The Fluent Self - When you need some destuckification.

At the Kitchen Table with Havi & Selma

If you’ve been hanging out here long enough, you’ve figured out that there are Useful Things you’re going to need if you want to rewrite your patterns and start doing what you want to be doing.

Techniques, concepts, mind-tricks, my wacky fairy dust. Stuff like that.

There’s actually a place where we do that.

Not everyone knows about it but clearly you do because you’re here, so hi!

kitchentable125x125At the Kitchen Table with Havi & Selma is basically just what it sounds like. Only way, way better.

It’s a cozy, comfortable space to hang out with me and my duck and talk about this stuff.

It’s where you go to get support, strength, comfort and concrete “okay, here’s what you do now” information.

To get zapped by inspiration and practice Fluent-Self-ified exercises with me. To get answers to all your questions and to have lovely people talk you down when things are feeling overly stuckified.

So, where’s the kitchen?

Mostly online, because it would be pretty screwed up if you guys were all in my kitchen at the same time.

It’s a community — and I do not use that way-overused word lightly — of bright, creative people who are serious about destuckifying in a conscious, mindful way.

Speaking of serious, we are also very serious about confidentiality and about not throwing shoes. But we’re total goofballs about everything else.

Anyway. It’s one amazing year of making stuff happen, but of course in the least bootcamp-ey way possible.

Who gets to hang out in the kitchen?

People who get it. Someone like you, I hope.

You hang out here. You’re always reading the stuff I write about unconventional ways to approach the “working on your stuff” process, and how the way to a thriving, successful whatever-you’re-working on is that conscious, intentional relationship with yourself.

This excites you and sometimes terrifies you … and you’ve been feeling little sparks of possibility. Maybe. Awesome.

You don’t have to have a business. You don’t have to know what you want to do with your life. You do kind of have to think that CrankyPants McGrumbleBug’s Kvetchtastic Whine Bar is a really good name for a fake bar, though.

What happens there?

All sorts of things. Here are some of the ones that I think are the most neat:

  • There’s a really great, very lively forum environment where we work on whatever needs to be worked on. With love and patience and some silliness.
  • When I say “community”, I mean you get people who actively support you in the stuff you’re working on. They give you ideas. They talk up your stuff online. They introduce you to people. They welcome you. I started the Kitchen Table in January, 2009 and I am in awe of the way people help each other. I have never seen anything like this.
  • So there will be close to a hundred people following you on twitter, commenting on your blog (or helping you start one, if you want to), telling people about your work (when you’re ready), connecting you with people they know, loving you up, letting you whine. It’s pretty fun, actually.
  • You also get your own small, cozy learning group inside the Kitchen Table. Some people hang out only there. Some people prefer the big pond. But know that you have this small group to lean on for support.
  • In addition to working on our stuff and getting help, each quarter we have a theme. In 2009 we had Money, Time, Space + Love. In 2010 it’s Communication, Sovereignty, Systems + Play. For 2011, I’m toying with Transitions, Rituals, Order and Chaos. We’ll see!
  • Each month I spend 90 minutes on the phone and we work on stuff related to our theme.
  • We also do another call each month with our scholar-in-residence (someone smart and biggified who can help us out with the thing we’re working on).
  • During and after the calls we hang out in a chatroom (you don’t have to but it’s really, really fun) and goof off a lot. This is also usually where people end up starting joint ventures and getting product ideas and problem-solving like mad.
  • And there are opportunities to do things with your smaller group and/or to partner up with someone else for extra support. Or not. Up to you.
  • You get answers — good ones, from the smart, interesting people at the Table — to whatever questions you come up with. Kind of like your own personal helper mouse squad.
  • Various other things. Like you get crazy discounts on new products and programs, some of which you also get to help me develop. We did so many bonus classes last year that people actually felt bad about how much they were getting.
  • And we have times where Selma and I just come to hang out and you get to ask us any question you want.
  • There’s also a wonderful library of calls and notes from last year’s stuff, which you don’t have to use, but it’s totally there for you.

The bonus-ey things are probably cooler than the Kitchen Table itself, but I don’t want to get all sales page-ey on you with this. If it’s your thing, it’s your thing.

How you get in: the prerequisites.

  • You need to already own the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic. That way, we’re all more or less familiar with some of the same basic concepts, principles and vocabulary.
  • You need to own a copy of Marshall Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication.” It is full of cheesiness and some especially bad poetry, I know. You still need a reference copy. We’ll be using it. :)
  • You have to apply. It’s not as scary as it sounds — it’s just that I really only want people in here who are my right people. Filling out the application is part of that.

Cost: You pay $856 which gets you a full year of unlimited hanging out At the Kitchen Table and everything that comes with it.

Keep in mind that one of the things we work on at the Kitchen Table is how you work through your money-related stucknesses and how you’re going to (with our help) come up with a genius plan to pay for your tuition.

Are you in? Here’s what happens.

STEP 1. You click the big fat button at the bottom. This means you’re saying “YES” to the prerequisites and making your deposit of $396.

The deposit holds your spot and gets the ball rolling while we go through the application process. Once you’re in, it counts towards your tuition.

NOTE: If for whatever reason during the application process I find we’re not going to be a good fit for each other (not likely if you’re one of the people who’s excited about this stuff), you’ll get your deposit back with no delay. Promise.

However, once you’ve been accepted and you’re in the program, tuition is not refundable (there are several really good reasons for this on the ridiculously boring policy page).

STEP 2. You’ll then be walked through the application process.

This is going to be the least scary application you’ve ever filled out. Seriously. Trust me. My duck wrote it.

Once this happens (and it really won’t take very long, I promise!), you’ll get a welcome packet and a friendly note from your group leader. And we’ll be doing our thing together at the Kitchen Table.

So … yeah, come on! Selma can’t wait to hang out with you. :)

UPDATE: THE KITCHEN TABLE IS FULL.

What to do about it: The next openings will be in January 2011. We’ll start taking applications around November, depending on how many member mice are graduating and whether or not they decide to stay on (most people do).

So you could be one of the people who get to join the gigantic cake-fight that is the Table. Email the First Mate to ask to be put on the waiting list.
Thanks!

That’s it.
Blowing a kiss from me and Selma.

p.s. If this isn’t your thing, or it isn’t your thing yet, no worries. I know we’ll meet up again when it’s time. And in the meantime we’ll hang out on the blog and it will be good. I promise.