, everything happens faster.

And when it does, you’ll be way better equipped to deal with it.

2. Be in your body.

Staying connected to your body makes everything easier.

You want your body to be your friend while you’re working.

Sometimes this doesn’t happen. So you come back to it again. And each time you apologize and bring it flowers and eventually it forgives you.

Yoga. Shiva Nata. Going for a walk. Legs up on the wall and breathing.

Massaging your feet. Rolling around on the floor. Putting on music and doing some Dork Dancing. Even for just a few minutes.

But movement. And stillness. With your body.

3. Learn about your patterns.

How they work. How you work when you’re in them.

The best way, in my experience, to learn about patterns and how to take them apart and build better ones is Dance of Shiva. It changes everything.

It’s also how I accidentally became a business savant. If you skip everything else on the list, do this.

4. Be as you as you can stand.

Let the wild rumpus of Deshouldifying begin!

Seriously. I know there’s crazy pressure out there to be “authentic” and “yourself” and other annoying things.

You don’t have to force anything. You don’t have to drag yourself kicking and screaming into the light.

But bring as much you-ness as you can safely handle. And take some excursions to the edge of that boundary to learn about how and when it moves.

Your people will come for the zany or for the quiet or for whatever it is that exists in your you-ness. Because they need it.

5. Trust in your Right People.

Even if you can’t see them yet, they exist.

And they will love it if you let them peek at the things you think.

Which means you don’t have to do stuff that makes you want to throw up.

Because your people, by definition, won’t like that stuff anyway. Speaking of which …

6. Don’t do stuff that feels crappy.

As a matter of principle.

Have a Dammit List. And keep adding to it.

Example:

I will never say anything motivational on Twitter, dammit. Not my style. So I don’t have to.

Makes everything easier.

7. Document the process.

Keep adding everything you learn to that big Book of You.

8. Know what your boundaries are. Even though they’ll change.

It’s a matter of being able to say: right now, in this moment, this is what I feel comfortable with.

9. Avoid being obnoxious to people who can help you.

I don’t mean that you have to suck up to anyone. Because you don’t.

It’s fine to completely avoid biggified people or colleagues who might otherwise be good connections if they don’t feel like your right people.

Just don’t be a jerk. If I have the power to tell thousands of smart, interesting people about how amazing your work is, don’t mess that up by actively convincing me that you’re someone whose work I don’t want to promote.

This should be fairly obvious, but you would not believe how often people screw this one up. Ask Sonia. Or Naomi. Build your own tower instead of trying to knock ours down.

Not that you would do that. Because you are lovely.

10. Let your people in on what’s going on behind the curtain.

In my case, this involves things like:

• talking about when things are hard and what I do when that happens.
• letting you peek at my internal process, even when it’s wacky and bizarre.
• explaining about different aspects of what I do and why and how I do it.
• doing stuff like the Fake Band of The Week in the Friday Chicken, even though it’s funny pretty much only to me.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

The things that have helped me most in business are — weirdly — mostly the ones that seemed like really bad ideas at the time.

Like dumping the noozletter because I didn’t like writing it.

Like going on email sabbatical.

Or turning down opportunities to work with super famous people because I just didn’t want to.

So I guess the real advice is more about the value of developing a sense of trust that what you need is important.

And even though you’re not always going to get things right, you’re learning about what it means to bring your you-ness into the world so that surprising, unlikely, wonderful things can happen.

Whoops. Sorry. Got motivational there for a second. Sometimes you kind of have to.

Comment zen for today.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.

People vary. So use what you can and discard the rest. Try things.

And my wish for you is this:

May your tiny, sweet thing receive all the love and support it needs. And may you break all the rules, do some damage, laugh your head off and dance, dance, dance!

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Biggification: part of a map. And some circles.
• OFGSPDUA.
• Taking on the “ew” aspect of affiliate programs

Sleep-related stuckness.

A number of people in my programs have been dealing with sleep-related stuck lately, from insomnia to nightmares to general not wanting to go to bed.

Then a couple of them asked me to weigh in with techniques and ideas and advice.

And to talk about how to approach this whole thing in a Fluent-Self-ified way.

So. First some recognition. And hugs.

Oh sweetie. So much hard.

Not being able to sleep — or not sleeping well – is really not-fun. And it makes everything else that much more impossible. I have way too much first-hand experience with this.

It’s hard on your body, your emotional state, your decision-making capacities. And pretty much everything going on in your life.

So we can’t really talk about this without stopping first to appreciate how much this sucks, and to send comfort and love.

Then the caveats.

People vary.

What’s right for one person isn’t right for someone else. And we need different things at different times.

That’s why you try stuff. And you take notes for the big Book of You, so you can discard whatever isn’t your thing.

None of this is prescriptive. It’s about being genuinely curious about yourself and your relationship with yourself.

And while I’m caveat-ing here, please keep in mind that neither I nor my duck is a doctor, as stated in our boring disclaimer.

And then a bunch of things worth trying.

I’m intentionally not putting these suggestions in any particular order, hoping that you’ll mix and match to find things that suit you.

Left nostril breathing.

The short version: your body goes through various respiratory cycles through the day.

While you’re awake, there’s more breathing through the right nostril. And while you sleep, the emphasis is left nostril.

If you ever have a stuffed nose where it was your right side clogged up, you’ll notice that it’s almost impossible to fall asleep.

Breathing intentionally through the left nostril is a good way to jumpstart the process and get back on a relaxed, quiet, introspective cycle.

Gently close your right nostril with your fingers. Relaxed, comfortable, unforced inhaling and exhaling through the left side.

And at the very least it’s good for getting your mind off of everything else, and reconnecting to your body.

Rituals.

Stuff that always happens before bed.

You start small. And build. Adding new aspects every few days.

You might include something you say (like a poem or a prayer). Something you smell (lavender or chamomile). Something you drink (sleepy tea). Something you wear.

Body stuff.

A tired mind makes you feel like a mess. But a slightly tired body worn out from (moderate) movement and exertion tends to be a happy one.

So that means stuff during the day. Like walking and dancing around the living room and stretching.

And gentler stuff in the evening. You might want to look for a restorative or a yin yoga class to learn some gentle, relaxing poses that are good for winding down before bed.

And incorporate some of that into evening rituals. Legs up on the wall. Reclining poses. Shavasana.

Talk to your sleep.

Write it little notes. And letters to your elephants. Or a Very Personal Ad.

Ask your sleep to take care of you.

Ask your body to process what it needs to process in a way that’s peaceful and healthy for you. Ask your dreams to give you information in non-disturbing ways.

Make a commitment to your body and your mind to find out more about whatever it’s trying to tell you.

Speaking of writing.

Writing before bed is a great way of processing stuff that happened during the day (and inviting your unconscious brain to help you out while you’re asleep).

Evening pages.

Writing a note to yourself can also become part of your evening rituals.

Clearing space (symbolically and literally).

The point of sleep is to restore your mind and your body.

And it’s harder with distractions and reminders of awake-stuff all around.

Look at anything you can see from your bed, in any position you might be sleeping in. And if it’s not relaxing, you want it out.

You definitely don’t want your computer there (if it turns out you can’t sleep and you’re going to go online, you can always wrap yourself in a blanket and visit it). Same goes for piles of work stuff.

Also: clearing space and making dedicated space is something that happens both physically and in time. It helps to make time for rest and coming to bed.

Look for the patterns.

Doing Shiva Nata in the morning (I do not recommend practicing at night) will give you a ton of information about whatever patterns are at play in your life.

You can also make that your intention:

“What can I learn in the next 48 hours about my relationship with sleep and rest?”

Find the emotion. And meet the need.

What’s going on when you can’t sleep?

Each emotion showing up (sad, lonely, frustrated, annoyed, frightened) hides a need (security, comfort, love, reassurance, acknowledgment).

Figuring out what you need so you can get better at giving it to yourself is a huge part of any destuckification practice.

As is acknowledging your pain and your right to have it, and meeting yourself where you are with it.

Things that engage your mind.

I have a lovely hypnotism CD (in German) that I listen to when I can’t sleep.

Many of my students use my emergency calming techniques audio recordings as their sleepy-relaxed pre-bed thing.

Remove pressure, ease pain.

If you head to bed thinking “I’d better get some sleep this time, dammit”, it’s all that more miserable if it doesn’t happen.

So you want your objective to be rest and observation, not sleep. It takes some of the pressure off.

If you’ve rested your eyes and your body, points for you. If you’ve observed stuff about yourself and your stuff, points for you. That’s what gets you closer to resolving this.

Sama vritti pranayama.

This is the breathing technique I use when I can’t sleep.

Sama means even. Vritti are fluctuations or vibration. So it’s just even breathing.

Inhale on a count of four. Exhale on a count of four.

As your breathing slows, you can expand the count as long as you keep it even. Inhale six, exhale six. Or inhale eight, exhale eight. Even.

Pure Land.

This is something I got from Hiro.

Pure Land, in the sense that is relevant to this conversation, is a buddhist concept of a place (or state of being) that is empty, quiet, pure, zen.

And you can ask your body or your soul, whether in writing or in meditation, to take you to a place like this while you sleep.

So that while you sleep, things can be taken care of. Without you being a part of it.

Taking it easy on yourself.

When you can’t sleep, nothing works.

Everything you feel (sad, anxious, annoyed, etc) is exacerbated and heightened.

It’s really easy to blame yourself for all of it. From stubbing your toe because you’re so tired to getting in an argument.

Permission to feel like crap! It’s normal. It’s not going to be like this forever.

Back to the Book of You.

When you look at what you know from the Book of You, you’ll be able to keep adding information about what’s helpful and what isn’t.

For me, watching a movie before bed is not helpful.

For me, doing yoga nidra is helpful.

You notice. You take notes. You keep adding to the collection of Useful Information.

And comment zen for today…

This is by no means a comprehensive list. Not even slightly.

You may have found all sorts of things that are helpful for you. Awesome. Do what works for you. Discard whatever doesn’t feel like a good fit.

We’re all working on our stuff in our own way, at our own pace. And we can let other people have their process too.

Big love to all. Comfort and hugs to all the schleepy mice. And wishes for happy sleeps.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Friday Chicken #176: no trombones this time. Except that sad one.
• When Very Personal Ads don’t work.
• Thinking about love.

So I taught this class last week about what to do when shoes are being thrown (when people say hurtful things).

It was a great class. And since there were way more questions than we ever could have gotten to, I want to touch on one that was asked by several people:

“My big shoe-related stuckness is being so afraid of the potential pain of them that it’s very, very hard to move forward on certain necessary projects … which is causing different kinds of stress & strain.

“What can I do when I feel stuck and freaked out in anticipation of shoes — of entering a shoe-heavy space?”

Let’s see if we can help.

Can we just start with how much it sucks to be in a situation where we know there are going to be shoes?

Ugh. Horrible.

It’s hard enough dealing with unexpected shoes, but anticipation and paralyzing fear is just not fun. I’m sorry.

I do have a few suggestions that — depending on your very specific situation — could possibly help come up with plans to deal with some of that fear.

Okay. Creating safety.

Because that’s the most important thing here.

There are all sorts of ways we can try and do this, but this has to be the focus.

Obviously there are always going to be unknown quantities. Things you can’t possibly be prepared for.

Not to mention the known quantities that you can’t do much about — like your hypercritical boss or your snippy in-laws.

While you won’t always be able to ensure a shoe-free environment, there are still things you can do to create a greater sense of safety for yourself.

Examples! Looking at a couple of different situations…

Fear of criticism — shoes from total strangers.

Say you’re starting a blog and you’re worried about people not getting it. Saying mean things.

There are a couple of practical, “in the hard” things you could do to create more of a sense of safety there.

• You can set up comments so they have to be approved.

• You could get a friend to approve them for you once a day so you don’t have to see them. Maybe you trade.

  Then after six months or so you can find out how many shoes your friend has deleted for you. My guess is going to be not that many. But hey at least you didn’t have to encounter any of them yourself.

  Safety? Now there’s more of it.

• You might also create a comment policy. Or a disclaimer-ey page. Or both. So that it’s very, very clear to potential shoe-throwers what’s cool and what’s not.

Fear of criticism — shoes from people who love you.

You want to write a book or teach a class or sell stuff on Etsy. You want to start doing your thing.

And you’re feeling anxious, anticipating the avalanche of what-ifs and “here are all the ways you might fail” from the people you want to be on your side.

Your friends. Your partner. Your family. Those people.

That’s when it becomes really important to remember that your baby idea is a tiny, sweet thing, and it’s vulnerable.

Which means two things:

1. You want to be extremely careful when you choose who gets to know about it and how much they get to know.
2. You are going to have to be very clear when you ask for support. Specifically this means saying something like this:
   

   “Honey, I’m guessing that you might have some really helpful suggestions about why this might not work, because you want to protect me. And I really appreciate that you love me and want me to be safe.

   And, at the same time, I need to ask you to not give me any constructive criticism on this at the moment, because right now I am feeling very vulnerable.

   I need to stay motivated, and what’s going to motivate me — at the moment — is reminders of how smart and tough I am.

   At a later date we can talk strategy — right now I’m really needing support and encouragement.”

Fear of criticism — shoes from people who don’t really love you.

People you work with.

People you have to interact with because of stupid, annoying circumstances — not people you would ever willingly invite to your house for dinner.

This is where things can really suck — if you’re in a situation where you just can’t avoid these people and the endless shoe-throwing drama of being around them.

This is where it helps to have a band of allies.

It might be people who carry some sort of symbolic meaning for you — like in Barbara Sher’s trippy ideal family exercise.

• It can be people you know. Yow can count me in on yours.
• Some of your allies will help you come up with smart things to say.
• Some of your allies will serve as reminders that you are loved and adored.
• Some of your allies will be there for moral support and maybe some will be kicking ass for you too.

The point is, you are not alone.

You are not alone.

Even when it really, really feels like you are. We’re all going through this. And we’re all working on our own stuff. We’re in it together.

And then?

You march in there, packing emotional protection — and then you go into scientist mode.

You remind yourself that anything they say is their stuff. That the fact that it bothers you is your stuff. And that you are just there taking notes on this situation for your own personal destuckification process.

You’re learning about your patterns. Where you get hooked. Where you get triggered. Which things you perceive as shoes, which things you don’t, and why.

And then you patch yourself up and drink tea and look at your notes. And make preparations for next time.

And maybe the time after that. For the time — eventually — when none of this will touch you because you will be in sovereignty, which is the state (and spiritual quality) of not giving a damn about stupid shit that other people might say.

Whooo!

I could have ended this post right there, but I have another magic trick thingy that’s so useful that I just have to share.

The invisible mentor.

Everyone needs an invisible mentor. They’re like aikido for shoe-blocking.

It goes like this.

Concerned Annoyed Pushy Person In Your Life: “Oh is that what you’re interested in now? It’s so hard to know what with you changing your mind every two minutes. When are you going to settle down and do something sensible?”
You: “Actually, my artistic mentor is extremely excited about this new direction. We’re not discussing it with outside people while it’s in planning mode, though. I’ll update you on it when it’s something I can talk about.”

Concerned Annoyed Pushy Person In Your Life: “Oh come on, you’re never going to make any money coaching people. How much did you make last year? What are the numbers?”
You: “Well, you know, my business mentor is very firm about me not discussing the numbers with anyone until we hit the target we’re working towards.”

See how that works?

The important thing.

The concerned, annoyed, pushy people in your life are related to your monsters — they mean well, they’re looking out for you, and, at the same time, you’re still hurting from it.

And your invisible mentor is like your Negotiator — the one who can be calm and collected and knows what to say, even when you’re all torn apart.

If you don’t have one, you can go ahead and pretend that I’m yours. Or Selma, if you prefer. I’m sure she’d be great at it.

Comment zen.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We’re in it together, so we don’t give advice but we do empathize and pass the snacks around. Mmmmm. Snacks.

EDIT:

This is weird and cool! After this post, we got a note from Avil Beckford who actually has a website CALLED The Invisible Mentor.

She writes: “Washington State University professor Karen L. Peterson defines (link goes to PDF) an invisible mentor as a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from a distance.” Super useful. Thanks, Avil.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask Havi #25: Destuckifying a hurt.
• A coloring book. For your monsters.
• Crossing the Line.

Here it is:

“Hullo Havi! I’m after some advice and inspiration on getting up earlier to have more time to do things I love in the morning — gots any?”

Oh boy. Do I have stuff to say about this.

Let’s do it. As is usual with the Ask Havi posts, expect a bunch of random points in no particular order, that — she types hopefully — might eventually come together to form some sort of cohesive whole. Or not.

A big (the biggest?) mistake when trying to change a habit.

Too much at once.

If you’re currently getting up at ten past seven and you want to be getting up at five, the worst way to do it is to say I’m getting up at five, dammit. Or else!

That way lies madness. And guilt. Lots and lots of guilt.

And shoulds. And self-thrown shoes.

That’s two hours and ten minutes to beat yourself up about each day. And beating up? Not the most effective thing in the world.

Incremental change is way less violent.

For example?

One day of getting up at 7:07

Two weeks of getting up at 6:55

Two weeks of getting up at 6:42

One week of getting up at 6:33

One week of getting up at 6:17

One week of getting up 6:08

And by that point, deciding to start your day eight minutes earlier is nothing.

It will probably take way less time than what I’ve outlined here, but this is the non-scary version.

Incremental change: note 1

Your monster might say that this is stupid because it takes five weeks and if you weren’t such a dumb-ass lazy good-for-nothing model of pathetic loserdom (okay, that might be my monsters), you could just get up at five tomorrow.

Here’s the thing to tell your monsters:

They are probably right that there are shorter ways to make this change happen. But those ways are not happening.

So you can keep doing the old, familiar thing of feeling horrible about yourself (which official studies of your life have shown totally doesn’t work) …

… or you can spend five weeks practicing in a more gentle way and actually get there.

Incremental change: note 2

Some people really, really resist the idea of incremental change (see the stuff people yelled in the comments section of my post about how I quit smoking), to which I say:

Rock on.

People vary. And that’s a given. So if you personally can’t make peace with incremental change, skip it.

We’re talking about the principle of you having conscious interactions with yourself, not about me pushing any specific technique — go ahead and ignore what doesn’t work for you.

Dissolving the guilt.

Guilt is the great stuckifier, and dissolving it is a big part of interacting with any pattern.

One of the best ways to start with that is just by noticing it’s there.

Whoops. There you are again.

Hello, guilt. You are not the essence of me. You are not the whole of me. You are a temporary part of my experience, and I am learning what I can about you and what you need.

A useful thing for the guilt (and any form of internal resistance, actually) is using even though sentences to sidestep the hard parts.

“Even though I really don’t want to get out of bed, I am allowed to be in resistance. It makes sense that part of me doesn’t want to get up earlier.

“Even though I am feeling hugely guilty (or annoyed or frustrated or anxious) about not being able to shift this yet, I am human. It might take me a while to shift this pattern, but at least I’m learning about it.

“Even though all of my internal thoughts are totally contradictory because one monster thinks I suck for not wanting to get up and the other monster insists that I can’t get up, I am allowed to have contradictory thoughts and desires.”

Morning begins at night.

This is something I took from my teacher, and it has helped me tremendously.

So at night you plant seeds and clues and reminders for your morning.

Maybe this means a sticky note on your alarm clock that says hello my sweet, remember that you wanted to spend fifteen minutes doing some yoga?

Maybe it means setting up the thing you wanted to do in the morning beforehand, so it’s all ready for you if/when you crawl out of bed.

Maybe it means figuring out what will make it easiest for you to get up (warm socks on your nightstand? a light in the bathroom?) and making sure it’s there for you.

Patience: not the most fun thing in the world.

And at the same time, it can be kind of useful to remember that change doesn’t need to happen right this second.

If this pattern has been around for years and years, it can take a while until you learn whatever needs to be learned for it to change form.

That’s normal. It’s not a sign that something is wrong with you.

The thing that Dance of Shiva (which is all about the science of patterns and how they work) has taught me about patterns is that they are their own cure.

Like homeopathy.

The thing that moves a stuck pattern is introducing another pattern into the mix. And when that one becomes automatic and ingrained (which it will), the whole thing starts again.*

* Except that now each time it’s a tiny bit easier because there’s less resistance to letting one thing become another thing.

Stopping here for now.

Holding back the idea flow, because I think this is enough information to assimilate right now.

The more time you spend with both the parts of you that want this new thing, and the parts of you that are grieving the loss of what is familiar and comfortable, the easier it gets to move things.

Because rewriting patterns always involves an element of loss. One thing goes so the new thing can come, and then that new thing will go so something else can come.

And loss is hard. What are you gonna do? Even when the thing you’re losing isn’t what you want, there’s still a hard.

And hard wants love.

So. Giving love to all the hard. And reminding you (okay, reminding myself) that being in this thing of interacting with ourselves is way more important than how we get somewhere or how long it takes to get there.

Comment zen for today.

We all have our stuff.

We’re all working on our stuff.

We’re practicing.

p.s. One more thing!

The once-or-twice-a-year no-cost class thing that my duck and I lead on rewriting patterns is coming up soon. If you have thoughts on stuff you’d like us to cover (or a theme?), you can drop a note in the comments.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask Havi #5: The “let’s talk about nazis” edition
• Ask Havi #17: Another question about pain.
• Taking on the “ew” aspect of affiliate programs

So Fizz — who is @relsqui on Twitter (you know, the neighborhood bar/cafe place where I’m pretty much always hanging out) — said a wonderfully true thing the other day:

“Reading @havi’s blog the first time is like reading a message in code.

It takes a couple of posts to internalize the vocabulary.”

Ahhhhhhhh. I totally loved this because … yes.

One of the fun things here is the shared language, and that you guys let me get away with all sorts of things without having to explain them. Eventually, you’re in on all the jokes and the wackiness anyway.

So why not have a glossary? I mean, what the hell. That way when you send people here, they can look up at least some of the weird stuff I say. Or see how many Fluent-Self-ified bits of Havi-speak they already know.

Asshat

This one isn’t mine, actually.

It’s a great word. Though not as good as webcock.

I generally use it to describe the kind of people who throw shoes (see also: Shoes, Throwing of).

And I probably got it from the Communicatrix.

Biggification

The art and science of growing your thing (the thing!).

And of getting your thing (the thing!) into the hands of your Right People without feeling icky or weird about it.

When I say I’m helping someone biggify, it might mean that my duck (see also: Selma) and I are helping them promote or get the word out about something, but in a non-gross way.

A person who is biggified is someone with platform. And reach. And sparkles.

Generally, biggification = good. I talk a lot about mindful biggification which is what happens when you biggify while working on your stuff. (see also: Stuff)

The word biggifier, on the other hand, has been known to come with a dash of snark.

Ooh. Dash of Snark! It’s just one guy! (See also: It’s just one guy).

Like the internet-ey biggifiers who try to get us to think big think big think big. Whatever. I think it’s okay to not have to think that big.

Dammit list

The dammit list is your list of things you stand for (see also: Sovereignty).

“I am going to wear excessively fuzzy socks, dammit!”

“I don’t have to explain why I need a dammit list, dammit!”

Other dammit list posts: revisiting the dammit list and more ways to use the dammit list.

Destuckification

Working through the stucknesses that get in the way of you doing your thing (you know, the thing!).

Destuckifying is what you’re doing when you’re learning about triggers. Or talking to the fog. Or giving yourself permission to not have to practice “transparency”.

Sometimes it’s figuring out how not to feel like dirt. Maybe because you don’t want anyone to look at you. Or you accidentally gave your monster a cookie and it was, weirdly, the wrongest thing to do, even though lots of other monsters like cookies.

Or using my wacky methods if you’re a Shivanaut (see also: Shivanaut), or if you own my emergency calming techniques package.

It’s applying the stuff that Selma and I teach so that you can have a conscious, intelligent relationship with yourself and the world around you. So that your stuff (see also: Stuff) doesn’t have to hurt so much.

Email sabbatical

The best thing that has ever happened to me. (See also: No, seriously. I don’t do email.)

Fake Band of the Week

This is something we do every Friday on the Chicken. (See also: Friday Chicken)

My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”

That’s it. It’s stupid but it’s addictive.

Stupid But Addictive. It’s just one guy. See? Like that. Only funnier. You’ll get used to it.

Friday Chicken

Our weekly check-in, which I started calling a Chicken. Mostly because my gentleman friend made me this awesome chicken graphic.

You know, because rituals are important.*

This is where I talk about the hard stuff and the good stuff in my week and people join in, and eventually the whole thing devolves into extreme goofiness.

* That might be the first post where I said “blame the Jews!” Ah, nostalgia. Also, I don’t eat the chicken. Selma and I are vegetarians.

So this, for example, is a Friday Chicken.

Fansocks

About a year and a half ago I bought some stockings for Naomi. From Sock Dreams. The joke was that we were so obsessed with each other that we were … stalking each other.

So these were … stalkings. Striped stalkings to wear on your legs. Yes, jokes are so much more funny when you explain them in elaborate detail to someone who doesn’t care, do you not find that to be so?

Anyway, we talked a lot about how fansocks (or fan-socks, if you prefer) are the coolest thing ever.

And then random people started knitting them for me. And making scarves for my duck because she doesn’t have feet. Never mind.

It’s just one guy

See also: Fake Band of the Week.

“You know that new venue that just opened up at the meme beach house? I heard Fake Band of the Week is playing. You know it’s just one guy, right?”

HSP

Highly Sensitive Person.

That would be me.

This term is also not mine. It comes from Elaine Aron‘s book The Highly Sensitive Person, which probably wasn’t meant to be a biography of me or anything.

But reading it was really helpful. And HSP has become a kind of short-hand for sensitive flower introvert-ey people.

It’s why I don’t go to (ew) networking events. And why that gets a place of honor on my dammit list.

NVC

I really don’t like acronyms. But I love NVC.

Nonviolent Communication (aka compassionate communication) has been a total freaking lifesaver.

Meme Beach House

The original reference is to when Stu (See also: Stuisms) translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to people will hang at my meme beach house.

Now it’s become (in my mind, yes?) the venue where my Fake Band of the Week plays its non-existent gigs. Except that it turns out it’s a real place.

My Gentleman Friend

That’s my partner in crime everything. There is backstory to why I call him that, but it’s not that interesting.

Right People

The people your thing is for. Even if they don’t know it yet.

People that you actually like. And they like you. A lot. This is totally not the hippie word for “target market” because blech. I kind of write about this all the time.

» Update: Right People re-explained

Selma

Selma is a rockstar. She is the only duck I know who can reasonably be described that way. She’s also my business partner.

Shivanauts

People who practice Dance of Shiva or Shiva Nata, in Sanskrit.
Shivanautical = anything that describes the process of Shiva-ing it up (aka doing Shiva Nata).

Example: “Man I had some crazy shivanautical epiphanies this week. Now I know why I flip out whenever that one asshat at work throws a shoe at me.”

Shoes, the throwing of (also known as shoe-throwing)

It’s what happens when people say hurtful things out of nowhere. It sucks.

Also, it’s really hard to destuckify when shoe-throwing is happening. Hence the sovereignty thing. (See also: Sovereignty)

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the state of not giving a damn what people think because you are the king or queen of your life. I got this from Hiro.

Smartnesses

The thoughtful, insightful things that we sometimes come up with, usually after some sort of … shivanautical epiphany.

Stuism

Stu is my stupid, paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software. His name is short for work, you Stupid piece of crap!

A Stuism is anything that he says. I collect the most egregious of these for your amusement and put them in the Friday Chicken.

Stuff, yours

You know, your stuff. Your issues.

The stuckified patterns that cause us to lose our sense of sovereignty and sometimes to think people are throwing shoes at us even when they aren’t. And yeah, sometimes they are.

Stucknesses

(See: Stuff)

Tfu tfu tfu

That’s me spitting three times to avoid the evil eye.

The Twitter Bar

Where you can buy me a drink. I’m @havi. Kazoo!

Very Personal Ads

Also known as the VPA. Though that wasn’t my idea, obviously, since you already know that I have a thing about not liking acronyms.

It’s where we practice getting more comfortable with asking for stuff.

Phew. That was the glossary.

I really need to stop making up words because this post is way too long.

Also: The meta. It hurts.

Ooh, and there are four words in the glossary that aren’t mine: let the guessing (or the counting) begin.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Metaphor Mouse and some post-imperialist destuckifying
• Ask Havi #24: What if my stuff is boring and useless?
• Regret. And some patterns. And decisions.

Here it is:

“How did you get into the coaching thing? How did you get started? Is there a post about this already? If so, can you point me to it?”

Crap. I was positive there was a post about this.

There wasn’t, so I must have either written it in my head (in which case, where did it go???) or answered it in an email a million years ago when I still did email.

Anyway. Here’s the abridged version.

And I should warn you that the problem with my particular story is that it’s weird enough to be un-repeatable. But I’ll try to throw in some Useful Bits at the end.

People started showing up.

It’s 2003-ish.

I’m living in Tel Aviv.

I haven’t heard the word “coaching” yet. And if I had it probably would have made me throw up.*

In the meantime, I’ve been processing my transition from professional bitchy rockstar barmaid to kooky yoga teacher.

And that’s when they started showing up.

People. Wanting me to help them shift stuff.

First it was other yoga teachers. Wanting to know what techniques I was using to pull off the tough life changes they’d seen me make. Then it was my students. Then it was random strangers.

*It still kind of does. I really, really dislike the word “coaching”.

So I started teaching.

The issues people had were all different.

Everything from broken hearts to losing weight to wanting to learn Russian (I don’t speak Russian, which made it even more interesting).

And the stuff I taught was always about figuring out what your stuff was, and then interacting with said stuff in a conscious way.

I’d started experiencing for myself how Dance of Shiva was rewriting my patterns in the craziest of ways, so I prescribed it in small doses. And of course yoga. And cognitive exercises. And and and.

In my mind it was all yoga, just … not the stuff they teach you in the kind of classes where the focus is, you know, how to stick your leg behind your head.

Then people wanted to pay me. Which totally freaked me out.

Like a lot of yoga teachers and alternative health practitioners of all stripes, I was dealing with more than enough stucknesses of my own around “receiving” in any form.

But especially the “monetary renumeration” kind.

It was becoming clear that people wanted to give me money for my help, so I used my techniques to work on that too — slowly, slowly, slowly.

In the fight between “I can’t take money for sharing universal wisdom — something that I’m just distilling and helping someone apply to their specific situation” and “but I also can’t make enough money teaching regular yoga”, the need to pay rent won.

Well, the need to pay rent combined with my inability to stay in a job anywhere that’s not a bar or a yoga studio.

So my help became a thing.

And now the Twilight Zone part.

I moved to Berlin. And within the first week everything went to pieces.

The ear infection from hell changed everything.

I lost all hearing in my right ear for six months. I was weak. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t teach. I couldn’t do yoga.

None of my trusty techniques were relevant in this situation.

In total desperation, I turned to flavors of weird energy stuff that I had always thought were ridiculous — and ended up adding all sorts of wackiness to my repertoire of things that can potentially be useful.

In the meantime, something about the stuff happening in my middle ear allowed me to access all kinds of intuitive abilities. Scared me half to death.

So I was healing from huge amounts of pain. And I was learning how to use my powers.

Oh. And I’d decided to use them for good. Which was also scary.

I got better. And three things happened.

1. I threw myself back into my Shiva Nata practice. Epiphany city. Huge, huge, huge understandings about everything in my life.

2. I downloaded the entire Fluent Self system in one afternoon. It just came — and I spent the next few months furiously writing down everything I could.

3. And I started teaching workshops about changing habits and rewriting patterns. See also: How The Fluent Self Got Its Spots.

Then more things happened.

People started hiring me to help them problem-solve.

The Dance of Shiva parts of the workshops were very successful. So successful that I started focusing on the brain-training part of my system, because that was what people seemed to want.

After an eleven year hiatus, I returned to the States.

I discovered that this helper-mouse thing I was doing was already sort of a thing.

People didn’t do it the way I did it. But in a sense it was a thing, and that thing was called “coaching”.

To certify or not to certify.

Aside from my issues with the word (it still conjures up an image of a gym teacher with a whistle hanging from his neck, yelling GO GO GO GO GO), I also had issues with certification.

One of the things I’d learned from the yoga world was that certification is one of the most bullshit things there is. At best irrelevant, and at worst scammy.

I don’t regret any of the yoga teacher trainings I have done. That’s how I first connected with Andrey Lappa, who became my intellectual and spiritual mentors.

These kinds of trainings have allowed me to study with phenomenal teachers, to go deep into all kinds of learning, and to become a better teacher through watching other people do it.

But you know what?

I was a perfectly good yoga teacher before those trainings.

And in all my years of teaching yoga and Shiva Nata in yoga studios around the world, not once have I been asked if I have international certification. I do, but no one has ever asked.

So I decided that I would keep learning stuff from the coaching world. And I would take trainings if and when I felt moved to. But I wasn’t going to jump through a bunch of hoops for a totally meaningless piece of paper.

Whew.

And then?

Well, no one (aside from people who want to become coaches) has ever asked me if I have “coaching certification”.

People hired me and my duck. They had ridiculously great results. They told other people.

Selma and I turned some of our workshops into online programs and ebooks and stuff.

We went through some really rough parts too. Got all kinds of terrible advice.** Made mistakes. Learned stuff. And it didn’t happen overnight either.

**Thanks for nothing, everyone who thought I needed to specialize in something targeted like ‘helping 45 year old women quit smoking’.

I used my techniques to biggify my own business and — more importantly — to gradually feel more comfortable being all biggified.

Which got me all fired up about the connection between working on your stuff and bringing your thing into the world.

The intersection of non-cheesy self-help and mindful business biggification.

And here we are. Hi.

The take-aways, such as they are.

So I wouldn’t recommend that you try to follow my path or imitate what I’ve done because yeah, even if you could, it would still be painful and horrible.

Not recommended.

What I would say is this:

• I definitely wish I’d spent less time waiting for external forces to give me the legitimacy to help the people who wanted my help.
• The smartest thing I did along the way was making my first priority working on my own stuff. Everything comes from that anyway.
• If I were doing it again, I’d spend less time hiding my duck from the world while trying to sound like an expert (yuck), and more time being my kooky self out loud.
• Continued learning and education = the bomb. Certification = hugely unnecessary.

Hope some of that is helpful. And, if not, then at least semi-entertaining.

Good luck with your thing. Your thing! And even if this seems impossible to believe right now, the world needs you. And hiding from the people who need you isn’t fair to them or to you.

Okay. Off the soapbox. I promise not to be all inspirational for at least a few weeks. :)

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Thoughtful Bathrooms.
• Very Personal Ads #13: What’s a sexier word for “productivity”?
• Tiny little answers.

It’s probably not even slightly surprising, but I get all sorts of questions that don’t really have anything to do with what I teach.

Some are too nuanced or complicated to answer in a hundred and forty characters at the bar (on Twitter) — and others don’t manage to fall even into the wildly broad categories of stuff I to write about here.

I always figured the right time would show up to answer some of the ones that show up over and over . And that time is (apparently) now, as I am off visiting Hiro and we are being a little bit silly.

So. Here they are. The answers to five off-topic questions — which you may or may not have been dying to know.

“Why is your gentleman friend your ‘gentleman friend’?”

Oh.

There is a story there.

When we first met, my gentleman friend called his parents and told them he’d fallen madly in love.

The next time they spoke, his mother asked after the ‘lady friend’.

My gentleman friend: You mean my girlfriend?
My gentleman friend’s mother: You’re a little too old for a girlfriend.

Awesome.

So I became the lady friend. And my gentleman friend is my gentleman friend.

“Why don’t you admit that your gentleman friend is actually a girl?”

Huh.

You know what’s funny? I talk about all sorts of things here that people would normally never bring up.

I’ve written about poverty and terror and stuff blowing up. And about my friend who is dead and my conversations with walls and the fact that my filling system is arranged by chakras.

Also, I live in northeast Portland, which is a place where my having a lady friend would not even be interesting.

Believe me, if my gentleman friend were my lady friend, y’all would know about it.

“How do you bake bread without using sugar?”

Juice.

I feed my little bread yeasties with juice instead of sugar.

Any non-citrus juice that’s 100% fruit will work, but I like grape juice best for bread. It does turn the dough a little bit purple-ey, but you get used to it.

Kedem is the brand I bake with, but my friends make my recipe work with whatever they have around the house, and it’s good that way too.

Mmm, bread!

“Why do you think yoga mats are evil?”

Um.

I’m not sure that I do think that yoga mats are evil.

But I must have said something to that effect because you’re asking the question. And yeah, it does kind of sound like something I might say. :)

So. Let’s see.

I think that yoga mats made with PVC are evil. First of all, you’re breathing in poison. And the manufacturing process (plus their inevitable destination as landfill), means that buying one is participating in crappifying the world. Neither of those are very yoga things to do.

If you’re going to get a mat, get one that’s biodegradable — or at least one that you’ll be able to leave it to your grandkids in good condition, like Peter’s manduka mat.

My deeper point is that mats are not so much evil as not really necessary.

A mind and a few working body parts, and you can do yoga. It doesn’t actually require much more than being able to breathe. Which is one of the things I love about it.

The danger comes when we start thinking that we need stuff to do yoga, and we get caught up in the trappings — in the “yoga industrial complex”.

The truth is that a blanket works great for most poses, and the floor works well for the rest. And we sometimes forget that having a narrow rectangle defining our space can really confine our creativity of movement.

But I also don’t think it’s bad to have a mat — not at all.

I have one myself (the compostable kind) and I use it when I want to work on balance stuff, or to mark out the space of “I am practicing yoga”.

For me, seeing the mat on the floor is a reminder that this is my daily ritual. That this is something I need and something I’m committed to.

“I don’t get it. You’re a big tree-hugging yoga hippie Shivanaut but you also like Roller Derby. Explain.”

“Explain”?

Roller Derby is all about drag, brilliantly bad puns, ass-kicking, stripey socks, marginalized culture, and beer.

Which is pretty much a list of all the stuff I like.

And I also like hugging trees.

We’re complex and multi-faceted beings.

I don’t know if I have a better explanation than that.

And that’s as good a place to finish today as any.

Honestly? I can’t come up with a conclusion for this one.

But since we’re off-topic anyway, feel free to jump in with stories of odd/interesting things that people ask you. Or that you wish they’d ask you. Or … anything else, really.

Comment zen:
We’ve all got our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Very Personal Ads #42: dancing up a storm
• Friday Chicken #89: Not just for zombies
• Item! Ninja Wizardry ACTIVATE!

So. This is a weird, complicated double Ask Havi because I have two people in seemingly opposite situations with the same problem. Namely:

“What do you say to those people in your life when … “

Right.

When they bug you. When they won’t leave you alone. When they think you should be following their advice.

When they can’t understand why you would do things your way and not their way.

Or when they aren’t saying anything yet but you’re worried that they’re going to. Hard!

Right. Different situations. Same issue. Different advice. Same principles.

Person #1:

“I’m taking a break from doing my thing because I decided I need to go back to having a ‘real job’ for a while. I’ll still be working on my thing and thinking about my thing, but won’t be engaging me in a full-time way.

And I’m worried about people giving me crap about it.”

Person #2:

“Everyone in my life will not stop asking me when I’m going to quit doing my thing and go back to a ‘real job’. It’s driving me crazy. They keep hinting that maybe now is the time and why would I take the risk of keeping it up.

They don’t understand that — for me, at least — there isn’t any real security in a job, and that doing my thing is something I truly believe in and am invested in.

I know I can make it work, but all my energy goes to these people and their worries.”

And … exhale.

Starting at the beginning.

First off, hugs all around for the hard. Because ack. Hard.

Both of these situations are absolutely challenging and frustrating, each in its own way. It completely makes sense to me that either one of these things would be all kinds of stressful.

So … I’m going to take them one at a time. I’ll tell you what I think and what I would say. And then maybe do a little summing up.

And, as always, take the stuff that’s useful for you and ignore the bits that aren’t. And go ahead and rephrase whatever I say into language that works for you.

The person who has a job and feels weird about it.

My thoughts.

There’s nothing wrong with a job. Lots of people have jobs. Lots of people take jobs while they’re working on developing their thing.

Let me quote (with permission) the wonderful Susan Marie on this:

“I am very boring on the subject of jobs. Just this: jobs that help people pay bills and be independent and move forward are a good thing.

We learn things from them. We combine jobs with other things. They surprise us.

And we who work in the arts often put together very quirky combinations of things to help ourselves be financially independent. I will try to avoid spraining my ankle as I jump down off of this soap box.”

Yes! Also, did you ever read Andrea J. Lee‘s book Multiple Streams of Coaching Income?

She has a whole chapter — a really good one — called Coaching Day Jobs. About why it’s actually a great idea for coaches to get jobs doing a non-coachey thing. Because that’s where you find out what it’s like to use coaching skills in a non-coaching situation.

So yeah. Absolutely a legitimate thing to do.

What I’d say to people who asked.

“I get that you’re feeling anxious when you think about me not doing my thing, because you need to know that I’m going to be okay. And I appreciate that.

“Right now this feels like the best way for me to create a safe, supportive environment to grow my thing and take care of myself in a conscious and steady way, without burning out.

“So this decision is really about allowing me to take the time to figure out what my next steps are, and to make sure that I don’t get depleted. Because the only way I can grow my thing right now is through me getting the support I need.”

The person who doesn’t want that job and is sick of being asked when she’s going to take it.

My thoughts.

Totally legitimate.

And man, when you’re working on growing your thing, there’s nothing harder than constantly being challenged on it by the people you need cheering you on.

I’ve been there. It sucks.

What I’d say to people who asked.

“I get that you’re feeling anxious when you think about me doing my thing, because you need to know that I’m going to be okay. And I appreciate that.

“Right now the thing I need most to guarantee my success is a safe, supportive environment. The only way I can make this thing work is if my energy goes to taking care of myself and my business, and not to external things.

“Which means I need you to be a strong, steady source of support that I can count on. I totally get if you can’t do that right now because you feel anxious — I’m just asking that if you can’t, that you not bring up your worries with me right now.

Because right now I need to grow my thing and take care of myself in a conscious and steady way, without burning out. And in order to do that, I need my focus to be on surrounding myself with things that support me in what I’m doing.”

Principles! We like them.

So yeah.

Both of my answers were kind of the same.

That’s because of the principles involved. As follows.

1. Acknowledge feelings.

Their feelings (the anxiety and worry they have about you being okay).

And also your feelings (frustration).

Sometimes you just acknowledge your own feelings to yourself because they won’t be able to hear it right now. And sometimes you can try to explain it to them.

2. Express needs.

Their needs (to know you’re going to be okay).

But mostly yours (to be supported).

3. Set boundaries

You need support.

If they can give it to you in any form, great. If they can’t, great.

But they are going to have to stop doing things that are actively unsupportive, like telling you that you’re going to end up sleeping in a cardboard box if you don’t listen to them.

Because right now you’re surrounding yourself with support. They can be part of it or they can go away until they’re ready to be part of it.

4. Use feelings words instead of thinking words.

When you say, “I think X”, someone can argue with you and tell you that you should be thinking Y.

When you say, “I feel anxious when I’m not sure if I’m getting the support I need”, no one can argue with you about what you feel.

They can’t tell you that you don’t feel anxious. It’s what you feel and that’s that.

5. Emergency use: the internal-knowing thing.

Okay, this one is tricky. Because some people use the internal-information thing in a slimy way, yes. But it’s still a useful technique.

If you say you meditated on it or you prayed on it, and this is the answer you got from your heart … people can’t argue with that either.

Personally, I would never use this if it weren’t actually true. But yeah, go meditate on it. Go sleep on it. Go ask yourself what the answer is.

And then give it to someone else in a form where they don’t get to argue with it.

Commiseration.

It’s all harder than it sounds.

It all takes time.

Eventually (she types hopefully) we’ll get to the point where we care less what they think. That’s the sovereignty part.

In the meantime, we get to work on our stuff in the soft (all the emotional bits) and in the hard (systems!) … and we take lots of notes.

And did I say this part already? Hugs for the hard!

Comment zen:

We’ve all got our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We try to respond to each other with as much kind-hearted understanding as we can stand. Lou Reed lyrics (still) welcome.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Lost in a Tragic Ice Cream Incident!
• Friday Chicken #157: getting out of the habit tee hee
• Day 4 Syndrome.

Turns out that the piece I wrote the other week about explosions and my own stuckified post-traumatic stress stuff brought up a lot of memories for people.

It becomes pretty clear as you read the comments that so many of us are coping with similar things.

And man, is there ever an enormous variety of traumatic experiences that can leave us with pain and fear.

Then Renmiri asked:

“How do you even begin to destuckify a bad hurt?”

And that seemed like such a hugely important question — really, it goes straight to the core of everything I teach here — that I had to sneak it into the Ask Havi line-up.

Of course there is way too much to say about this in one post.

So instead of trying to give any sort of complete answer to such a big question, I’m just going to say oh my sweet, I am sorry you have this hard.

And then I’m going to just put out a few thoughts/concepts to start with. Seven of them.

In order.

1. You give yourself permission to be hurt.

You just stop and acknowledge what a hard thing this is — and you remind yourself that it’s natural and normal that this would hurt so much.

This is the most important step. And it’s hard.

So if you can’t give this situation permission to just be awful, that’s completely understandable. If you’re not there yet, that’s okay.

Maybe you can start with trying to giving yourself permission to not be able to let it be awful, and see if that starts to loosen things up a little.

2. Acknowledge how big it is.

It’s really easy (and tempting) to go straight into “I should really be over this already” and “why is this still such a big issue?”

Not so helpful.

It is a big deal. It is your big hurt.

So remind yourself:

“Even though I really just want to be over this already, I’m taking a moment to notice how much pain and grief I have from this hurt. No wonder I’m having trouble with this. There is a lot here.”

3. Notice things.

You’re going for mindful, compassionate noticing as opposed to noticing-and-making-judgments or just observing. So …

It’s NOT like this:

Oh look, I’m noticing what a freaking mess I am. How can anyone stand to be around me?

And it’s more like this:

I’m noticing that when I am in a crowded space, I begin to feel anxious because part of me is being reminded of this experience of pain. I’m noticing that I feel more comfortable as soon as I find a quiet place to sit. I’m noticing that I’m talking to myself and people probably think I’m crazy, but hey, a woman with a duck told me to do it so it’s probably fine.

When you notice things about yourself, without judging yourself for being a real live human being who has stucknesses, you can make smart choices.

You can make decisions that serve you.

And if noticing things does trigger judgment, you go ahead and notice that too.

You make a note of it. You remind yourself that it’s a temporary pattern — you’re working on it and you’re allowed to have it — and you go back to the noticing.

4. Create safe spaces.

Part of the recovery process involves creating and re-creating experiences of safety, so your body and mind can relearn what it’s like to have sanctuary.

What “safe space” means is a pretty individual thing, so a lot of what this safety stuff looks like or feels like is going to depend on you.

So, for me … I find safe space through rituals.

I also practice reminding myself that I’m allowed to be terrified and I’m allowed to ask for help.

I give myself permission to (ack!) say no to things that involve me doing something that could challenge my sense of safety.

And I’ll also ask my gentleman friend or my brother to accompany me places when I’m having trouble accessing my sense of safety.

5. What does it need?

That’s one of my favorite questions. It doesn’t always work, but more often than not it’s really helpful.

” What does this situation need? What do I need? What would be helpful here?”

I’ll ask these questions before my ten-minute Shiva Nata practice. Or before I sit down to write. Or when I’m getting ready to talk to my stuck.

6. Allies and helper mice.

Even when it feels like you’re alone with this, you’re not.

You are cared for by so many people, including all of us.

Asking yourself if you can get better at receiving help and support… is pretty much the most helpful thing you can do for yourself.

7. Patience: still a virtue, even if being virtuous kind of sucks.

Yes, huge cliché, but it’s true. These things can take time.

Reminding yourself of the time thing (and how you need to allow more time to keep healing) is a really big deal.

“I’m allowed to take as much time as I need. Even though the situation now is reminding me of everything that is unresolved from then, I’m still in a better place than I was.

I’m engaging with my hurt and my stuck in a conscious, intentional way. (Look! I’m doing it right now! I’m talking to myself!) And that’s part of what makes now different from then.”

I know this is just a start.

And at the same time, starting is where it all happens.

So I’m going to wish you a good start, if you’re starting. And if you’ve been working on destuckifying a particular hard for what feels like forever …I get it. And I wish for you sanctuary and Useful Insights.

And can we send Renmiri the offer of a virtual-hug?

Renmiri, my wish for you is this: as much love and support and safety as you can comfortably handle, with the knowledge that there is always more available to you when you are ready for it.

Bonus destuckification resource.

I think I mentioned this last week. Tomorrow (Tuesday) Selma and I are teaching our happens-only-twice-a-year-class that doesn’t cost anything.

We call it the Habits Detective teleclass and it’s about making the whole “working on your stuff” thing a leeetle less sucky.

I don’t sell anything or promote anything. It’s just a place to learn. And you’re welcome to sign up if you’d like to hang out with us on the call or to listen to the recording later.

Today’s Comments Zen.

If you have kind thoughts for Renmiri, you are absolutely welcome to leave them here. I know we know this, but just a reminder that we don’t do shoulds here and we don’t throw shoes.

–> Sharing your own story or your thoughts about the practice and experience of destuckifying is cool too. Thanks!

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask Havi #30: preparing for criticism (and hurled shoes)
• The Festival of Blanket Forts.
• My toes lift up in a little dance, and my left hand is clenching again.