To Get Back to the Love
So Kerry and I were in Mart 130 the other day, which, might I tell you, is A Very Cool Cafe (you don’t have to believe me though – go read this review), and they started playing this song:
God Knows (you gotta give to get) by El Perro Del Mar. I haven’t heard it in AGES, and it’s awesome. Melbourne Cafes are so cool, and they play such hip music. Sigh.
Anyway, I digress. The lyrics to this song just really spoke to me. Because you know how I told you it’s difficult for me to go easy on myself? Well, I’m still in need of easy time, but am starting to get impatient with myself and Do More Than I Should. Partly, this is because work is busy (thank you, work. I heart you for being there and allowing me to make a living doing what I love). Partly, this is just because I feel like I am getting behind in my tasks. I need to read all the blog posts I have missed these last weeks. I need to send emails I owe people. I need to see people I haven’t seen in a while…
Um, hang on. No. That would backsliding into busyness.
So, here, in public, I am giving myself permission to continue to Give to Get Back to the Love. I will, I must, give myself as much time and rest as I need. And stop asking so much of myself without, um, giving back.
Gack!
I hope none of you check whether I am actually doing this!
Now, further on the topic of getting back to the love, I got another blog award!
This one is from the folks at Online Nursing Programs – they included me last year too. Apparently,
Winners were chosen through a scoring system led by internet nominations,
which came from your reader base!
Woooo! Thanks, reader base! You can see their whole winning list here. Some pretty cool ones that I didn’t know about before, yay!
Now, since I am on a roll with the blog awards, remember I mentioned that Christine gave me one too?
Since she is rather an ass-kicking warrior chick herself, as are the other women on her list, I am totally feeling the love. In the interests of paying it forward, I want to share with you just a few of the blogeuses (and friends) who have been super-inspiring me lately:
Kerry (of course!)
Warrior chicks one and all.
How do you give back to yourself?
Also, are there any inspiring blogs you think I should be reading?
It Doesn’t Have to Be Hard
Yup. You heard me. (Hey, Fear, are you listening?)
It doesn’t.
In fact, it very often isn’t.
I have moved house twice in the last ten months. That’s kinda sucky. But here’s the thing. This second time, I moved into a lovely little flat in St Kilda.
Blue mosaic floors in the bathroom.
A fabulous wooden-deck balcony.
And, by inner-Melbourne standards, very well priced.
It was also very easy.
This is what happened. I had a bit of a nasty situation arise in the share house I had been living in, and I decided I didn’t want to live there any more. I also had houseguests arriving imminently so I had a week to find a place and move into it. Yeah, right.
I did a bit of research on the internetz, as you do, and lined up ten places to view one Saturday morning. I drew a heart next to my current address, before I had ever viewed it, and by the time I got to viewing it, I was hot, thirsty, cranky, and visually exhausted because I had seen so many flats. And there were loads of people at the viewing. Like, loads. But I decided I may as well apply, what the hell.
Wednesday, the agent called to offer me the flat. Friday, I collected the keys. Saturday, I moved. A friend helped me so I didn’t even need to hire removalists.
We had a lot of fun. Remember this?
Just like that. Easy. No drama.
The work I’m doing with Kerry is the same. She wrote about it the other day actually. It’s what my friend Pam refers to as ‘Flow Work’: High Challenge, Low Effort. Don’t get me wrong, we work plenty. It’s just that we are both really passionate about it, and we work in unusual ways. While getting our nails done, for example.
It doesn’t have to be hard.
And you know what? You still deserve it if it came easily and smoothly. Probably more so, because it means you are finding your Right Way.
The processing from the workshop has ‘landed’, and it feels great! It feels, in fact, like it was all totally worth it. It doesn’t have to be hard…
Do you believe you have to struggle to get what you want? Do you believe you don’t deserve things if you haven’t worked really hard for them?
The Worrying Thing About Getting Unstuck…
…is: what if everything falls apart, and it never comes back together?
Or, possibly worse, what if it does come back together, but it looks completely different?
It’s been getting noisy in my Void this week. As some of the rather wise gals who commented on my last post pointed out, the Void is a creative space. It’s an emptying of the old so that new things can come in.
Which makes it, by definition, temporary.
You’d think it was enough to GET to a place where all of my old beliefs, hang-ups etc have come unstuck. The thought of leaving this place? Isn’t really working for my fear right now. It wants me to stay in the Void. It is very worried about what I may create with all this possibility I now have.
In fact, I have been having long conversations with my fear, a la Havi Brooks.
Here’s a little excerpt of what my fear has had to say for itself lately.
ME: What if what I want (a happy relationship) is possible?
FEAR: Doom! Doom! Doom!
Possible?
Of course it’s not possible. You pick bad men. You failed at your first marriage, of COURSE it’s not possible. Stupid question. Let’s just stay here, single and happy. If you get bored, you can go find an unsuitable man for a bit. Men find you attractive you know. Until they get to know you.
Then, they run. So there’s obviously something wrong with you, deep down.
You are too intense. You ask too much of them. And when you bend over backwards to accommodate them, they don’t like that either. You can’t win.
ME: But what if it were? Just imagine, like.
FEAR: Nope, can’t hear you la-la-laaaaaaaaaa.
It WOULD HURT TOO MUCH IF IT ENDED. It’s not possible to go there again.
Anyway, didn’t I mention that you are a loser who failed at her first marriage?
M: Ok, let’s just talk about that first marriage a bit. Are you afraid I haven’t learnt anything from it?
F: Worse. I am afraid that you have, but that you are still going to make mistakes (look at who you’ve dated since it ended) and get hurt.
M: I hear you. I don’t like getting hurt. It sucks. I don’t really want to take a risk again unless I am pretty sure. How would you feel if we were pretty sure? What if it were actually easy to have this?
F: Well, I can see how it would be easy to have the friendship part. Because you could still protect yourself, not get too close to the guy. And I GUESS I can see how you could find someone. You don’t battle with that part.
But really, you don’t pick the right men. So no, how could it be easy?
It won’t be easy.
I’m going away to look at knitting patterns on Ravelry now. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.
:::
Ok, I’m back. I saw some cool knitting. But I’ve still got stuff to say.
So, what if it was easy.
It would be a relief. I could relax a little, not have to look out for you so much. You make me very tired, always messing up and then I have to hold you together, you know.
M: How would that feel?
F: If it was easy and I could relax?
Well, you wouldn’t need me anymore. And then what? What if I went away, and then things went wrong, and there was nobody to pick up the pieces for you?
AHA! Breakthrough moment.
Who am I, without the fear and neuroses?
Am I still me? How would I cope with life without the fear to hold me back?
And this, friends, is what has made getting unstuck most sucky. I have to give up my attachment to certain bits of me that just don’t serve me anymore.
As I was thinking about this, I wandered over to Andrea’s blog and read:
Letting go is beautiful and being willing to let it fall apart is not about giving up.
it’s just that we are not open to receive when we are grasping onto something. literally. imagine you are holding a coin in your hand. your hand is closed. you have to open your hand in order to receive more or even to use the coin or look at it. the only time we would hold on is if we’re afraid that there isn’t more coming.
we have to be willing to let go of the thing we want most.
She put it perfectly.
The Void is only a part of composing a happy life. Some of us battle terribly to get here, but once we are here, we have to keep moving.
Staying in the Void for too long is just another way of staying stuck. So is moving out too fast.
The only way is through, as Christine put it the other day. (Also, she gave me a blog award! So awesome!)
Gotta be in the Void when change is a-comin. Gotta move out when it’s time.
It’s all about timing and rhythm. And having a good, or at least speaking, relationship with the voices in your head that don’t want you to change or grow.
What do your voices say? Do you believe them, or do you question them?
Hello, Void. Let’s be Friends.
Since I got my new emotional superpowers, some seriously weird stuff has been happening.
As if it weren’t weird enough that I can now (well, mostly) feel my feelings without ducking for cover, even when they are Big and Scary, I had a massage the other day.
No, that’s not the weird bit.
It was actually quite nice. Massages are.
What was weird was how different my body was to a month ago, when I last saw my (fabulous) massage therapist. I tend to hold tension in predictable patterns. In my calves, my iliotibial bands, my quadriceps muscles, my psoas muscles (which are usually so tight that my therapist breaks a sweat trying to release them. I kid you not) and in my biceps and pectorals. If you have not idea what I am on about, bear with me, the muscle names aren’t central to the story.
Anyhoooo. I am usually tense in the belly of my muscles. Right in the middle. But this time, every single muscle was loose in the belly, and the only tension was at the point where muscle inserts to bone. This is weird. Weirder still, my psoas muscles? Not tense at all. This, friends, is nothing short of downright freaky.
My massage therapist got more and more puzzled through the session, and eventually asked me what I had been doing differently.
Well, I said, I have been writing a lot more.
Pause.
And I’ve been doing a lot of work on releasing my old patterns.
It’s almost like there’s nowhere else for the tension to go now. It’s retreated to the very ends of my muscles. Now the only way is out!
So there’s that.
Then there’s the whole not-needing-as-much-yoga thing. I can’t tell you how weird that is. I am still practising every day (well, except for that one day when I had a nap) but just because I can, and because I enjoy it. Not because I need to in order to be a normal human being, which was the previous status quo. Odd.
And then there’s the Void.
Yup. A big ole empty nothingness where all my hangups, insecurities, self-delusions and general crap around relationships used to be. These things used to form the basis of my romantic relationships and now that they are gone, I feel kind of bereft.
In their place? Nothing. You see, it transpires that I have absolutely no idea what I really want from a relationship. Nor do I really think that if I figured it out, I could find it. Probably because I don’t know what I am looking for.
I mean, obviously I know some stuff: I’d like a man who is kind, financially responsible, has a nice normal relationship with his mother. That kind of thing. But the energy and flow and balance of the relationship? Never given it any thought. Till now.
So here’s the weirdest bit of this story: I feel like I need to stay here in the Void, in the emptiness, and really get to know it. Because if I try to move out too fast, I won’t have seen all there is to see.
I still won’t know what I want.
It’s part of the process. To be comfortable being empty, for (gasp) an undefined time. To be willing to wait until I know what the right questions are.
Hello, Void. Let’s be friends.
Do you have any Void-like friends? Have they helped you?
Processing: Nesting: Knitting
Kerry and I taught our Unstuck workshop for the first time on Saturday. I say for the first time because there is another at the end of the month.
Now, here’s a confession. We knew this stuff worked, because it worked on us, and as we were developing the sequences of yoga and acupressure and the languaging, we both had big shifts and found our stuff coming up to the surface then clearing.
But.
Here’s the thing. We didn’t KNOW. For certain, that it would affect other people in the same way. So we were kinda flying blind on Saturday, despite our long, long, thorough preparations. Expectations were high – read what Svasti wrote before the workshop.
And so, it was, you know, scary!
I was a little underprepared for how powerfully the new language I used in the yoga practice brought people’s stuff up for clearing. Granted, that was what was meant to happen. But it was pretty full on for all of us.
Fortunately Kerry, the good cop, stepped in and helped everyone clear the blockages in their meridians with acupressure. Now that we could see what they were.
So the energy in the room settled.
I’m still finding it hard to express, coherently, what happened, and I am not alone. People had big shifts, lots of emotions came to the surface. By the end, most people really needed to go home. Like, immediately, do not pass begin.
What feedback we have had so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and very interesting. One woman said that although pigeon pose is easy for her, once I had explained what energetic/emotional stuff we were working on, she found it incredibly difficult to stay there. Echoes of coming up against yourself, eh?
Others have said that the workshop was great, fabulous. That’s awesome! And Leigh-Ann wrote a lovely post about her experience (no, we didn’t bribe her to).
Another woman says she feels she’s just touched the tip of the iceberg with this work and she can’t wait to delve deeper (!)
But many people have been quiet. I get that. This work is causing shifts in me the like of which I haven’t experienced since the first time I went to India. When I am having breakthroughs (frikkin hell am I having breakthroughs right now) I need a lot of down time to process them.
A lot of sleep.
To be quiet and alone. Reflecting. Processing.
I need to take reeeeealllly good care of myself. Eat good food. Get a massage (I did that today). Journal.
And I knit, because it’s like moving beads on a mala or a rosary, but without the dogmatic religious overtones. My favourite kind is semi-idiot knitting: really easy, but with just enough action to keep me interested. Like this: colour changes and increases*. But otherwise, just mindless manual labour. It can’t be overrated for helping overloaded brains to cool off!
*Unrelated knit-geekery: it’s Noro Silk Garden Light, and Noro Cash Iroha and this pattern.
Making Space to Feel
I’ve been very gentle with myself this week.
Soft.
Quiet.
Slow.
I have spent a lot of time in my bed. In my pyjamas, with my poupee.
I’ve been listening to Angus & Julia Stone, and Beth Orton. And Fiona Apple. Lots of Fiona.
And I’ve been sleeping a lot.
I’m not generally very good at going easy on myself. So this is new for me. I even went home early from a friend’s birthday party because that was what my body wanted. One day, I chose to sleep instead of do yoga. That is so unusual for me that when I told Leigh-Ann about it, her jaw dropped.
And (this i s a biggie) I’ve been making space for my feelings. This is also not something I am very good at. I am much better at keeping busy and Getting Things Done. But wow, it really helps! Not the getting things done bit, the feeling bit.
Can I tell you a story? You know how I love stories.
Once morning this week, as I was waking up, I dreamt that my erstwhile man friend was in the bed with me, and I felt so comforted. He was hugging me, and I could feel the warmth of his chest (overshare: he has a GREAT chest, the kind that is made for warm bear hugs). And I said ‘I love you.’
Well, that jolted me wide awake. Because, you see, I have become very cautious with these words of power and I had never actually said them to him. And my first reaction was:
I can’t say that, I can’t feel that. We aren’t together anymore!
So I pushed the longing, and the missing, and the sadness down into a hard, black, ominously explosive ball just under my heart.
Then I thought, hang on.
What if I allow myself to feel these things? What if I just acknowledge them?
What would happen?
So I opened my body to the feelings. And the strangest thing happened.
They didn’t expand to fill all of me and overwhelm me, which was what I had been afraid of. Rather, the intensity of the feelings diluted because they had more space.
And I felt lighter. It was the emotional equivalent of relaxing my neck muscles in a yoga pose. Everything just felt easier.
It is such a relief. I think this is a way for me to be in the flow of life even when it isn’t, you know, quite the way I want it to be.
Have you ever done this? What happened when you did?
Learning How to Centre
This is a guest post from my dear friend Leigh-Ann. I could say that the conversation which spawned it started when we were drinking tea in the park last week and discussing faith and connection, but that wouldn’t be quite true. It started a few months ago when we were in a bookstore. Leigh-Ann bought The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, even though it was in the self-help section!
I bought Whom Not To Marry, but that’s another story.
Leigh-Ann is a yogini, a creative goddess, and also, it turns out, a great writer. Read on…
When I lived in Cape Town, a friend invited me to go along to pottery at her aunt-in-law’s house in Woodstock. I’d been keen on pottery ever since my mom introduced me to the art as a young girl. I soon fell in love with this weekly activity. Sipping on wine while chatting away and exploring ways with clay on the wheel.
Now, anyone who’s tried pottery on the wheel will know that there are very definite techniques to producing something that’ll actually withstand the force of gravity. My bowls and cylinders were fine examples of ‘imperfect pottery’ – you know the Japanese Wabi Sabi / Hagi Yaki aesthetic – except, they looked that way not because I was aiming at that but because I didn’t know how to centre clay or build a proper foundation for a vessel.
I’ve recently taken up classes in throwing clay on the wheel. Within the first session I was centering, by the third I was making perfectly symmetrical bowls! Well, nearly perfect.
The key to creating a solid foundation is in how you position your body. If you’re not centered, neither will your pottery be. And you need to breathe while wedging the clay – making it malleable and bending it to your will. Breathe in – bring the clay up, breathe out – push it down into a neat mound. The form follows the body which follows the breath. Sound familiar?
Learning to centre clay has tweaked the way I do yoga. Yoga feels more like sculpting (a form with) my body now. And rather than rushing through the sequence, I want to do the poses slowly and thoughtfully. Gently and gracefully. The shape grows from the core and extends through the limbs, breathing all the way, to the ends of the fingertips, enveloped in a sense of wonder.
My favourite part of making a bowl is the moment when my fingertips leave the nascent rim of the clay. Delicate, like touching the edge of a lotus petal. This is where I feel inspired to be more gentle in life, with myself, with my loved ones, with my co-workers, with strangers. To be able to do that, my core needs to be strong. My foundation needs to be solid. I need to be in The Centre.
OK, Universe, Time Out!
Dear Universe
It’s been six months now since I said I would live this year with hope and courage. I wasn’t quite sure how to do that, but I had a few ideas. I’ve done quite a few brave and hopeful things.
I submitted an article to a magazine, and got it approved for publication! I don’t know quite why (well, I do, but it’ a long long story involving my fear of staying authentic if I am more visible), but it’s taken me YEARS to get up the nerve to do this, and now, first time I tried? The answer was yes. It’s an edited down version of this post, and it’s on newsstands now!
I organised a big fancy workshop for Mark Whitwell. I found it absolutely exhausting, but also realised I am capable of more than I thought. I am, to paraphrase a rather nice compliment I got today, Someone Who Makes Things Happen.
I taught my first full-weekend workshop, while I was in South Africa. It was incredible. Also, it paid for my trip. That was a bit of a bonus.
Weekend workshop in South Africa, March 2010
Along with The Amazing Miss Kerry, I have started to do some far-reaching, very interesting work around getting unstuck. It’s gotten me unstuck, that’s for sure. We have spent quite literally hundreds of hours in the preparation for our first workshop which is coming up on Saturday. It seems like a risk to do so much work for a mere afternoon workshop, but we don’t see it that way. We see it as the beginning of something. And we are planning Big Things for the months to come!
And. I let myself be vulnerable to a man. I mean I really let him in. I let him meet my friends. I met his. I (gasp) met some of his family. Serious stuff. There are even pictures of us together on FaceBook, for goodness sake! Or, there were. Things didn’t work out, and I have untagged myself. I feel hurt. Disappointed. And, um, a little embarrassed because now I have to tell everyone that things didn’t work. Seriously, Universe, could you let up just a little? Maybe, like, not everything at once? Because good stress (the stuff with Kerry) and bad stress (the man-friend stuff) are still kind of…stressy. You know?
In the wake of this breakup, it’s so tempting to go into my old patterns of blaming myself or thinking there is something wrong with me or my judgement, or that I am unlovable. So tempting. It’s also looking very attractive to just give up on the whole relationship thing altogether.
But not this time Universe. Not this time. Like Kerry said when I rang her for advice (wise girl, that) you can only make decisions with the information you have. I made the best choices I could with the information I had. And I am perfect and whole just as I am. Nothing needs to change. I truly know this, for the first time in my life. It’s weird: I’m not just saying it. I really mean that I think I’m great. No arrogance, just self-love.
But, Universe, I need a little rest, ok? Please stop throwing stuff at me, just for a bit. I need a long nap, and maybe some time in my foxhole. Some time just for me, with no external focus.
So I am stepping out of the dating ring for a while. Maybe not forever (hope and all that blahblahblah). But for now.
And I have booked two little holidays for the coming months.
And maybe I will knit something with the delicious Noro yarn I treated mysef to yesterday. Quietly. Alone. Yes.
Life Lessons From a Fox
Golden Brown Fox by Ty Williams
Children’s books? I am a huge fan.
I love how allegorical tales can make a point so much more directly than just saying: don’t put your hand in the fire (or whatever).
I guess that’s why mythologies exist in the first place: a story about how you should plan things properly or your wings will melt when you fly too close to the sun is much more interesting than being told to plan things properly or you will (boooooring) fail.
My favourite ever children’s book is The Little Prince. I first read it in French class at school. I only wish I had understood at 15 some of the wise bits from it that I think I understand now. For example, the bit about the Little Prince taming his fox:
‘Who are you?’ said the little prince. ‘You’re very pretty.’
‘I’m a fox,’ said the fox.
‘Come and play with me,’ suggested the little prince. ‘I am terribly sad.’
‘I can’t play with you,’ said the fox. ‘I am not tame.’
‘Oh! I beg your pardon,’ said the little prince.
Then, after a moment’s thought, he added:
‘What does “tame” mean?’
‘You are not from these parts,’ said the fox. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’m looking for people. What does “tame” mean?’
‘People,’ said the fox, ‘they have guns, and they hunt. It’s a great nuisance! They also raise chickens. That is the only interesting thing about them. Are you looking for chickens?’
‘No,’ said the little prince. ‘I am looking for friends. What does “tame” mean?’
‘Something that is frequently neglected,’ said the fox. ‘It means “to create ties”.’
‘To create ties?’
‘Precisely,’ said the fox. ‘To me, you are still only a small boy, just like a hundred thousand other small boys. And I have no need of you. And you in turn have no need of me. To you, I’m just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you shall be unique in the world. To you, I shall be unique in the world.’
And, a bit later in the conversation:
‘My life is very monotonous. I run after chickens, the men run after me. All the chickens are the same; all the men are the same. Consequently, I get a little bored. But if you tame me, my days will be as if filled with sunlight. I shall know the sound of a footstep different from all the rest. Other steps make me run to earth. Yours will call me out of my foxhole, like music.’
‘Please,’ he said, ‘tame me!’
Don’t we all want to create ties with others?
To know the sound of a footstep that we trust?
To find people to whom we are unique in the world?
Thing is, as the fox later illustrates when he is teaching the Prince how to tame him, taming requires patience. You have to show up, over and over again. Preferably at the same time, so the fox can groom his heart for you. You have to look out of the corner of your eye, so as not to scare the fox away. You have to sit just a little closer every time. And you have to be careful with the words you use, because words can create so much hurt.
It sounds like so much work.
I’ve done a lot of fox taming the last few years: I needed new friends in my new country! And I have behaved like a wild fox a fair amount too. Turns out people need to approach ME carefully too, not look me full in the face until I trust them, and be cautious with their words.
I’ve tamed some people, and they have tamed me. Some people, I scared away. Some scared me away. Some people, we are still taming each other. It can be so exhausting. But would I have it any other way? Hell no. And when things get shaky, I often come back to this little tale of the fox and the boy and reflect on whether I have been observing the rules of fox taming properly.
Do you have any fox-taming tales to tell?
Oh, and if there are other freakishly wise kids books you think I should read, let me know!
