At the Kitchen Table with Havi & Selma

If you’ve been hanging out on the blog for a while, you’ve figured out that there are Useful Things you’ll need to help rewrite stuck patterns and make progress on everything you want to be doing.

Techniques, concepts, practice, mind-tricks, silliness, fairy dust. Puppets. The usual.

There’s actually a place where we do that.

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

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

It’s a safe, comfortable place to hang out with me, Selma and people who care about this stuff that we talk about here — and actively work on it.

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

We practice Fluent-Self-ified exercises, get answers to our questions and have lovely people to talk us down when things get overly stuckified.

And there’s a monster-watching collective.

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.

What it feels like.

I don’t know how to describe it. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot, since we’re getting ready for 2011, our third year of the Kitchen Table.

It’s kind of like this:

You know how the internet is full of …. everything? Excitement and amazingness but also a lot of thoughtlessness and cruelty and conflict. And then on my blog it’s not like that. As if you’ve entered this alternate universe where people are bright and thoughtful and sensitive and hilarious.

The Kitchen Table has that, but it also has [+safe] [+sanctuary] [+cozy] [+autonomy] [+sovereignty] [+silliness] [+mindfulness] [+collaboration] [+creativity] [+helper mice] [+support] [+welcoming] [+belonging] [+freedom] [+play].

I am endlessly fascinated by the incredible thing we have created together there.

We’ve built safe spaces, launched businesses, invented genius ideas, made products, solved relationship problems, come up with brilliant metaphors and generally taken care of each other through the whole thing.

Who gets to hang out in the kitchen.

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

You hang out here. You read what I write about unconventional ways to approach the “working on your stuff” process. You get that the way to a thriving, successful whatever-you’re-working on is this thing of having a conscious, intentional relationship with yourself.

This excites you and occasionally terrifies you … and you can (sometimes) feel the little sparks of possibility.

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 a ton of 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 smaller group inside the Kitchen Table. Some people hang out only there. Some people prefer the big pond. But you have 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 Adaptation, Belonging, Relationships and Flow. We’ll see.
• Each month I spend 75 minutes on the phone and we work on stuff related to our theme.
• We also do at least one other call each month with 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 the Chattery 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 the past two years, which you don’t have to use, but it’s totally there for you.

The bonus-ey things are as useful than the Kitchen Table itself but you probably know that already.

How you get in: the prerequisites.

• You own the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic, which is useful because then we’re all more or less familiar with some of the same basic concepts, principles and vocabulary.
• You own a copy of Marshall Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication.” You can skip over the shocking poetry. But you have a reference copy, because we’ll probably be using it.
• You have to apply. It’s not as scary as it sounds — it’s just that I really want to get a sense of who is coming. Filling out the application is part of that.

Cost: Two payments of $429 or 3 payments of $296.

Either way you get one full year of unlimited hanging out At the Kitchen Table and everything that comes with it.

Keep in mind that one of the things you can 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 giant button. This means you’re saying “YES” to the prerequisites and making your deposit which counts as your first payment.

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 this isn’t going to work this year, (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 we’ve processed that, you’ll get a welcome packet and a friendly note. And we’ll be doing our thing together at the Kitchen Table.

So … yeah, come join us. Selma and the Schmoppet can’t wait to hang out with you. :)

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.