And about how there is always more of it.

One of these people is my marvelous uncle Svevo. One is my dear friend Hiro. One is Douglas Buchanan. One is Janet Bailey. One is Waverly Fitzgerald. And another is Cairene, one of my partners-in-crime.

Janet, Waverly and Cairene have all come to play with me at Rally (Rally!). Come to Rally. You will seriously meet the most amazing people.

Anyway, yesterday Cairene and I were talking about how we want to interact with the coming year as a year.

We were peeking at my Almanac, which is a version of the Book of You that has to do with your relationship with time. A collection of what you know about how you are at different times of the year.

But then we got stuck when it came to the quarters.

Dividing the year into quarters, that is.

It wasn’t the division part of it that was problematic though. And it wasn’t the four part of it either.

I definitely like 4s.

They’re all over the place in Shiva Nata.

And four is the seasons.

Four is the right size (for me, yes?) for allowing the year to fall into segments that I can visit and explore in depth.

But something about thinking about the year in terms of quarters was a sticking point.

So I sent up the not-a-bat signal, and called on metaphor mouse to help untangle the stuck. Here’s what happened.

What’s not working?

A reminder: We know from the “People Vary” principle that words can have intensely personal definitions. My definitions will probably differ from yours.

Any negative associations with quarter?

Let’s see. YES.

Like these:

[+fiscal] [+boring] [+forced planning] [+not creative or innovative]
[+board meetings] [+arbitrary] [+divisive]
[+incongruent] [+inorganic] [+separate from the world] [+calculated]
[+irrelevant] [+externally imposed] [+not fun!]

Reminds me of?

Having an executive calendar. Things straight people do. Things adults do.

Sitting in a leather swivel chair in uncomfortable chairs having an excruciatingly dull powerpoint presentation inflicted on me about Fiscal Reports and Annual blah blah earnings ohmygod get me out of here.

Edit! I said chairs twice! The second one was meant to be clothes but I’m keeping it as chairs because it made me laugh.

It’s definitely indoors. Fluorescent lights. Uncomfortably low ceilings. Coffee breath. Everyone is bored stiff.

I’m not sure where I have this image from because, gott sei dank, I have never been in a place like this.

On second thought, it looks like the office meeting room from Arrested Development. Got it.

What do I want?

Words and qualities that are important:

[+intuitive] [+organic] [+seasonal] [+cyclical]
[+movement] [+wholeness] [+permission] [+spaciousness]
[+belonging] [+containers/homes for things to happen in]
[+fractal flowers] [+fun!] [+anticipation]

Reminds me of?

Hmmm.

I’m out in the world. In nature. But not exposed. My senses are engaged. I’m actively present in this space.

I’m in a garden. Whoah, garden beds? There could be four of those…

No, it’s not just about the garden. There’s definitely indoor space that exists outdoors. It’s all very cozy.

So this is an estate. What does an estate have? It’s not a wing or a suite. It’s a cottage! Or a place on the estate that has both land/garden and a place to hide in.

Cairene: Yes! Because time is a dimension, not a force! You can shape it.
Me: Yeah! Exactly. You are THE BEST. Thank you for saying that in the exact right way for me.

What do I know about this new space?

Okay. There are four parts. Four places I can go on this estate. Which is mine, because it’s part of my kingdom.

And each of these spaces is connected to a season.

Each has both elements of nature and of shelter. Outdoors and indoors.

1. There is a winter cabin. Is it a lodge? I’m calling it a cabin.
2. The spring cottage.
3. The summer gazebo.
4. The fall treehouse.

These seasons do not line up with the fiscal quarters. They have their own rhythms and they echo the outdoors.

What else do I know?

I do not live in any of these places. That’s what the Humming Castle is for (sorry, I haven’t written about that yet but just assume that it is AWESOME).

But each of these spaces is the home for my plans, hopes, gwishes and mysterious projects for that particular season.

I can move about from place to place throughout the course of the year.

And get this! These … spaces have essentially become the living quarters for what I want to do in that thing that used to be called a quarter.

So I’ve gotten rid of quarters and replaced them with quarters.

(Then I had to collapse in giggles for about ten minutes.)

The useful questions.

Cairene got me thinking about useful things to ask.

Like what tools and furnishings live in each one.

What is ready and waiting for me there?

How do I mark the transition times? Are there customs that will help me exit the summer gazebo and ready myself for the fall treehouse?

And I always like to ask what would make this experience pleasurable. For me.

Because if I want a warm, peaceful relationship with time, and if I want each of the quarters to be a home for the adventures we’ll have in them, then I can’t allow that process to turn into stressful, horrible work. That would kind of defeat the purpose.

And in the meantime, I’m in the cabin. Playing. Getting to know what it’s like. So far I can tell you that it smells like pine, and there are shelves in all the right places.

Play with me! The commenting blanket fort.

Metaphor Mouse reported that he’s happy to stick around, so you’re more than welcome to use his superpowers to unpack, translate or rewrite any words you like.

We’re all working on our stuff. We make room for people to have their own experience, and we don’t tell each other how to be or what to feel.

If you would like to be on my Enthusiastic and say HOORAY for how happy I am right now about my new metaphor, that is very welcome. Or you can share a deep exhale, which is what I did when I discovered that even something as impersonal as quarters could have its own home.

Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.

p.s. Metaphor mousing is another way to get to the practice of conscious entry. So if messing about with words appeals to you, give it a try. Or come to a Rally (Rally!), because people tend to accidentally become friends with metaphor mouse there, and it happens really easily and unexpectedly. Yay!

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

• Metaphor Mouse carries a valise and twirls his moustaches!
• The best calendar that has ever existed.
• A world of tiny homes — inside other homes.

Today seems like the right moment to revisit Hello, October and then make my farewells.

What I loved about October this year…

So many things.

Some of them October Things:

• The last of the tomatoes from the garden.
• Sun! Lots and lots of sun.
• Sukkot! The holiday of blanket forts…
• The return of the red flannel sheets.
• Crunching leaves.
• The last hurrah of the last of the roses.
• Dahlias. Ohmylord.
• Roasted sweet potato. Fresh baked pumpkin seed bread.
• Hats! Time for hats. I look great in hats.
• Borrowing the gentleman’s giant warm hoodie.
• Hot yummy fall food from the food carts.
• The first wearing of the rainboots.
• Crisp air.
• October means that Deschutes puts out the Jubelale, and all is good in the world.

And some of them things that just happened to be in October:

• My new hiding space and blanket fort just for me!
• Redecorating the Playground.
• The outrageously great people and experiences from Crossing the Line. password: haulaway
• Having Barbara Sher come teach at my Kitchen Table program.
• Three new forum boards at the KT.
• Massive depiling.
• Bathtime.
• Learning Thriller.
• Making a new friend.
• Discovering that the people who go to dance class with me have become my community.
• Finding ways for things to happen way in advance, and feeling what that’s like.
• Miraculously choosing the just-right present for someone.
• Walking through the streets holding a giant fuzzy monster and meeting all sorts of interesting people as a result.
• Buying make-up. And kind of liking it. I know!
• “I’ve got it! There are two of everything!”

What was hard about this October?

Busy busy busy busy.

Getting dark early.

Missing lots of dance class due to being sick.

Depletion.

An attack of someone else’s stuff masquerading as an attack of my stuff. Dizziness and fear that did not belong to me.

What about the dancing Revue?

I dislike reviews because they’re super stressful (for me!), and so we have a dancing spangly Revue instead.

And, for the record, I’m totally picturing kooky 1930s cartoon mice doing some sort of vaguely obscene chorus line.

The Revue always has two questions:

1) What worked? 2) What might I want to try in the future?

What worked this October?

My new quarters at the Playground. Having a place just for me. Taking iron. Going for walks. Getting a new coat.

The amazing Board of Surprisers convening, and doing Show & Tell.

Practicing wanting what I want.

Getting ridiculous amounts of things done before the Crossing.

What might I want to try in the future?

More entry. More exit. More time and spaciousness. More vitamin C.

More setting things up in advance for slightly future me.

Looking back at Hello, October.

What do I notice?

I wanted to practice Wanting the Wanting, and that was a big part of this month.

There was a gwish about rituals and 16-16. Both of these were useful. And challenging.

There was something that needed the perfect name, and that name came to me.

I wanted Plum Duff magic, and that was a fascinating experiment.

Then I wanted blanket forts everywhere and a month full of Elongated Entrances and Exits, and both of those things came true in just the right way. You know what? I’m actually feeling kind of surprised and pleased right now with my gwishing and with the unexpected results. Huh. Cool!

Goodbye, October.

I am appreciating the good.

I am learning from the hard.

Thank you for this month. And for zombie Thriller.

Fair Winds, October! I will see you in one year when you are new and I am new and we are both new versions of ourselves.

Play with me! Comment zen in the giant collective blanket fort.

I’m putting this all into the pot with love.

If you would like to leave some noticings about this October or your relationship with October, that would be lovely. Here in the comments or quietly just for you.

As always: we all have stuff. So we take responsibility for our stuff and let other people have their stuff. We practice this by not giving other people advice or telling them what to do or how to feel.

Kisses to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.

Postscripting! I actually remembered to send out an announcement to my very occasional Havi’s Announcing a Thing list last week. So if you’re not on that, you might want to be. Sign-up is on the events page.

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

• Very Personal Ads #122: if you know what I mean…
• Sweetness for coming-in me.
• Thoughts and notes about thoughts and notes.

Ideally I think I’d want a two-part ritual. Maybe a tentative wish-filled and welcoming hello to the month before it started, and then to check in and make proper introductions once it had begun.

Anyway, October! You’re here. Hello.

This is an experimental form, and always changing. Peek at July and August too for a sense of the variety.

And yes, this is is in the context of preparing for the voyage and other forms of conscious entry.

October gwishes!

A gwish is something that is not a goal and not a wish but somewhere in between.

And more fun to say. Gwishgwishgwishgwishgwishgwishgwish!

So many gwishes. Including…

Wanting what I want — and practicing that.

Nothing scarier than acknowledging desire — and giving legitimacy to the essence of desire.

The object of desire does not need to make sense or even be achieved. The point is being okay with the wanting.

This is something I’m working on in my business, at the Playground, in my home and in all sorts of unlikely corners of my life.

It involves looking for the qualities of the thing I’m wanting, and examining the internal rules and monster laws that say I’m not allowed to want it.

I’ve been practicing small (this is the bathroom stall I’m headed towards, that is the side of the street I feel like being on), and it’s been fascinating. Let’s have more of that this October.

And I’d like some shivanautical understandings to help me get better at wanting what I want, unapologetically.

Changing rituals for the changing season.

This is the part of the year when all my summer rituals collapse in on themselves because everything is dark and the weather isn’t playing along.

And it usually takes me a while to get into my fall and winter patterns.

This time around I’d like to do more work with the Book of Me, particularly with filling out more of the almanac sections.

And then to remember what I love about fall, and to set things up for that.

• Warm evening baths.
• Heidi’s marvelous Losing It potion.
• Leaf-crunching and puddle-stomping walks.
• Flannel sheets.
• Blanket forts.

16 and 16.

As you might know, I have been doing really intense work this past year with the concept of conscious entry and exit.

Mindfully and playfully experimenting with how I approach beginnings and endings. Remembering to pause (paws!) at the moments of threshold.

And lately I’ve been broadening my experiments and making them more extreme. Hahahahaaaaaaa mad scientist laugh!

So. At the end of October I’m running Crossing the Line: the 8 Day Voyage (password: haulaway), which is intense destuckification plus the stuff I don’t teach here because it’s too highly-hopped for mass consumption.

It will be AMAZING. And it’s a lot of work.

Normally I would carve out a few days before and after for deep immersion into teaching space, and deep recovery.

This time I want to double the time I’m spending in it. So if it’s eight days of teaching, I get sixteen days of preparation time.

Obviously, this is insane. I’d have to start Going Dark this Sunday. But I’m going to try to do this with an Island Time sort of approach.

Plum Duff!

This October is all about Plum Duff days (password: extraraisins), which go until Monday, October 17th at 11:00 am Pacific.

Except of course that everything will probably be sold out before then — I don’t think plum duff has ever lasted as long as it was supposed to.

Lots of amazing things happening.

Like two different types of highly unusual scholarships to events I’m teaching. Speaking of fun-to-say: Scholarship ship!

A new Gwish Kit. Signing up for a Rally, gets you comped into my Art of Embarking course. Various other exciting options.

My gwish is for plum duff days to be a happy, celebratory period, full of hope and possibility. And for it to continue.

The thing with Plum Duff is that it’s a GIANT production, with crazy hours of back-end administrative and design stuff. My pirate crew puts in serious overtime to make it happen.

I love doing it because it means making things possible that might normally not be. It’s the most loving thing I can do inside of the business.

But I’m going to need to be able to convince the grown-ups in the company that it’s also profitable enough to justify the massive amount of work that goes into it. So I’m gwishing for help — from all possible helper mice — in general rejoicing and spreading the word. Thank you!

The right name so I can try this thing I want to try.

A number of people I know run Quarterly Business Meetings where they talk about vision and plans and where they want their company to go.

I have visions! I have plans! That seems like a good idea.

Except that words like Quarterly and Business and Meeting make me want to curl up and cry for the rest of my life.

So we can’t call it that because I’ll never actually do it.

Either we need to come up with something that sounds similar but isn’t (Corduroy Circus Beatings?) or I need to send up a bat signal for Metaphor Mouse.

We’re Tigre and Bunny and we like the Beets! And the Boom. Or Pinky and Tina, as we also like to mis-remember it.

Either way, I need to call together the Enthusiastic (the opposite of a Board) and set up a date. And for that, I need the name.

Blanket forts everywhere!

One of the best things about Rally (Rally!) is all the crazy creative blanket forts that people build at the Playground for hiding in and working on their projects.

Last week I had someone put up a ton of hooks in random places to facilitate even more spontaneous blanket-forting.

Spontaneous Blanket Forting. Is it … just one guy?

I want my own blanket forts. In my office aka the pirate queen quarters aka the Dressing Room. And at Hoppy House.

Instead of just drooling over other people’s droolings (like here and here and here), I want some forts!

Let’s do this, October.

Naming the month.

Remember when we named the moons?

I would like to name October to remind me of the thing I am practicing right now.

Let’s call it … the Moon of Elongated Entrance and Exits.

You can name October whatever you like, of course.

Ooh, and you don’t know this yet, but on the 2012 Playground calendar, there’s a space on each page to name the month. I’m so excited about that. Hello, month!

Play with me! Comment zen in the giant collective blanket fort.

I’m putting these all into the pot with love.

If you would like to throw things into the pot and/or think about your relationship with this October, go for it. You can do it here in the comments or silently in your heart.

Or wherever and however you like, of course.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.

We let other people have their stuff and take responsibility for our own stuff. We do this by not giving other people advice or telling them what to do or how to feel.

Kisses to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.

Extra wishes for a safe, healthy, delight-filled October with lots of the good kind of surprises.

Postscripting! Today is Day 2 of Plum Duff days (extraraisins) when things are extra special/affordable. If you’re scholarshipping, the sooner the better.

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

• Sweetness for coming-in me.
• Goodbye, November. Hello, December.
• Very Personal Ads #122: if you know what I mean…

So I’m officially declaring today to be a Day of Chickening!

How it works:

You state the thing you want to do.

That’s basically it.

Or, if you like, you can also set it up (entry!).

For example, you can think about how you want to approach it or play with it.

And what will help.

And what you’re going to try if the initial approach doesn’t work.

Here’s mine.

Okay, background!

The monsters from the Grumblethrum Collective (their slogan: No time! No time!) are saying there are seventeen billion things that need to be done today.

We know from experience that this is not true, but it feels true.

So. My initial plan, to be revised later if necessary.

I’m going to try focusing on a few items (and using the fractal flowers so that working on one thing is secretly working on all the other things).

Maybe this will demonstrate to the Collective that yes, actually this does make a difference.

They’ve already — thanks to rigorous scientific testing I’ve persuaded them to let me run — accepted the premise that doing SOMETHING is more effective than them yelling and me getting stuck.

The approach for today:

Doing things in sets of three.

With a variation on what Maryann (of Secret Playdate fame) calls the layer cake technique.

(Layer cake is when you alternate X minutes of the thing you’re working on with X minutes of something creative, fun or different.)

Lately I’ve been doing my layering in intentionally-non-numbered sets of three.

• First I work on the part of the project that intrigues me.
• Next a creative or restful Intentional Switch of some kind.
• And then following it up with something that is not fun and needs to be made more fun.

I also like break things up between sets.

Usually with ten minutes of walking around and breathing. Or interacting with my work space in some way (like some old Turkish lady stretches or giving myself puttering-permission). Puttering Time!

What will help?

Oh! I can use secret agent code phrases for the things I’m working on, and rename them.

If it doesn’t work?

What am I going to do if I’m not experiencing this in the way I want?

I’ll do some stone skipping and ask useful questions.

Specifically:

• What are the qualities that will help me with this?
• What about my environment is supporting me in this? What in my environment needs to change?
• What is the essence/purpose/mission of the thing I’m trying to do?
• How can I make this more like Rally (Rally!). How can this get more ease-filled, creative and fun?

And I will isolate iguanas/monsterlets/sad-selves as necessary, and help them find safe spaces.

Let’s do it!

What I want:

How much progress can I make today on updating the Crossing the Line page?

Here’s my first set:

#) Love notes (secret code!)
?) Tea
!!) Ask B + R about X

I will check-in during the day and see how this goes. Adjustments will be made as necessary.

You can play too. Comment zen for the chickening…

Just state (silently or here in the comments) what you want to work on or play with. That’s enough! You can proxy if you like.

Check back in as you feel like it.

If it gets challenging (or even if it doesn’t), we interact consciously. We experiment. We notice things.

We can respond to each other with warm, loving hand-on-heart sighs. Or cheering. Or whatever you want. Ask for what you want.

We all have our stuff. We take responsibility for our stuff and we let other people have their stuff. We don’t give each other advice — unless someone specifically asks for it.

Let the Day of Chickening begin!

p.s. This is something we do at my Kitchen Table program — with a dedicated board (the Deguiltified Chicken Board) just for this. I post chickens there almost every day. It’s how I get so much done. Developing a chickening habit: recommended! If you plan to be at Crossing the Line, we’ll learn how to do this.

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

• Very Personal Ads #85: love letters in miniature
• Rally the 2nd. Who let the iguanas out?
• The Playground!

Plus it was so great saying Hello to July that I wanted to try it again, in a different form this time.

Here’s what I like about August so far: I kind of have a tan. Jon, stop laughing.

You know, not so much tan as a light beige. But still. Exciting. For me.

Anyway, August! Let’s talk. I’m going to write you a letter.

Dear August!

Hello. It’s me. I’m happy we are doing this together.

And I am reminding myself that just because you are called August does not mean that you will be anything like Augusts past — yes, now is not then.

In fact, last year I can’t recall that we talked much.

Anyway, I can still use what I know from past experience about August-like things — heat! raspberries! staying hydrated!, but I am not going to let you be defined by memory of other times that shared your name.

You will be you, and I am here to find out what you are like.

What shall I call you?

To create some distance from those remembered-Augusts and because naming things has a certain power, I am naming the moon again.

Temporarily naming this moon the Moon of the Groove. Because that kind of sums up my mood.

This is what I will call you until you tell me otherwise.

And you can call me by a secret name and I won’t tell anyone at all.

How I would like to describe you.

This is what I would like to say about August and your august-ness while you are happening:

I am full of energy. There is so much creative flow happening for me. And I am also resting up and taking things easy.

This August is full of metaphorical Island Time, and I am learning so much about what it is like to not be hurried. I have everything I need.

How I would like to remember you.

And this is what I would like to say about August and your august-ness when you are past:

This August was full of delightful surprises. I was in my strengths. I was able to be curious, playful and adventurous in both internal and external situations and processes.

Time felt remarkably spacious, and I remembered to stop and breathe. Sing ho for August!

What I am looking forward to when I think about being with you.

Let’s see. So many good things on the calendar…

Leading the August Rally (Rally!), of course, which begins this evening. Rally #12!

It also marks a year since the very first Rally ever, hard to believe.

And teaching the sold-out! Shiva Nata August series.

Releasing the Shiva Nata iPhone app. YAY!

Lots of great Roller Derby. The first official bout for our men’s derby. The August Takedown in which Rose City’s Wheels of Justice are skating against Boston. Fun.

Sorry in advance, Boston. But the Northwest Passage (east coast teams coming out for three consecutive ass-kickings from Rose City, Rat and the Oly Rollers) will make you stronger. Totally worth it.

And I would really like to have a holiday. Maybe in Astoria or Bend? Or visit my uncle Svevo?

What I’m feeling a little anxious about or unprepared for.

This seems like a lot of busy.

I want to know that I will still have time for my own process. Integration and consolidation time.

Let’s see. I might need to have a conversation with slightly future me, and do some negotiating with the Persnickety Time Gremlins who are yelling NO TIME NO TIME.

And of course another round of why now is not like then.

What I would like to give you, August.

My full presence, unconditionally.

My love and attention. Appreciation. Welcoming.

The willingness to be wrong. And an approach that is playful and inquisitive.

And what I would like to receive from you.

The same, of course.

And also:

Spaciousness, comfort, a sense of belonging in this sequence of time.

Let’s be silly. Get a little crazy on the pirate ship.

And let’s throw some things into the pot.

I throw all of this into the pot.

Play with me? And comment zen for today.

You are welcome to write your own Hello, August. Maybe with elements of what I did here or more like a Hello, Day or what we did in July.

Or drop off some gwishes.

Or invent your own month-welcoming (or month-naming) ritual.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We take responsibility for our stuff. Because without sovereignty and spaciousness, this whole thing falls apart.

And we make this a safe space by not telling each other what to do, how to be or how to feel. We make room for each other.

That is all. Much love and happy August-ing.

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

• Very Personal Ads #125: It stands. For many things.
• Very Personal Ads #119: Zombie Nata
• Very Personal Ads #90: in search of a Collaspable Frink

Here’s some of what I scribbled yesterday morning.

Noticing.

What am I noticing? What am I feeling this morning?

I am feeling very discouraged this morning. Discouraged and bleak.

And I know from experience (thank you, Book of Me) that discouraged and bleak are signs.

More specifically, they’re signs of the existence of:
a) monsters
b) shoulds and other unquestioned internal rules
c) conflicting desires.

So I am going to pause (paws!) and investigate that, even though Discouraged Me is saying What’s The Point.

But wait — aha! — I already know that What’s The Point is always trying to keep me from discovering something important. So there’s something important here. Probably. Maybe.

What’s the question?

I’m feeling stressed out about time, so let’s just find out what I *would* do with this day if it were all mine.

Weird. I mean, interesting. I wonder why I phrased the question like that. Today is all mine. In a certain sense, at least.

So what’s the information and/or clews in that question?

Maybe that I’m feeling frustrated and resentful about time, and the various demands on it that I perceive to be interfering with… not sure yet with what.

Maybe this is about themes of permission and sovereignty. I don’t know.

Anyway, what am I asking? What I really meant was this:

What might I be doing right now if I didn’t have this long and looming List of Things?

Who wants to speak first?

All of a sudden everyone wanted to talk at once.

I am calling for order. Who’s going to speak first?

Teacher me speaks up.

Teacher Me:

“Listen. We’re teaching the Shiva Nata Snack Preview class at the Playground tonight. There are 25 people coming and another 10 on the waiting list. This is important. It needs your undivided attention. You need to ready yourself and the space:

“That means meditating, yoga, space clearing, the entry ritual, your Hello Day rituals, the ritual of releasing expectations and projections, and WHO KNOWS maybe even decide what you want to teach?

“This is what you need to give your day to.”

And then businesswoman CEO me.

Practical businesswoman CEO business savant me:

“Are you crazy? Today is Plum Duff!*

“Plum Duff! It started yesterday, it ends Thursday morning and you haven’t even announced it or done the thirty things that need doing to spread the word.

“If you don’t do this, Plum Duff might not do what it needs to. And if it doesn’t, all your weeks of prep time are down the drain AND you won’t do it again because you won’t be motivated because all you will remember is how much work it was.

“Your class will run itself. You’ve been teaching Shiva Nata classes for like, seven years. You can run an amazing class without having to do all those things to get ready for it. Your business NEEDS you right now.”

* password = extraraisins

Monsters speak up.

The monsters from the grumblethrum collective:

“You have to do *all* of it! ALL of it!

“And get your hair done. Or at least do something with it. You look ridiculous!

“And call Amy. And bring the snacks to the Playground. And go to your dance class. And do some laundry. And finish that other thing. If it doesn’t ALL get done, the day is wasted! Forever!”

So. Where do we go from here?

Obviously, both yoga teacher me and chief eccentricity officer me have very valid points. And the monsters are probably right about my hair, even if we can put off the rest of it.

And yet it still comes down to this:

Today is one day.

And I want to live it lovingly, consciously and intentionally, which won’t happen if I try to smoosh everything in.

Knowing that, what are our options? Let’s ask Slightly Future Me. She’s already lived through today, so maybe she has some ideas about what to do.

Resolving is a funny word, it turns out.

Me: Hey, slightly future me. Can you tell me how I resolved this?

She: It’s not really about resolving it.

Me: What do you mean?

She: I mean, that’s the wrong question, sweetpea.

Me: Aargh. What’s the right question?

Never mind, if you wanted to tell me you would have told me.

Okay. Let me ask it like this. Can you tell me what will help me come into a different relationship with today?

She: That’s a lovely question. Okay. Let’s take this back to essence.

Essence?

Me: Huh? Oh, right. I can do that. Let’s see.

The essence of the Shiva Nata class is: sovereignty, delight, play, grounding, safety, experimentation, freedom, flow, inspiration, focus and support.

And the essence of the Plum Duff: Play, delight, support, inspiration…

Oh. I get i! They are not the same thing, but they share all the same qualities. They’re friends! They can help each other.

So I need to find those qualities. And do things that reflect those qualities. Basically I need to make today about those things.

And as long as I make sure I give myself enough space and time around my decisions, I can’t decide wrong.

She: Exactly!

And that’s what I did.

A couple of Plum Duff things. A couple of teaching preparedness things.

But mostly a lot of messing around with things to help me fill up on play and experimentation and support, and then seeing what needed to be done when I was in that sort of zone.

And of course I did some shivanautical flailing and ate some bunny crackers, and a lot of writing.

It was okay. When I look at my spangly revue, it’s clear that there are definitely a number of things I will probably try differently the next time I’m in a similar situation.

But the main thing is that I stopped feeling discouraged and bleak, which was kind of the point. So it was pretty good, all in all.

Play with me. And comment zen for today.

This is my journal. So it’s pretty, um, personal. And vulnerable to put it here, of course.

The only way I can share things like this is in an environment of safety, support and belonging, which is what we are committed to here.

So: we don’t analyze each other, tell each other how to feel or give unsolicited advice.

What is welcome: Sparklepoints! We can give them to ourselves. Or each other. Also: your own scribblings with slightly future you or notes for your Book of You about time and other things.

And my monsters would also like potato chips, so if you want to leave any here, that would be very nice of you.

Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.

p.s. The Plum Duff days end tomorrow. Password = extraraisins

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By “wonderful”, I mean useful, fun, powerful, effective, light-hearted, joyful and/or play-filled. As in: not stressful and depressing.

And by “project”, I mean any kind of mission, adventure, gwish or whatever it is you happen to be working on or playing with.

The point is: variety!

There are least as many valid methods for projectizing a project as there are people and projects but realistically probably way more. More!

Because we’re all different. And because we’re creative, inventive people engaged in a process of mindfully discovering neat and useful things about how we function.

Today: the art of the OOD.

This is one of my favorite projectizing methods ever. It’s one I often use on my projects at Rally (Rally!)

The OOD is pronounced Oooooood — rhymes with food — and it is the not especially secret code for:

Object Of Desire.

I’ll share the full version with all the steps, though of course you condense it. Pick and choose. Adapt and adjust. Move things around. Whatever works. Here we go:

1. State the OOD.

This is your basic declarative statement of the thing you want. Or a proxy.

I often do this part with crayons or magic markers on colored paper, which I then tape to the wall.

It’s a way of finding out what happens when you say the thing:

I want to set up a series of Shiva Nata classes!

That was the OOD I worked with at the last Rally.

Note! Rally ended last Thursday, and these classes not only were set up but also have already sold out. Thank you, OOD and Rally and blog readers.

2. Is this what I really want? In what ways?

Quite often, stating the OOD helps you realize that the thing you thought you wanted isn’t the thing.

Or is only part of the thing.

Maybe you realize you want to enjoy the creative process and you don’t actually care whether people see your painting. Or you want to bring a sum of money into your business but it doesn’t have to be through writing that ebook.

3. Gwish/Qualities.

Related to the above. You aren’t just looking at the Object of Desire but the essence of wanting it.

What are the qualities that this project brings into your life? What defines it? What are you really and truly gwishing here?

Yesterday, the OOD I was working with was my Plum Duff days project. And the qualities I wanted for it were:

[+fun] [+gleeful] [+exciting] [+enthusiasm] [+joyous] [+delight][+buoyancy] [+light-hearted] [+trust] [+pleasure] [+experimentation] [+courage] [+wheeee!]

4. Why I want this.

Always useful to remember. Especially after you’ve just tuned into the essence of the wanting.

There are a lot of legitimate reasons for wanting your project and for working on your relationship to that project, and it’s good to get them out there.

Often this is where the fuzzball monsters will start really getting loud What?! You want to make MONEY?! And have more TIME?!

And this is useful because we need them for the next step.

5. Possible disadvantages, What-iffery, monster-objections.

This is the new home for the worries — from the Very Legitimate Concerns all the way to the Batshit Crazy This Is Me Obsessing Over Things That Will Never Happen.

It’s all good. You just want to know what they are.

What if I’m not ready? What if I can’t finish in time? What if I get stuck in the middle? What if it’s no good? What if I suddenly go blind and then I trip over a pile of socks and then this will live forever in my memory as the project that ruined everything?

Often as you’re listing the objections, the solutions show up at the same time.

Otherwise, you can always do some Shiva Nata and stone skipping on the objections later. Or bring in a negotiator.

Useful resource if you get stuck here: the monster manual & coloring book.

6. Tizmun.

I am somewhat allergic to words like “timing”, “schedule”, and “deadlines”.

So I use the Hebrew word tizmun, which has elements of timing, arranging, itineraries and so on, but doesn’t freak me out.

This is where I figure out all the what-needs-to-happen-when bits.

Uh oh, if I do X before I do Q, then that’s no good. Note to self: start with Q!

And so on.

I don’t need to have it all figured out. This is just taking notes.

7. What will help?

This is kind of basic Book of You stuff. You might already know what helps. But it’s good to ask.

My list generally includes things like: Talk to H! Drink water! Take breaks! Do some reverse engineering! Ask for help!

8. Slightly Future Me says….

I don’t do anything without asking slightly future me (aka the me who is a few steps ahead of me) for advice and support.

How did she figure this stuff out? What does she wish that I knew? Where does she think I should start? What should I look out for?

What is useful about the places where I’m currently feeling stuck?

9. Allies, resources and helper mice!

Who is going to help me with this?

Whether with advice, moral support, spreading the word, holding me (lovingly) accountable…

Keep in mind that allies can also totally be fictional, imaginary or no longer alive.

10. Practical mapping.

This is where I go ahead and just make the List of Steps. What am I going to need to do? And in what order?

I put these on post-it notes so I can move them around in different combinations.

Listing possible next steps in the soft.

The soft = all the things that can’t really be seen.

The internal work. The talking to walls and being the fox and doing rituals and all that.

The destuckifying as opposed to the active doing.

11. Processing pain.

Working on a project means that your stuff will come up. There is, sadly, no real way to avoid this.

That’s because you’re dealing with an Object of Desire. So all the parts of you that are invested in not having it will show up.

Plus old grief and pain about past situations in which you weren’t able to have what you wanted, or you did get it but things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Projectizing comes with pain. Sometimes anger. This is normal!

And we need to interact with the existence of that pain in gentle, conscious, loving, inquisitive ways. But without diving into the pain and being in pain.

See: everything I’ve ever written about destuckification.

12. Revue!

This is where you take notes about various steps in the project or your relationship with the project, or the project as a whole:

What worked? What am I going to try differently for next time?

And that’s the OOD.

It’s challenging, powerful and surprising. And it saves time. And it’s awesome.

Plus you can do the whole thing with crayons if you want.

Playing! Caveats and comment zen.

We invoke Paul’s rule of People Vary. You can adjust and adapt any aspect of this to your needs. This is only one way to projectize, and it’s only one of the methods I use.

The important part is not the steps but the approach:

A conscious, mindful, sovereign, destuckifying approach. Because the culture of projectizing is about exploring rather than being prescriptive, and meeting pain rather than stomping on it.

If you’d like to play with any or all elements of the OOD here, yay! If you want to share projectizing stories of your own or discuss the approach, go for it.

Reminder! This is hard work. We all have our stuff. We make space for our stuff and we don’t tell each other what to do or how to feel.

Much love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.

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1. I am a fan of entry and exit.
2. I like rituals. You may have noticed.
3. Waving hi to the month of July is a variation on my daily Hello, Day practice.
4. Gwishes: what I call those things that are not goals or wishes but kind of both.

That should be enough. Let’s do this.

Hello, July! What I want from July.

By which I mean: What I’d like to receive/learn/perceive/experience in July.

Okay. I want to be able to rejoice over July. To release this dread, resistance, regret, fighting-with-what-is.

It’s July. I’d like to be able to say HELLO, JULY, without the accompanying Oh crap how is it already July?!

Or if I can’t accept the July-ness of July yet, at least to recognize that and say hello to it too.

I want to see the good and find the good and remember the good. Without minimizing the hard.

To have something reignite. Sparks. Excitement, enthusiasm, optimism. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I want to remember.

I want this to be the month when I arrive on the other side of this gigantic growth period and say ahahahahahahaaaaaaaa this!

The qualities and superpowers of this July.

Hope. Trust. Safety. Support. Love. Adaptability. Agility. Congruence. Flow. Forgiveness. Play.

For my body.

Walking, breathing, singing, tramping on the tramp, going to dance class, lots of Shiva Nata (five minutes at a time), napping.

And lots of water.

And more napping.

Sleep, basically. As a gift. Here you go, body. I care about you. Enjoy.

What does Slightly Future Me have to say about all this?

She says:

You’re doing great, hon.

This can be another turning point if you let it. You’ve done the work.

The key is joy, delight, gratitude, not-forcing.

And you have to play with it. Fill up on your you-ness.

Stop. Look around. Stop again. Enter and exit. Be conscious.

And take lots of baths.

Let’s make some Gwishes!

Gwish! Gwish! Like bubbles.

I gwish for:

• A vacation! A longer one!
• For the ten Shiva Nata posts writing themselves in my brain to put themselves on paper or turn themselves into pixels.
• For a redoing of the Plum Duff Days in the new format.
• Spaciousness and ease.
• A new couch.

And let’s throw some things into the pot.

I throw all of this into the pot.

Play with me? And comment zen for today.

You are welcome to write your own Hello, July.

Or drop off some gwishes.

Or write July a love letter.

Or invent your own month-welcoming (or month-naming) ritual.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We take responsibility for our stuff. Because without sovereignty and spaciousness, this whole thing falls apart.

And we make this a safe space by not telling each other what to do, how to be or how to feel. We make room for each other.

That is all. Much love and happy July-ing.

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Thinking about whatever was approaching was stressful, and the dreaded doom of doom was going to happen anyway. Why bother. Avoidance mouse!

Then there was the period of over-preparing.

About eight years ago, I had the Shiva Nata induced epiphany that I am, in fact, a perfectionist.

This surprised no one, other than myself.

Me: Ohmygod I’m a perfectionist. A perfectionist! How is that even possible.
All my friends: Yawn. Bored. Tell us something we don’t know.
Me: What are you talking about? I have seriously done nothing but sit on a couch and drink beer for the last decade. And you know that, because you were there. You brought the beer! And when I’m not at work behind the bar, I’m sitting at the bar or we’re here.
All my friends: But it was always obvious that you only do nothing because of the paralyzing fear that doing something might involve not getting it right.
Me: I hate you all, you perceptive sons of bitches.

Actually, I called them sons of whores because that’s how you say it in Hebrew. But the rest is pretty much how it happened.

Anyway. They were right.

So I decided to claim it.

I decided that I did want to make stuff happen. I wanted out of this life-run-by-fear experience. To be a full-time writer and yoga and Shiva Nata teacher instead of just thinking about it.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t really know what to do with that, so I figured I had to make peace with the perfectionism.

And proceeded to just over-plan the hell out of everything.

Because hey, perfectionism kind of made sense. Until then it didn’t again.

Then we went back to under-preparing.

Because teaching was so much fun.

And it was always more fun if you had no idea what was going to happen.

The surprises! The exploration! The epiphanies!

It was good, but there was still something missing and the pendulum swung back around.

I’ll spare you the rest of the history of the perfectionism-procrastination roller-coaster and ensuing shivanautical understandings. Fast forwarding to how I do things now.

How I do things now involves lots of prep time, but no planning at all.

What I’m preparing is the situation in which I am most in my me-ness, and least in my stuff.

Messing around with the video game, adjusting my invisible crown, connecting to Slightly Future Me and finding out what I need to feel comfortable in any given interaction.

Yesterday I had two meetings. Another one today. Highly unusual. And, according to the Book of Me, that’s probably too many.

But here’s what I did to intentionally prepare-while-not-preparing.

I didn’t go over what I would say or what I would do if X happened or if Y didn’t happen. Instead, I asked a bunch of questions and then scribbled answers:

1. What does this remind me of?

Am I going into past experiences of meetings or uncomfortable interactions?

Am I accidentally getting triggered into thinking this is going to be like that one traumatic altercation from then? Or like stressful family meetings of doom?

Are there parts of me that are not stuck back then and feeling tense? What do they need?

2. How is now not then?

If I keep getting pulled into that situation or a certain unsuccessful encounter, what’s different now?

What do I know now that I didn’t know then? What accumulated experience, resources and insights are available to me now?

How is my situation now a completely different thing than whatever it is I’m worried about repeating?

3. What qualities do I want to bring to this encounter?

Courage. Love. Sovereignty. Possibility.

And clear, strong, powerful, flexible, loving, healthy boundaries.

And I want to be able to be really present for this, without imagining what might be going on.

Thanks to Hiro for reminding me to ask this question, which is the best question ever, and for the lesson that I don’t have to do anything to embody the qualities I’m asking for other than remember them.

4. What do I want?

Oh! I want help maintaining clear vision. Staying connected to myself.

To stand unapologetically in what I want, without pushing.

To remember that there is a simple solution that is good for everyone involved. Possibly even many solutions.

5. What do we have in common?

Ten things. This is the extremely useful and in-need-of-a-new-name thing that I call the Alignment Exercise.

See: PTSD and Encroachers, both unpleasant and awkward conversations, and phone call dread.

6. And how will this experience help me in the future?

What is now teaching me about next time?

How am I setting things up to be less crappy and more supportive for Future Me?

7. Without having to appreciate this situation, what might be useful about it?

If this is a turning point — which who knows, it could be, theoretically — what is the useful thing that results from me being here in this situation now?

8. What might help this encounter be less agonizing more harmonious?

I can read the letter of reminders that lives in my Teaching Anthology.

I can write a Very Personal Ad to get clearer on what I want.

Even if I’m not clear on the desired outcome, I can recognize the feeling. That’s a start.

So here we are.

It’s definitely a lot of preparing. But it’s a different kind of preparing.

Curiosity-driven, not anxiety-driven. Figuring out what needs to change in my kingdom, and not what needs to change in other people. This is new.

And mostly, the point of this internal preparation time is to support me so when the meeting is over, I’m not analyzing it and second-guessing it to death.

It’s putting in the time beforehand so that the experience itself is smoother.

I like it. Anxious Me gets the comfort of structure without needing to control things. And Screw-it-all Me gets the freedom to allow for surprising possibilities, without the disaster scenario monsters running wild.

And comment zen for today.

Oh, I would love to know if anyone else hangs out on the perfectionism-avoidance rollercoasters.

And ways you’re rewriting or thinking about “preparation” (hmmm, still not loving the word, maybe we need metaphor mouse?), to be supportive and not stressful.

And I would like sparklepoints for having survived a day of meetings unscathed. Sparklepoints! I’ll share!

As always, we all have our stuff and we’re all working on our stuff. No advice, just love.

xox

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That is to say, organizing, decluttering, systems, and the fascinating but depressingly-named field of “time management”.

And just about every book recommends that you spy on yourself. Different biggified experts recommend different ways of doing this, but the idea is the same.

They want you to take time and figure out what your systems are or how you use your time or where you put things.

I never do these exercises.

Not that I don’t get the appeal, because I do.

The essence of the spying practice is all about things I like:

Observation, play, mindfulness, curiosity, wonder, sneaking around the stuck and accessing possibility.

And pattern-finding, which is my greatest love.

But I don’t ever feel like spying on myself.

So last week I went to work on finding out what’s up with that.

Here’s the deal.

After ten minutes of my favorite pattern-detangling method — flailing around disastrously with Shiva Nata to facilitate the unlikely realizations — I started asking questions.

And bing bing there it was.

The reason I’ve been avoiding this tracking exercise for years:

There is a part of me who is seriously afraid of all the mean-yet-accurate things my internal spies will see. With their brutally devastating insight, they’ll nail everything that’s wrong about me.

It won’t just be information about what I can change or do differently. No, it will be perceptive, cogent, well-thought-out insights about how much I suck and how disastrously I run my life.

Ah. Okay.

So we have to turn the spies.

Time to subvert the system. Turn them over to our side. Get them to be a very different kind of spy. Here’s the set-up.

These spies are only looking for information about my me-ness. My essence. They’re looking for the qualities that inform the Land of Havi.

They aren’t trying to figure out how to help me or how to fix me. They don’t have an agenda. They are full of love. Like Hiro or Cairene or Shannon or other friends who get me and appreciate me.

They are only interested in knowing what I appreciate and what I care about.

And I don’t have to receive the information directly. It can be a mediated experience. I can spy on them, if I want.

They’ll say what good things they learned about my space and I will listen in, but they won’t be able to see me because I am hiding.

What shiny things do my pro-me secret agents uncover?

This is what they said about me, based on my office — my much-neglected Pirate Queen Quarters at the Playground.

Havi likes simplicity and spaciousness.

She appreciates color and richness — collections of wonderfully colorful things, and also vast expanses of emptiness and white space to balance it. This is important to her.

Havi lines up her notebooks. She likes bowls of things. She avoids what is conventional.

There is an interesting combination of abundant collections and this very zen spare thing.

She likes to draw and she doesn’t tell anyone about it.

Nothing goes on the wall until she knows for sure. She gives careful consideration to decision-making. She cares a lot about each decision.

Havi loves to write. She likes bold colors in small doses. She is very busy.

She likes order and structure, comfort and simplicity.

She does not care for desks and chairs.

She’s a classy lady.

Hmmm. Interesting.

The only part that seemed really out there was the classy lady part, since I’m pretty sure no one who has ever met me would describe me that way. But it made me smile.

Everything else rang true.

There was a part that the spies wanted to say — about how I put the needs of my students in front of everything — but they knew I’d take that wrong.

So instead they said that they appreciate all the work I’m doing to be respectful of my internal and external space, and that it was an honor to be invited.

And then I came in and thanked them, and then we went out to the cafe down the street and had drinks.

Finding the way that works.

It occurs to me that my fear of learning uncomfortable things about myself through examining my space is probably a parallel to the fear a lot of my people have about doing Shiva Nata — that they’ll see the patterns they don’t want to see.

And even though the shivanautical realizations are often so full of sweetness, I get how that could seem really intimidating.

I’m glad I did the exercise. Also glad that I waited until now. And relieved that I was able to find a way to rewrite it for my own purposes. Because it was really useful.

And it ended up giving me another sneaky idea that actually resolved a ridiculously old piece of stuck.

Playing. And comment zen in the blanket fort.

If you want to subvert this exercise in a variety of ways, go for it. Make it your own.

I would love to know if you also avoid these appealing-yet-intimidating mindfulness exercises in books. My plan is to keep flailing with Shiva Nata to brainstorm more loopholes and alternative experiments

As always, we all have our stuff. We let everyone else have their stuff. We talk about our own experiences, knowing that sharing our personal stories online is vulnerable, which is why we don’t give unsolicited advice.

That is all. Hugs. Super secret spy handshakes. And code words, of course.

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