If writing is not the thing you have a tortured, obsessive love-hate-love relationship with, I’d love it if you would substitute something that is.

You know, the thing that — when you actually allow yourself to think about having time to devote to it — makes you feel elated and miserable. Joyful and terrified.

Painting, photography, dance, playing the mandolin. I don’t know. But you do. The thing you’d be doing if you had all the time and money in the world and didn’t have to tell anyone about it. Yes.

As my father likes to say:

“Take that mental health day before it takes you.”

Of course, it didn’t feel so much like a mental health day as an “I really, really, really don’t want to get a cold” day, but these tend to be more closely related than we’d like.

And granted, any advice from my father is a tad suspect …

Still catching up on the Ask Havi posts!

Today we have one that is very short, very to-the-point and very anonymous:

“I’d be interested in knowing how your business developed from the way it started to where you are now. How did you get from being a yoga teacher to this?”

Oh I wish I had a really good answer for you!

But I don’t think I do. Shall we stream-of-consciousness it? Let’s see …. scooby doo time travel noises…

Just the pumpkin-colored cat dashing away and the dark minivan that didn’t stop. The cat on its back in the road bleeding from the neck, arms and legs shuddering.

What seemed like terror and suffering and agony and confusion. Whether mine or the cat’s or both. A couple of minutes. And then it was dead. The sun was shining.

That’s what I know.

And not what you think.
So I’m taking Jennifer Hofmann’s course on Inspired Organizing. And it’s brilliant and amazing.
And …. I don’t know how to say this. Well, I do. I just don’t have a nice way of saying this:
If you’re less than giddy with joy about your current home-office situation and organizing systems, and [...]

I made the somewhat rash promise yesterday that I’d tell you all about how The Fluent Self came to be called The Fluent Self.

This should really be an Ask Havi post but I can’t be bothered to dredge up a hundred emails asking how come I started a business or how come my business is called The Fluent Self.

As far as popular questions go, it’s probably number three, right after “What’s with the duck?” and “Can you fix all my problems?”.

I have to tell you a story.

All true. It’s about the second-worst summer of my life.

And to understand the second-worst summer of my life you really have to understand the week or so preceding it.

It’s all about the hating.

Some people hate incredibly tacky Christmas decorations. Some people hate cherry Coke. Or, you know, things like racism and war.

Me? I hate charades. Not “people pretending to be something they aren’t”, though I’m willing to concede that this could also be pretty annoying. The game.

The thing with time and the way it flies the hell by is that I’m finally getting around to posting something now that’s about a month late.

But life is cyclical. And stuff comes back around, so it’s actually weirdly relevant again.

Let’s scooby doo time machine back to a month ago.

Remember when I told you how I was going to give my home office a pedicure? Well, I wrote up some notes from the super awesome Office Spa Day thing and had planned to share some of my process and insights with you.

My cold cleared. (yay!)

You know how being sick kind of puts you in this heightened state — a weird place where you’re both more and less aware of everything?

I mean, you can’t concentrate because of the stuffiness and the fogginess and the not being able to sleep. But somehow with most of your brain turned off, you can plug in to other abilities and things come up. Useful things. Mostly.