Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very. Each week I write these Visions of Possibility and Anticipation to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, evehttp://www.fluentself.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wordpress-related-posts&ref=adminbarn when asking feels conflicted. I invariably discover useful information about my relationship with the thing I think I want, and with the [...]

What worked?

Pausing to breathe eight breaths.

Again and again and again.

Doing it with companionship.

A fellow agent. Texting a friend. The frolicsome bar (what I call our facebook page).

Where I cover the good and the hard in my week, visiting the non-preachy side of ritual and self-reflection. And you get to join in if you feel like it. You guys, you guys, you guys! TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHICKENS! So many chickens. If you had told me two hundred and fifty weeks ago [...]

TWO HUNDRED WEEKS of visioning today.

Wow.

We might as well celebrate. Which is convenient, because the last two of my big wishes this week are celebratory ones, and the first one is in need of some of that energy too.

I just realized. Next Friday is exactly TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHICKENS, you guys.

And this weekend will also be the 200th Very Personal Ads, aka Visions of Possibility and Anticipation.

We celebrate 250 weeks and 200 weeks in the same week! That’s a lot of consecutive weeks to do anything. And I would never do it if you weren’t here to read and play, so thank you. Thank you for shared space and shared ritual. It means a lot to be doing it with you.

I overestimate my capacity for [all forms of doing]. This is a known thing.

While I do that — hahaha just to make it more fun and by fun I mean “torture” — I also vastly underestimate how long it takes to actually do [things that I think need doing].

Not just me. Pretty much everyone I know does this to some degree.

The result is not all that surprising. The usual things. Worn out and worn down. Frustrated. Baffled. Overwhelmed.

Proxies.

I had a wonderful dream. And then I woke up from the dream and felt very sad that the thing that happened in the dream could not actually happen in real life.

So I used it as my proxy, and pretended that I was doing it.

Very many interesting things transpired as a result, including what might be the best superpower of all time: finding shortcuts wherever I look!

Planting: Using silence to say the unsaid things.

The situation.

I am sick. And worn out. And my throat hurts.

That’s not the situation though. That’s just the thing giving me the loudest information about the situation.

My body operates in pretty much purely symbolic ways. My throat only hurts when there is something I need to say that is not being voiced.

Which is pretty funny, if you think about it, since I don’t speak at all.

Anyway, it’s not particularly surprising. I can think of six separate situations where I have not said the thing that needs saying. And my Day of Wearing Courage Like A Cloak last week stirred up more of that.

What worked?

Waiting.

Not taking action until feeling the pull.

Listening.

More and more and more.

Trying on courage like a costume.

And wearing it until it felt like something I’d actually wear.

What worked?

Listening.

Listening to what I wanted.

To trees. To instinctive pull. To inclination and disinclination. To judgment and distortion. To the secret language of picnics. To questions I didn’t understand, trying to hear the question behind the question.

To music that is like this and music that is like that.