The Blue Room

What you don’t see is the can of paint I moved without telling Dave. The can of paint he tripped over. The can of paint that then sunk into the sheets and through to the rug. The can of paint that in the end turned into two cans of paint.

Now we alert each other before moving paint cans.

This room which we call the Blue Room for obvious reasons (blue rug not pictured) has panel walls. Like fake wood panels. What we have learned is that this required four, yes four, coats of paint/primer to finally cover the blue. It was like a sponge calling the paint into it.

After the third coat, fourth if you count primer, we finally stopped seeing blue.

I hung white curtains (still need to get a photo) that I’m hoping to try dying charcoal one of these days. I used a gray quilt I already had and ordered simple lights that wouldn’t take up space.

I talked D into leaving the shades off in all the rooms and using only curtains. We will need a headboard here so the bed isn’t right up against the curtains/window so I’m stalking Craigslist.

I don’t have a great before. You can’t tell the wall is so very blue and see how cluttered it was. Ugly lamps and white wicker of which I’m not a fan of. I had bought the bedding above to ‘go with’ the blue, trying to work with rather than against it! I’ll be listing it over on @respiritingstyle soon if anyone likes it.

Below is the beauty and simplicity of white paint to open a space. Even without curtains and the headboard it is dramatic!

I want to start collecting more diverse artwork and we begin with this self portrait from my kiddo. We love it so much. We want him to be surrounded by art by other black humans and be inspired from them. He said it wasn’t quite finished (school let out before he completed it) and we told him we love that about it too.

His bed gets nothing fancy because he adores these two old blankets (Delilah does too). He has been wrapping up in them since he was five years old. Luckily they are my color scheme!!! And he is quite happy to be out of the hallway bunkbeds and back into this sweet little room.

The Ocean Room

Working on a project with Dave the first thing I realized via a little fight, is that we do things quite differently.

Dave wants a plan. An outline. A linear way of accomplishing something. I do not. I am happy to figure things out as I go along. He also wanted things done his way. I did not. So it took a few days for us to get him to a place of understanding that having the JOY in the project meant that he needed to loosen up.

We got there. It became fun. Even when we didn’t sand and prime the trim in the first room we began with and had to spend a day and a half scraping it, sanding it and priming it before repainting.

The first bedroom. We call it the Ocean Room because it was filled with your typical lake house decor. Giant ceramic bright colored fish, red fish pillow, a huge ominous painting of boats near the ocean. Lime green walls with the brown trim and a dark green rug and ceiling fan.

I had no trouble making it cute once I removed all the fish decor but no matter how hard you scrub lime green walls, they are still lime green. (You can’t tell in the photos however.)

My plan for the entire home was to use the midcentury modern feel of the stone and brass fireplace and carry it through with a boho twist. It took us three weekends to do this first room, working from about 8am to 9pm. Paint. Ripping out a rug which is not like an episode of HGTV. The goo left behind required a special tool to get up. Dave’s department is special tools, mine is design.

We chose a bamboo floating floor because years before Dave had put one in the master bedroom. I knew nothing about laying down a floor but now I’m qualified to use power saws. Because this bedroom is underground other than the window, I stood just outside the window and made all the cuts of wood and then handed them back through the window.

This is the room after my initial make-over years ago removing all ceramic fish! It was cute but very dark and crowded. A queen sized bed and a huge dresser along with too many lamps on tiny end tables. The idea with painting everything white was to fool the eye into feeling the room was more spacious.

I still need to add plants and a few more decorations and the painting is a place holder for now. I made a little video talking about what went in. Two twin beds makes more sense when you have 5 kids, now we can put two kids into this bedroom.

I’m using a black and white and gray theme mixed with boho patterns like these Turkish pillows and then gold accents and black metals. Dave is a purist and would have never painted the trim until I explained the impact it would have to brighten and open the space. He is now converted.

This tiny room was three weekends of long days that feel so worth it! Light, space and joy.

Behr paint in Falling Snow and Bit of Sugar for the window and closet trim.

Turkish pillows

World Market Sconces

Magnolia quilts

Eli Turns Fifteen

Twelve years ago I started a blog with a post titled, “Eli Turns Three.” Remember, blogging?

I’ve decided after a month off for the first time in twelve years and a world cracking open and a virus continuing to threaten, that I will return. To the simplicity of blogging. To recording little thoughts and moments. To tracking projects, books, things I’m learning, what the kids are discovering.

I’ve spent the last twelve years building a business from a blog, from a Health Coaching background and I am profoundly changed and changing from the events of the last few months. I am profoundly changed from letting all the pressure of creating and gaining followers and sign ups and a sort of performative living go. Just go. I am profoundly changing (please let us all be) from the Black Lives Matter movement. I am profoundly changing from being a mother to teens. I am profoundly changed by sobriety.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and just snuggle my babies. I tell Eli I love him all the time and he still is willing to say it back. I imagine he always will. He has five friends over and they have played every sport and roasted hot dogs on the fire and each eaten at least four a piece. Because of Covid the friend visits are outside and we don’t know how long we’ll be able to allow them to continue. For now, they are healing and lifting for the kids.

I don’t think they will be back in school for the fall. I have deep sadness around that and also some selfish mama enjoyment of having all this extra time with them. I’ve been thinking about the connection of the world of Corona and the anti-racism movement and the voices and outrage and protests and I have to believe one was made possible by the other.

I feel rusty, having not written for a month now.

As a mom, I feel more connected.

As a human, I feel pain and faith.

I’ll be over here blogging, sharing the progress of a renovation project Dave and I are doing and that is feeling like something we should be doing for a living. I’ll be sharing the work we are doing around choosing anti-racism through education and action. I’ll be gardening, completely ignorant and learning as I go to create a more sustainable home for my family. I’ll be working on a neighborhood flower cutting garden (I thought it would be done by now but digging up grass has proven wildly hard).

I’d love to know how you are. What you are doing? How can I be of service in the months to come as I plan for what is next?

Also, remember being 15?

It is a wild ride. I love being on it together.

All my love, H

Bit of Sugar and Falling Snow

Google search :: Best white paint for north facing home

Google search :: Best white paint for south facing home

Google search :: Behr equivalent to Ben Moore Cloud White

Google search :: Scandinavian homes

Crisp clean open white walls have been an obsession of mine for the last decade. It turns out the internet has a lot to say about white paint! The best thing I came across was someone who asked a person who lived in Sweden how they choose the perfect white paint. Their answer, “We go to the store and buy it.”

I have no guilt about the hours I’ve poured into color swatches. Corona isolation was the perfect time to be in home, make home, fall in love with home.

Our renovation project is the Magic Lake House. A home Dave bought many years before we met, fulfilling his lifelong childhood dream of having a cabin on a lake. Because we aren’t able to live there year round as the kids live with both us and their other parents, our plan has been to retire there and build a forever home some day.

Last year we started feeling the drain of keeping up with this house that needed updates and repairs and a whole lot of love while raising 5 kids together in another state. After talking it through we felt ready to let go of this magical space. We decided to sell it. Then Corona swept in and our plans to renovate in March were replaced by staying home, staying in, staying safe.

So we began to dream into the renovation. What would we need to do to sell it. I came up with a vision and shared it with Dave. Pretty much all the things I’ve been drooling to do since living there, beginning with white walls to open the space and add light.

Removing all of the heavy furniture cluttering the space was my first tasks once we were able to travel to NH in late May and begin our work. Often these homes are purchased with everything in them, from the beds to the silverware. There is a lot of extra and we were able to donate most of it.

Somewhere along the way of choosing white paint we began to question our decision to sell it but we are proceeding as if. We are spending every spare moment renovating (stories to come) and if at the end of the renovation we fall back in love, we will play love it or list it!

The end result of the paint choices are…

Behr paint in Falling Snow for the kid bedrooms and Cotton Blossom for our bedroom and the rest of the house. Trim paint is Bit of Sugar.

…….

I haven’t blogged in years. After some time away from social media during the quarantine I decided to take some time to live offline for a bit. I liked it. There was a performative quality to being on Instagram that wasn’t feeling true to who I am now.

And. I learn a lot from social media. I learn about amazing people, especially since the world has cracked open and the truth of racism and injustice and the #blacklivesmatter movement is now part of my learning in the world, part of my change. And in my home with my kids, the resources I am pointed to are incredible and I am so grateful.

So I am figuring out how I want to engage with social media. I’ve taken time away from writing a newsletter and I’m excited to get back to that.

I also felt this special little nudge to just blog like I used to when the kids were younger. Stories of my days, not on social media, but here, in this space that is mine. A place where I can record my journeys, like this renovation project that has become a beautiful glue between Dave and I.

That’s where I’ve landed. Here I am. Hi.

Remember the old days when we left comments to each other? Yeah, me too.

Now that we've bought the bread and toilet paper.

After we buy the beans and toilet paper, what now?

Methods. Learning methods of cooking, of working, of supporting kids, of exercising. What was once I'll run to the store and grab it after seeing a new recipe posted or jumping in the car to go to the gym after the alarm goes offis replaced with, what now?

After our pantry is full of pasta and our kid home from school, what now?

meth·od
/ˈmeTHəd/

noun

1. a particular form of procedure for accomplishing or approaching something, especially a systematic or established one.

• orderliness of thought or behavior; systematic planning or action.

For the last decade (ish) I have been teaching simple behavior change through the lens of how we want to feel. I've named my work things like, The Joy Up, Spirits of Joy, Making Space, Magic Making, Great Big Fantastical Life, Reset Wildthing, Spiritstyle.

Every single thing I do is to offer a method of behavior change so that we can feel ourselves in our lives. Connected, expansive, open, rooted, lifted, fill in the blank.

When I learn or create a new idea or practice I try it out, establish a method, then if it works, I create a course around it. I don't ask that anyone follow my exact method, in fact, I prefer they don't. I offer mine so that they may adapt it into their own.

Right now the collective is being asked to step into a method of taking care of our future selves. It is quite a simple one.

Stay indoors with only your family unit. Leave only for essentials like food, medication and emergencies. Keep 6 feet away from others when out. Gather a two week supply of food and medicine to reduce visits out or in case of becoming sick. Most children switch to virtual classrooms.

This method has stripped established individual methods away. Exercise is no longer in a gym. School is no longer in a community building. Work is no longer at the office. Dinner is no longer in the restaurant.

We spent the first week with our five kids home dealing with the youngest one's tantrums, which we hadn't seen in over a year. Full on rage, blocking the door of his room with all his stuff so we couldn't open it, wishing people would die, talking about starving himself.

I felt myself falling into some self pity. Now I have to deal with this on top of everything else? 

I let myself linger there for a little while and then I sat down and made a list.

• get dressed

• eat breakfast

• brush teeth

• make bed

• pick up toys

• put dirty clothes in hamper

• 15 minutes IXL

• 15 minutes typing program

• eat lunch

• walk with family

• tech time earned

I left the little piece of paper out for him the day after the tantrum. He still wasn't happy with me but he dutifully checked off each little task. I could feel his mood elevating. When he went to his room to clean up he lingered and played for almost an hour with his favorite toys. 

The next morning he woke up, came down and said, "I'm sorry." Then he picked up his list and began his day. We don't ever demand the kids say sorry, but it is his way of letting us know he is back.

Now he has an individual method inside the greater collective method. It will become his anchor for these days away from school. 

I'm noticing a lot of humans, regardless of age, feeling their anchors pulled from them gong into tantrums.

When my kids ask why people are hoarding toilet paper I remind them that fear likes to have a focus (an anchor if you will) and when people fear their basic safety is at risk (root chakra, I mean how much more root does it get then wiping ourselves after going to the bathroom) it may not make sense because it isn't a logical decision.

It is an anchor.

So we've been mailing some toilet paper of our own to some families without, who couldn't afford to stock up because they live week to week, day to day (follow this Instagram to help).

When our own personal supply starts to become less, I want them to feel safe, I remind them that the toilet paper is not our place of safety. I remind them of all the methods there are to replace toilet paper should we run out.

The toilet paper hoarding feels a little bit like a small child who was just told school is no longer an option, his friends are no longer an option and he needs to ask before taking snacks from the pantry.

We look for safety when we are scared. I am doing it, you are doing it, we all have our own ways of acting out.

We balanced our kid's tantrum by remaining calm and giving him space (I had a private melt down). Then we offered him a new method, which he can make his own.

After we buy the beans and the toilet paper, what now?

Methods. Anchors.

Here is the thing, this is what we are doing as a collective. So once the tantrums are over, we need to make our little bullet point lists on a scrap piece of paper and move into a practice that anchors.

Find our method. Offer ideas. Sink in. Reach out.

As I soak beans, simmer broth, make lists, watch Borderland after the kids go to bed, drink tea, manage the noise level of kids, pretend to read my stack of library books, fall back in love with my work by giving it space, take inventory of my fridge and make Instagram Stories: I am feeling myself in my life.

After the tantrum, the list...

• Today I shall be...(who are you showing up as today? what will she wear?)

• brush teeth (really because you know it will be 2:00pm when you remember)

• make your tea (use the good honey)

• prep the fried rice

• newsletter (beans and toilet paper and noise, methods?)

• think about kitchen stories

• tell Dave about Tiger King

• photos for new circle

• check in with Chloe

• move stack of library books you are pretending to read up to bedroom

• email MGBFL about call Wednesday

• mail remaining packages

• baking projects for kids?

• beans, tomatoes and tortillas

• baskets of clothes

• three questions

• Simone's nomination form

• 3/4 magic????

• the sweet pear tree

• remember that lentil recipe with the swiss cheese?

• is there a tattoo in this

• mushroom soup

My method. My magic.

Find yours. Sink in. Reach out. 

We are accomplishing something AND approaching something. We can order our behaviors to feel ourselves rooted in safety through beans or toilet paper AND through the methods we choose right now to care for our hearts and our homes and each other. 

Lifting up can wait.

It is a tender moment in time. There are parts that are offering me more peace and calm and others that are creating a stress in my body that I'm not sure how to negotiate. I imagine we all are carrying around some version of that story.

I made some Instagram Stories on how to prepare for two to three weeks of food so you can limit your grocery store time. I'll work on getting a post written on that with a more specific list of items and ideas for meal and prep.

I go into the kitchen when I need to feel safe. It is my starting point.

A natural decision to put to the side the three month course I had been planning left me feeling all the feelings and instead of pushing to figure something else out, I just paused. 

I kept thinking about the toilet paper and flour and sugar hoarding and how much this need for basic supplies was Root Chakra fear and attempt to feel safe. I find myself counting my lemons and bananas as though running out will devastate me.

Dave and I went to the grocery store to prepare for what we hope will be three weeks of supplies and it exhausted us; walking around the stores feeling such a fear and wanting to keep everyone around us safe.

There is something about our NOW with him, he is finding his rhythm in organizing and sorting and doing maintenance all over the house and yard.

I mentioned that when I was writing Spiritstyle daily I felt like I had a rhythm and a purpose and that I'd like to find a way to offer myself in that way.

I also am aware of all the Zoom calls out there right now, all the free offerings and yoga classes and meditations and I don't want to add to the noise.

What I do want is to Root, ROOT, root.

I want to connect in tiny moments like when my kids are all doing their online school and I'm sitting at the table with my tea longing for some adult words.

I used to teach a course called, Rooting In, Lifting Up. It is a time to create a devotional practice, to simplify, to honor, to cherish, to share stories.

The thing is, we aren't in a LIFT right now. It will come, of course it will. But now, we are Root Chakra, basic safety focused. We are honoring the collective and learning how to adapt, learning how to make dried beans or work from home.

My friend Ruth sent a beautiful email the other day, "It could be now." I was working on this new offering that was scrambling all over my thoughts and her words were exactly what I was feeling into. I asked her if she would contribute a guest post, like the old days.

Then I was texting my friend Heather and she shared a Metta Meditation/Prayer and I asked her if she would come do a Facebook Live with me around prayer and everything else for this new thing I was creating.

All of a sudden it felt like I was back in the early days of blogging and creating, when we would all guest post and share things and it was this gorgeous community learning.

I want that. So I'm gathering the people and inviting you to come along, in whatever way it works for you.

I will create a space for us and send the words and prayers and offer the practices and then you make it your own. 

This is an offering to ROOT. Together, separately. 

It will be playful and hopefully helpful and it will be written inside the presence of NOW.

And then, later, later we will LIFT. For now, the lift can wait, let's sink in and create some magic, some devotion, some space, together.

Seeing the world through Corona colored glasses.

I couldn't sleep last night, not because I was worried about getting Corona, because our family has a strong suspicion that we've already had it.

Dave and I got very sick after a couple of our kids had coughs and fevers for a couple of days. We ended up with this cold that took about a week to develop and then turned into what we called the flu. Dave was coughing up blood (he didn't go to the clinic) and I knew I had developed pneumonia and did go to the clinic.

There was no test available then and I imagine if there had been, there might be higher numbers shown AND we probably would have stayed in quarantine longer, those of us who got sick.

I keep tracing my steps, what did I touch, where did I go? I feel so tender around those who are in a category where this virus is more devastating.

I will say, I have asthma and if we didn't keep inhalers around the house I would have been in the ER as I was struggling to breathe. Dave does not have asthma and he was much better.

We'll never know, but I am pretty certain, it was an odd sickness, something I had never been inside of before and from day 4 I was researching online and suspected. Dave and I kept saying it was the sickest we've ever been. About two weeks long.

What I do know is that we were not prepared. All 5 kids were home for Spring Break and I didn't have broth in the freezer or fresh lemons or garlic. One morning I drove my aching body to the grocery store with two teenagers, gave them a list and my card and had them go collect all the popsicles and cough drops and ginger ale.

I want to share what I learned from being sick and what I'm doing now to prepare for something like that again. It doesn't involve massive amounts of toilet paper, but I get it if that is helpful for you too.

In case of an emergency on toilet paper you can keep a stack of pre-moistened washcloths next to the toilet in a plastic bin and then have a closed bin to collect the dirty ones in. Wash these with the addition of Bac-Out or however you would wash cloth diapers. 

.......
 

1. Freeze bone broth, simple broth soups or have some shelf stable broth in the pantry. More than you think you might need. To make bone broth I use the carcass of a roasted chicken or roasted chicken pieces. Huge pot of water. An entire onion, head of garlic, green onions, carrots, celery, any herbs (the entire bunch or just the stems you haven't used). Splash of apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Boil for hours. Strain, jar up broth to freeze or use for soups. Often I just collect scraps from all the veggies I've used during the week (anything goes, beets are great) and dump those in with the bones. My newest trick is adding two dates, it gives it a lovely sweetness.

2. Tea. Honey. Lemon. Ginger. Oils. This was a lifeline for us. You can boil pieces of fresh ginger in water and then add honey and lemon to taste. We wish we had Breathe Easy tea when we were sick, so stock up on that and Throat Coat and Honey Lemon Ginger teas, along with Peppermint. If you use essential oils, your oils will come in handy for this too. I now have a lemon juice bottle just in case, I would rather fresh lemons, but I want to be prepared.

3. Cough drops, throat drops, popsicles. We ran out repeatedly with 6 people (only one kid didn't get it) coughing.

4. Easy to prepare meals for the kids who weren't sick. Noodles, canned soups, grilled cheese fixings, frozen waffles, cereal, cheese and crackers, fruit. My kids don't really cook but they did a great job figuring it out because we luckily had a bunch of this around. I recently bought a ton of frozen burritos for just such an occasion coming up again.

5. Tissues. We ran out. 

6. Period support. Nothing like getting your period as the worst of the sickness kicks in. I did just that. I was so grateful that I already had supplies on hand.

7. Juice, gatorade or homemade (lemon, agave or maple syrup and a pinch of salt in water), ginger ale, fizzy water. Don't judge yourself, if you need gatorade when you are this sick, drink it. Chloe had it for 48 hours and she wanted ginger ale, she never drinks soda otherwise.

8. Rice. Miso. Add ins for the broth. If you make the broth and freeze it is wonderful to keep miso in the fridge to go along with it. It lasts forever and is great for your gut. White rice was about all I ate for days. Rice in broth (congee) boiled for a long time is wonderful and soothing.

This is a way to prepare to nurture your future self if you get sick and are unable to care for yourself or have kids that will need support. Everyone's buying toilet paper, but I strongly suggest extra tissues tucked away!

Kitchen Stories :: Comfort Cookies

Good Ole' Raisin and Sunflower Seed Cookies

1/2 jar tahini (8 oz)

1/2 jar sunflower butter (8 oz)

2 eggs

1 cup palm sugar 

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 Tb vanilla

pinch of sea salt

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

3/4 cup raisins

3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together tahini, sunflower butter, eggs, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, salt and baking soda until smooth. Add in sunflower seeds, raisins and chocolate. Form cookies into a ball about the size of a golf ball and slightly press it down on a baking sheet. These are big cookies, you want to get bites of all the goodies in each one. Bake for 10-12 minutes, allow to cool and store in the refrigerator. When they are cold they come alive!

.......

A simpler version (pictured here) of this is to use one 16 ounce jar of peanut butter or almond butter, leave out the raisins and seeds (if kids don't like them) and just add the chocolate chips making a peanut butter cookie that you could eat for breakfast. The vanilla is always optional.

Spiritstyle :: One Week Collection

Begins :: After signing up, for ten days.

Cost :: Donation based, this will help keep me afloat while offering you a pay-what-you-can experience, and thank you.

Why :: I planned this course before the shift in our world took place AND I wrote it in real time, as our social isolation was beginning and as those in the first group were BOTH grateful for a distraction and concerned for our world.

The emails will talk about life for all of us right now. AND it will hold ways for you to play and be creative now in a time when things are new and different. I hope you’ll join us.

 

What you’ll need :: Your closet, your drawers, your jewelry, your piles of clothes! Space, a small clothes rack or a section of your closet cleared out or a surface to lay things on so you can see them (this will be part of the prep work). A mirror to see your beautiful outfits in. Optionally, a phone/camera to take daily photos and record your outfits to share (or not) with us on the Facebook Group.

I am new again and this is where I begin. Each time.

Come with me, for ten days as I share my system for (re)spiriting my style when I am no longer who I was and not yet convinced as to who I am becoming.

This isn’t about fashion, trends or rules. I don’t care about brands or labels and I certainly never have any idea what is trendy. I am not a stylist.

I can help you to feel yourself in your life, starting with how you allow yourself to step into your day. Using your daily ritual of adorning yourself as direct communication with the Universe that you know who you want to be and how you want to feel each day.

This is about your Spirit. This is the truth that when we choose who we want to be and dress that self, our everything changes.

We LIFT. We ROOT. We BECOME.

This will be playful and we are going to experiment with the things we WISH we wore. Maybe it starts with a necklace you love but have never worn because [insert reason here].

Most of us have closets full of things we love and adore and don’t wear. We have that dress, the one we can’t wear because it is Tuesday not a special occasion. That cool vintage necklace we can’t wear because it is only Thursday and no one will see us on Thursdays.

But I am a huge fan of Tuesdays. And Thursdays. I bless ordinary-nothing-special is happening days by wearing that dress. Beginning the outfit with the lavender flower necklace even (especially) if we just put on a hoodie!

We will talk about how to dress a fancy thing down and create one of your most amazing Spiritstyle outfits.

We will make connections between pieces of clothing for a week’s worth of full on Spiritsyle outfits that all fit together and we have visible and ready to wear.

We will place our focus on the things we WANT to wear and we will keep a bag or basket nearby to catch anything we are 100% done with.

We might repurpose something from the past and give it new life. Think business casual blazer from your past self over boho strapless dress from your desired becoming!

We will focus on the body we inhabit, the shape we take today, the way our skin feels and how we move in our clothes.

We will play with monochromatic outfits, mixed patterns, color as guides, dressing who we want to be and there will be no excuses because we are all going to do it together.

Imagine a group of women so excited about the outfits they just put together that they want to actually go to Facebook (right?) and post a photo of themselves to our private group!!! This is the magic.

Then?

Then you will be inspired by that outfit and realize that you too can wear that dress on a Thursday while you are in your home and only running to the post office (I actually call these days my post office outfit days) because you want to live inside your desired becoming.

I have been teaching iterative living since my third baby was born in 2008. Every time I feel myself becoming again there is a system that I can step inside of to claim that part of self that is being brought to life.

It begins with my Spiritstyle. Then it goes to my magic making practice (you better believe that is the next course coming, in April).

It works when I am consistent and devoted to my own damn self. To me. I want to feel myself in my life. Now. Today. This moment. The beauty and the wonder and the blessings.

Here’s how it works so you can join us in these fun life changing (really, it is that dramatic) ten days.

• Sign up with that cute blue Add To Cart button up there.

• Make sure I have the email you want to use for the course.

• Go join the FB group.

• Do the preparation practices.

• Each day follow the prompts and plan an outfit.

• Actually wear that outfit, or if you are like me, change three times before you find IT.

• Take a photo of the outfit, on or on the hangers or laying on the bed so you can keep a visual log of what works for you.

• Share your beautiful Spiritstyle discoveries with us in the group.

• End the ten days with a week’s worth of outfits that will become your first collection in your Spiiistyle wardrobe.

• End the ten days knowing and feeling into your desired becoming.

• End the ten days with no more excuses about not showing up in your life the way you want to feel.

• End the ten days knowing that every day you can be new, change, become the parts that you are today.

My other.

Happiness is not found in the things you possess,
but in what you have the courage to release. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I'm in a crisis of identity. Deep winter has struck and the end of the Zodiac has swum the fish in and I'm not feeling me.

Like, sexy. Or passion-filled. Or myself.

I made a list of the ways I haven't taken care of myself. I need to get my eyebrows waxed and I miss having my nails done and it has been ages since I've had a hair cut.

I got it in my head to grow my natural color out and I'm sure that's not helping my crisis. 

Pneumonia got me the last week-ish and I've been binge watching Netflix because I'm too exhausted to think. I started watching Counterpart where there is this parallel dimension and each of us has an 'other.' The other is the split of you, they exist is this other world and are identical to you but have their own experiences and reality.

Olivia Williams is an actor in the show and I loved watching her face. She is six years older than I am and her face has these marvelous lines, stories written in wrinkles. I was mesmerized by her face. In one scene she sits across from her other and they examine those lines on each other's faces.

It got me thinking how down on myself I've been, how nothing I put on feels right, how I'm changing my clothes 5 times a day and still not feeling joyful (even though I have beautiful things to wear). Some part of me doesn't feel like me.

So I imagined that I could sit in front of my other and observe her. Really, really see her, not just the image I glance in the mirror or see in photos. I've heard there is a mirror somewhere that actually represents the way others see us, not how we see our own image.

I imagined what I would wear and what she would wear (I saw her in this funky black tulle and lace dress) and I couldn't for the life of me dress my own self in this fantasy, I have no idea what I was wearing because right now my skin doesn't even feel like mine. (Cue dramatic soundtrack.)

But the point is, I had such tenderness and softness for my 'other' when I closed my eyes and imagined her.

I think I've created a gap between who I was and who I've become and the only way to merge that gap is to figure out what I'm courageous enough to let go of. 

You know, identity stuff and integrity and blah blah!! That stuff.

What I do know is that I want to feel sexual even while going through perimenopause. And I want to feel passion in my belly and feel alive and lit up chasing new ideas and dreams. I want to eat a gluten free dairy free cake with four layers of jam and coconut whipped cream. I want to drink my morning espresso while wearing something silky and sensual.

So, I guess I'll start there. Release and try on. Release and try on. 

All slippery sliding like those sweet little Pisces fish.

Hello deep winter. Hello.

My brain is not your brain.

I burn the rice, almost every time. We have this cool powder for taking burns out of pans. Otherwise we would have no pans.

It looks like this.

Rice goes in with a little oil.
Mix, mix, wait because you know that you'll need to add the water in just a few seconds.
Lean against counter, see a sweatshirt on the floor.
Go over to pick up sweatshirt and put in closet.
When in closet notice the coats thrown on the floor.
Get annoyed and hang them all up.
Find a hat that doesn't belong there.
Take hat upstairs.
Hear the smoke alarm go off.
Have no idea why the alarm would be going off.
Run downstairs, see stove.
Oh, you were making rice?
Damn.
You burned the pot.

I've started to skip the oil step and just add water directly so if I forget at least the pot stands a chance.

I sat down at my computer to do something a few minutes ago. I don't even remember what that something was but I've done twelve other somethings and still can't remember.

After Eli was born I was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD and high anxiety disorder. I imagine I used alcohol as one coping mechanism and now I don't have that any more. Things feel stirred up again and it is intense. (I should add I am grateful for those labels because they gave me tools for understanding myself.)

I can't figure out what course to put out next even though I'm about to have no income. Brains like mine thrive on the next thing and the high of an idea they are obsessed with and I've been trying to calm my life down, take things slow, meditate and exercise. I'm floating away and my brain has no idea how to produce in the float.

Just like learning to cook rice differently (my family says I should set a timer but my brain hasn't remembered to set the timer) I am learning new ways to work, to create, to plan, to vision life.

Perimenopause and being sober seem to have triggered things back up. So has watching one of the kids who I've long suspected has ADHD struggle in school and relationships the way I did in middle school and ADHD was not readily diagnosed in girls then.

The classic age for it to present for girls was 7th grade (now it is 6th) when social pressures became strong and rather than one primary teacher you move around to classes all day. From my reading, the failing grades and school struggles were thought to be the social engagement, the crushes on boys and friend dramas.

Not the brain.

She is now diagnosed and getting help and it makes me wonder why I've decided that I can manage everything myself without help for so long.

I imagine much of my addictive personality is linked to managing a restless daydreaming swirling brain. I am in true awe of people who are linear, even within the span of an hour. 

The whole point of writing this, because I still have no idea why I sat down at the computer, is to say that healing, just like my brain, is not linear.

We figure one piece out and it leads us to the next bit and that bit takes us around and underneath another layer and that layer reveals that past and the past shows us our future and our future tells us about our now.

We swirl.

Sabotage is simply a return to what we know until the newness becomes as familiar. I have said I am addicted to change, constantly swinging from one thing to the next, but maybe I was addicted to the return to familiar.

Safety after the high of the experience. Somewhere to be held in the exhaustion.

I am trying a new plan while making rice. I don't put the wooden spoon down until the pot is filled with water and turned to low. If I go chasing a sweatshirt, I find the wooden spoon in my hand and it reminds me of where I started.

So far, perfect rice. 

Onion Living.

(It's a long one, so I read it for you...)

I am in my fourth sobriety.

First, alcohol.

Second, love.

Third, food.

Fourth, money/living as if I have my shit together.

I made five phone calls, the kind that you don't know will be quick calls, although one of them was, the one for my massage. The massage I've been paying for each month and not going to get, that one. (See number four above: money/living as if you have your shit together.)

The first call began at 9:00am, I could feel the shame in my belly. A bank account that back in October told me I had an overdraft status and had since sent three more letters, asking me to pay. Now, I don't use this account, I haven't used it in probably a year. The bank is in NH, I don't even have access to it. I got pissed when I saw I owed on an account I don't use and know had at least $70 in it.

So, I didn't call in October. I didn't call in November. I didn't call in December but I thought about it. When all of my piles of mail and papers and collection notices were stacking up on me and I would just neatly hide the pile of shame.

In January, it was sort of like in April 2018 when my body told me that I couldn't keep drinking. In January 2020, my body informed me that this was no longer an option. That freedom couldn't be found in not looking at the parts of my life that feel hard. Maybe they feel hard because of how I've treated them, like they aren't there.

I want to also say, I have the money for these bills. I have the money to pay an overdraft and a $30 collection bill from a hospital bill I never opened (I found about ten of them when I went through my shame piles). I feel blessed that I have somehow stumbled into creating work that supports me and my kids and that only makes the shame worse.

Open the damn mail woman. Open your eyes and see your life. 

So I dial the number of the bank and a woman answers and I want to hang up immediately. I explain that I moved back in August and I don't use the bank, I was going to close it (sure I was, if you can close a bank account in your mind) when we went back in May. I told her I thought there was money in the account and I wasn't sure what the problem was.

She didn't tell me I was stupid. She didn't tell me that I am a fuck up. She didn't lecture me on the importance of looking at your bank statements. She just sighed, this sort of sigh that feels like someone gets you and she says, "Oh no, it looks like when you stopped using the account they started to charge you a monthly non-activity fee."

She put a freeze on my account and told me to make sure to close it out in May so I could get my money out of the savings account. This was easily a $70 leak from my life, if not more.

Next call, the DMV. The closest DMV is 30 minutes away for out of state license transfer and I have no idea how to prove residency, even though I've been here for two years. My van registration was up in September from NH. I have no lease or mortgage because it is in Dave's name. I pay the utilities and bills for the house but that doesn't prove residency in and of itself. 

So I put it off. And put it off. My ex let me know that if I'm pulled over I will most likely have the van taken away. My daughter has her license and can't drive because I'm not legal. 

Something about not having anything in my name about where I live is a little bit of a trigger for me. I'm divorced and living in a house I have no legal claim to (but peek through the windows and see the houseplants and sheepskin, its clearly my home). Still, it is unsettling somewhere deep in my bones.

So I put it off. Until my body informed me I couldn't anymore. My kids are watching. My kids are worried about being pulled over. My kid wants to drive.

This was the easiest call, other than the ten minute hold music. "Hi, I need to change my license from NH to MA but I don't have a lease or mortgage, what can I do?"

Shame. The lady said, "Just bring a bank statement." It can't really be that easy? It took me one more phone call to the bank, the guy walked me through changing my address (no proof btw) and I switched from paperless to paper so I would get a statement in the mail.

Next insurance. A bill for $364 dollars that had also gone into collections. I was told the bill was an error and I needed to call ABC to work it out. I never called. I kept getting the bill. After all this shame erasing already I was ready for the big one.

It took three phone calls, numerous people, insurance, physical therapy place, on and on. Insurance submitted the eleven claims that were wrong, said to give it 35-40 days and that was that. 

Then Verizon, to cancel a phone line we don't even have and cable which is rarely use. It was the most annoying call because I didn't want to know all the things I know now, and being patient during it was incredibly hard, I could feel my jaw clenching. Maybe to remind me to schedule the damn massage.

I know the guy's wife is studying to be a Realtor and that he buys her fancy clothes and bags from Poland, I know his child is autistic and that he considers him a blessing, I know his wife is gorgeous and I know he wants to sell clothes and bags for a living AND I know that on his first sales call he got a bonus check for $20,000 but he was so stressed out he couldn't do it anymore. 

I know that when he asked me three times in three different ways, HOW we were going to watch the shows we used to watch on cable, and three different times I told him I wouldn't be canceling if we cared to watch them, I felt my anger rising. 

"Please stop asking me the same question over and over," I finally said.

"I'm sorry, but I have to, if you could please just answer simply to each question this will be easier for you."

Jaw. Clench. $100 savings each month.

Finally, the massage I've been paying for each month because I need to get my jaw and hips and hamstrings worked on regularly. The massage that was such a great idea and then I froze every time I thought about going. Even though I already had an amazing guy. 

Even though they were already paid for.

I went through all my bags stuffed with receipts and sorted them. When my bag gets filled I just use a new bag. This time there were only two, in the past I've had up to four or five stuffed with things I don't want to look at. I found $22 which I used to tip at the massage place.

I also deleted 68,000 emails (I did a mass delete, didn't look at a single one) and ordered things to take care of the whitefly infestation we have in our house. The one we've had for months. The one I keep wishing away. I have gone through every drawer and hanger in my closet.

I'm not her anymore. All traces of this past shit-storm of who I was is begging to be wiped away.

The stories are good: I'm not good at this grown-up stuff, I just care about other things or this just feels too hard. Possibly; I just want someone to come save me.

The stories are not true. This was not hard. This was real. It was real life, real living, real stuff. If someone did it all for me, I would be right back here, drowning in the chaos that feeds my highs.

The feeling all of this cover-my-eyes behavior gave me, sucked. Shame sucks. I created all of it.

Onion living. Peel. And Peel. And again. From one addiction peeling away into another.

In April 2018 my body informed me that drinking was no longer an option. I haven't had a drink in over a year and a half, though I think about it almost every day. It has not been a gentle surrender, I miss it, which pushes me further into chaos in other places.

Recently a first social outing left me feeling like a stranger to myself. I imagined myself drinking, for days, I would close my eyes and see it, feel it. If I was going to, would people be happy I was back? Would they feel relieved that this sobriety kick was over? Would my heart start to beat out of rhythm again?

And then, I would imagine the hangover, the headache, the need to drink more, the racing heart, the swollen hands and feet, the yellow in the corners of my eyes, the moodiness, the worst of decisions made, the blackouts of time, the fights.

I didn't drink. The feeling of not knowing who I was prompted this fourth sobriety. January 2020, get this life shit in order. Freedom will not be found in chaos, in excuses, in waiting for something to magically change.

I refuse to label my addictive behavior as bad or good. It is what it is and I get to choose how I will live.

Without a pit in my stomach.

I may not know who the hell I am right now, I may be in a state of complete cell rearrangement. I may not be a pretty picture of sobriety but I don't wake up with that pit in my stomach since I made those calls and promised myself no impulse purchases when I need to numb or when I look down and see that there are only 28 emails and I don't have a single piece of mail. Not one.

I don't poke at Dave to push him away so that he can show me how much he loves me (spoiler, that does NOT work). I'm telling the truth. Using my voice. And when I can't, I work on staying out of the fantasy of how it should look.

I've gained weight. I love to cook but I never loved to eat any of it. I preferred to sip some tequila or wine while watching others happily eat, my nurture. Even my family. So many nights I would sip wine while I cooked and then as they would eat.

Now, I eat. 

Peel. Peel. Every bill paid. The one next thing.

The one next thing so that things don't spiral out into chaos. My daily mantra, "I don't drink today" now in loving company with getting my life shit in order. Shame nestles inside of the stories we make up so that we don't have to face our freaking beautiful selves.

I close my eyes and imagine myself a year from now. I wonder what she is wearing, how her heart is, what her morning routine has turned into. She knows that we have to talk about the things we try to hide or those things will destroy us. She is talking, she is beautiful.

She has peeled again.

I had a dream the other night, before fourth sobriety, after the social event, that there were tiny snakes swimming around my feet. I was standing in water, there were people everywhere, and I was terrified to speak or move my feet because if I did I might feel the snake. Did everyone else know they were there? I had to freeze knowing they were right there. I woke up and could still feel them. I wondered why I couldn't just pull my feet out and free them?

Classic interpretation is that we having emotions and feelings that are influencing our life without our knowledge. Also, the potential for emotional healing.

I close my eyes and imagine if I had been able to pull my feet out of the water. The terrifying trust that I was safe. Over and over until the snakes swim away.

Peel. Peel. Peel. 

Pulling my hair out (literally).

I just deleted 68,000 emails. I meant to keep only 4 of them. They were responses to my last email that went out Saturday that I hadn't yet replied to. But I went so fast they accidentally got trashed.

So if one of them was you, I'm sorry, even though I miss a few responses now and then I try to answer each one. Thank you for writing. 

For the one that wanted to know the oil I use on my psoriasis, it is this. It is amazing.

For the one who told the story about their dog who pulls, I loved it, so inspiring.

For those who just said the sweetest things, thank you.

I have never had a zero inbox. I figure if I need something bad enough, there is another way to find it.

All the things that weigh us down, I know there is freedom from it all. I'm inside of it, the search. I am looking at the shadows of the stuff that keeps me weighed down, that hurts me in the highs and lows of addiction.

.......

I used to pull my hair out. In clumps. After my divorce I would just sit and pull and something about the feeling of it coming out of my head relaxed me. (There is a fancy name, Trichotillomania.)

Mostly, I don't do it anymore. It is when I'm completely disconnected from my self, numbing, I'll catch myself doing it. I have one spot at the top left of my head that if you really looked, would indicate hair loss over time, I imagine I've been doing it for a long time, though I have no awareness of doing it until the divorce clumps.

My daughter recently told me she had started to do it and has broken herself of the habit by trading it for a new, much less harmful one. She would pull her hair out piece by piece. 

I told people that I lost half my hair after the divorce. And it was true, it was falling out in clumps, but I was pulling those clumps. I have no idea how much would have stayed in my head if I hadn't pulled.

When I would go to sweep the wooden floor, the dustpan would fill with my hair and I felt the sting of shame and the numbness of denial.

It is brutal when you realize your kid has one of your things. But also, I could get it, I understood. I know she isn't broken for doing it, I know that there is an underlying high anxiety disorder (not thrilled about that word) that we both share. I love her ability to help herself through a change in habit. 

We both have to actively work to manage our anxiety. We both get panic attacks, managed incredibly well with CBD oil, we use City & Sea Trading.

These are the parts of Being Mama that we can feel shame around, wishing that our stuff didn't have to be their stuff. And. No one will understand her like I am able to, because I know.

I just checked my inbox. I have 6 emails. From 68,000 to 6.

Where I feel shame, I'm going to tell the truth. If anything, I hope you'll feel safe doing that too.
 

It isn't really about my dogs.

The first-ish words I spoke to a human being today were, "I woke up feeling like my life is falling apart."

I thought I could get away with bringing both dogs outside to pee at the same time. The problem is you have to time it so no other animals are outside, if there are, which there were, Delilah Moon will literally take my arm off. And then Bunny will just start to run like her life depends on going as fast as she can towards I have no idea what.

I felt helpless. I felt angry that my dog does this to me. I felt weak because I can barely hold her. I felt angry because she makes it harder than I want it to be.

Now, most mornings I have it down to the exact moments. I know when the other people in the neighborhood are out with their dogs. I avoid her seeing the street. She is a lovely dog when she isn't working on ripping my arm out of the socket.

She loves other dogs. She is socially motivated which is why we got Bunny. She needed a dog.

And it wasn't at all about Delilah, we will get that under control, this is a very fixable issue. 

It was about me feeling like I was standing exposed and raw and helpless and not knowing.

All of a sudden, in this one moment I felt like time was up on not knowing. My trust in letting a decision fall into time's hands no longer felt valid.

In that moment all I could hear in my own head was, "I can't do this."

Something old and deep. I can't do this.

.......

My first baby having what they called colic and listening to her cry as I rocked her, swung her, praying and crying along for so many hours I couldn't breathe. "I can't do this."

Sitting outside of a social event I had been invited to by myself, in a building I had never been to before, terrified of walking in the door and having not had my usual two glasses of wine before. "I can't do this."

Having to ask for help picking my kids up from camp in the early days of being a single mom because my interstitial cystitis was so bad I could hardly walk. Having to ask for help. "I can't do this."

The morning before we told the kids we were separating, crying so hard I couldn't talk, hugging him in the kitchen before we got them all together on the old brown leather couch. "I can't do this."

The words, you're always sick. "I can't do this."

I can't do this.

The Full Moon. The first sober social gathering. The one month left to decide what comes next. The fear that I don't have the energy anymore. Post ovulation funk.

I have stood here so often that my feet have worn down the earth into permanent footprints.

I woke up feeling like my life is falling apart. I got angry at my discomfort.

The coffee pot is dusty from weeks of drinking tea to heal my gut. I pull it forward and let my hand fall into the dust, etching out four fingers and then I wipe the dust away and walk over to the sink filling the cold glass pot.

It feels like a heavy decision - 4 cups or 6? I choose 6.

I stand in the kitchen leaning against the counter with my eyes closed listening to the way the pot begins to heat the water and then so slowly starts to drip it into the filter of coffee. I have missed these sounds, this smell that reminds me of being a little girl and a teenager and a new mama and a single mom and whoever I am now.

I choose the mug that Pippa used each morning of the last retreat, the one that looks like waves. The mug comes with me to the bathroom and I start to clean off my face using my daughter's wipes and then a lavender witch hazel and then my favorite oil that calms my psoriasis. 

I know that this is my brokeness trying to take over all of it. I know that I am not drinking or eating or spending money before I pay the bills. I know I am not texting anyone in chaos. I know I am standing and looking in the mirror without a damn thing to keep me from feeling what wants to come through.

I can't do this.

OK. What can you do?

I see the scissors and I have a fantasy of taking them and just cutting and cutting and cutting through my hair, maybe bringing my bangs back.

OK. What else can you do instead?

I can tell the truth. That there are mornings when the broken parts and the shadows and the fears wake you up.

I can tell the truth. This moment feels icky and I change my outfit so many times because I can't figure out who I am today.

I can remember that nothing is different than it was yesterday when I felt my blessings and my joys and my love.

Maybe the most important thing of all of it: the footprints.

I know this place and I have spent every day of the last two years learning to be here without anyone to save me or anything to numb it. There are now weeks when I forget the footprints are there.

OK. What now?

I will close my eyes and sip hot coffee and I won't do anything I can't do until I can. 

I like that.

.......

Sabotage once was explained to me as a return to familiar before we are able to 'learn to live in a new climate.'

We have to give ourselves a slow, thoughtful chance to move back and forth from what was into what is. Eventually we don't have to visit what was for as long or feel stuck there because our now is our new safety. We can become again.

My word for this year is SAFE. It was so boring I fought it until it wouldn't leave me alone.

I will let this morning be the first visit from my word. I am safe standing in the worn footprints and I am safe when I step out of them.

There is not a single decision that I must make today other than nurturing that safety.

I would be safe if Delilah managed to pull out of my grasp and ran up to the other dogs. It has happened to the kids before and everything was OK.

I am safe during a little fight with my partner. I am safe when I run out of the 6 foods I can eat right now. I am safe in whatever outfit I choose to wear out today. I am safe to not go out to anything social for another six months or year or however long I need until I learn to live in a new climate.

Do you have to be? || Notes from therapy

"Do you have to be triggered by that?"

Dave and I have a practice in our relationship. We go to therapy together. It is the single best investment into each other we make.

Couple reasons.

He and I do not speak the same language. We hear totally different things. Our therapist translates for us.

She can hear both of us. There are times when she says things to me and I'm like, "Are we talking about the same person?????" And she very sweetly tells me the truth, how I am hearing things from a place of old hurt rather than hearing/seeing Dave.

She does the same for him. She tells us we are mirrors for the other. She wants me to be more selfish and him to lean deeper into empathy.

The other day we both expressed a BIG BIG trigger that we have from the other. I was crying, a lot. I was feeling all the things and my volume increases when I am emoting all the feelings.

I'm not yelling, Dave feels it as yelling though. I love when I'm able to release the feelings, and admittedly it is loud.

I prefer impassioned. But then. It is released and I feel free.

So historically he can't handle this impassioned side. It triggers the crap out of him.

"Do you have to be triggered by that?"

He pauses.

"Huh. Interesting. Do I have to be triggered by that?"

He thoughtfully sits with that.

Meanwhile, as he softly thinks my insides are dancing. I am so excited I want to jump up.

OMG. She speaks Dave. All this time I'm trying to defend my passionate rants and getting nowhere.

Then we flip it.

There is a certain phrase Dave uses that triggers me because I think that it is manipulative. Not only did we figure out that I was making up a HUGE STORY but guess what?

I don't have to be triggered by that!!!

We both walked out on a different plane of life. Since then our relationship has clicked in a way it hasn't before.

Like we just have these little grooves that I wondered if they would ever fit. I can feel us aligning.

He said now when he is feeling a trigger he asks himself, "What do you think Hannah is feeling right now?"

And I'm trying to make zero assumptions about his motives or words because all of those assumptions are coming from old shit and probably that old stuff wasn't true either.

Also, it makes me act like an ass when I do that. I don't want to play that role anymore.

So, thought I'd lay this down here for you too. Because this matters.

Do you have to be?

Pockets of Home || Layering, foraging and thrifting Solstice beauty

November 21st to December 21st

Preparing pockets of our homes for the Winter Solstice

$69.00

 

A Season to harness the power of regeneration and renewal that is offered to us during this celebration of Goddess Moon energy. Solstice. As the Moon gives birth to the sun and the day becomes the shortest and as night is the longest, we are being asked by Spirit to step into a quiet and internal focus.

As we go within making the plans for the coming year, dreaming the dreams of our becoming, our homes will hold us inside of this recreation. A few weeks spent clearing clutter and embracing the coziness of Winter’s requests will allow us to fully enter into the Solstice as a celebration of home.

• Clearing corners

• How to use collections we have or start a collection (without looking like clutter)

• Color stories, textures, patterns

• Hygge (I live in hygge all year long)

• Plants (I’ll share my three secrets for thriving plants) and how to decorate with them

• Setting up a beautiful and functional bedside table

• Mantles and tops of bookshelves or dressers

• Repurposing items you already have

• Thrifting for fun Winter finds

• Preparing a table for Solstice

• Planning, foraging and cooking for a Solstice celebration (lit only by candlelight)

• I will be sending emails and videos with little projects that you can expand into your own practices of making home

• We will spend three weeks clearing spaces and learning what lights us up in our homes; our color stories, styles, flow, rhythm

• The final week we will begin preparing for a candlelight Solstice celebration, solo or with family and friends, honoring the Goddess energy through food offerings and altars (and maybe a little Spiritstyle!)

• There will be a Facebook group to share our photos and progress, this part will be fun and you will be able to ask for support around any area of your home by sharing photos

• You decide what you will bring to this month; you can invest some $ or use only what you have and what you are able to forage in nature or things others might be wanting to give away (like plant babies!)

• I will be on the FB group to actively help you source beauty and peace in the pockets of your home

What drains you?

What drains me is anything I have to do. Anything. All of it.

If I give myself enough time to worry, think, roll things over, anticipate, expect or make up stories I am toast.

The predicament is that most of the things I have to do I enjoy, I've designed my life TO BE DOING.

So the drain is the wasted time waiting to do something, to talk myself into it, to find time, to ride the edge of deadlines.

I used to clean my house with the incentive to rearrange the furniture, if I rearranged I had to clean, it excited me, so I would do it. Sometimes I bribe myself with making lunch if I do _____ or ________ first. Those games are fun, but they aren't sustainable. It is a recipe for burnout. Short-lasting.

The paradox of all of this is that if I create a system for what I have to do, I can outsmart the drain. EVEN though I know what I have to do (and when), if I have the system set up I don't create all the drama and worry around it.

If I know I do a voice recording on a certain morning over coffee after the kids go to school, I don't spend hours and hours rearranging when I'll do it and negotiating with myself. Now, from the outside parts of my personality might seem to lend to a more free spirited, fly by the seat of my pants approach. AND, I'm a Virgo and an Enneagram 4 and a rebel; I've got a lot of contradiction.

Discovering that I thrive on systems and rituals and rhythm according to my sleep, nourishment, touch time, most focused times and my moon cycle allow me to do more in less time. This still kind of messes with my sense of reality, but I've never been one to think of time as linear.

One of the things people can think about writers is that they wait for inspiration. Actually, if writers were to wait, we'd have a lot less books piled up on our night stands.

Most writers I know practice systems and rituals. They stare at blank pages because it is time to write. They put on certain clothes and then sit down to write. They have one chosen chair or desk or pen or music or whatever gets them in.

If you struggle with change and stepping into devotion and dedication around something, I made a little video below. The videos were the thing I wanted to accomplish, 6 days of videos

The one where I talk about orgasms and to-do lists.

As I am laying on the cool sheets receiving an orgasm from my partner my mind starts to split. I am experiencing pleasure and trying to relax. In the process of trying to relax my mind starts to make a list.

Because what is the best possible way to relax? Make a to-do list so you don't feel so scattered and unfocused. 

Call vet about Bunny, fill out day care form for Delilah, look into bone meal, decide what to work on first in the morning, keep in mind how much there is on Friday's list, stop eating sugar and drinking fizzy water this week (bladder flare up), set up savings account for the summer, figure out newsletter for Friday...

I catch myself once I go from figure out newsletter for Friday to thinking about writing to you about this orgasm process. Not that I have any shame talking about sex, I'm all in, I just can't believe as I'm having an orgasm I'm thinking about penning it.

OK, yes I can. The family joke is watch out, Hannah might turn that into a newsletter.

When my mind used to split like this during sex I would feel guilty and I would struggle to have an orgasm. Since learning to release guilt around how my mind works all things are just, better. Better. Easier. More fun. They feel in integrity with who I am.

Once I've made this little list in my head, which I'm sure is partly possible because I am entering a state of prolonged pleasure, I can slip into a little fantasy or get really focused in on the feelings.

If I go into the guilt of thinking about making vet appointments when I'm supposed to be surrendering, things get all wonky. It isn't just with sex, it is with everything. All my things.

Yesterday I had so much to do that I was paralyzed. My self expectations were all juiced up with the kids going back to school. At one point I screamed in my head, "How am I supposed to do any of this with the kitchen such a mess and dishes everywhere?"

Then I realized, that was the way in. Not as pleasurable as an orgasm, but that was where I needed to go begin my surrender and to-do list.

As soon as the dishwasher was emptied I could feel myself start to relax. My mind was splitting into the task and mediative process of cleaning the kitchen (which is my home base, clean kitchen, clean mind) and sorting out what I could do next to not feel overwhelmed.

Then I had a clean kitchen, even in the chaos of fish tanks that needed to assembled on the dining room table and stinky hamster cages and the stick the dogs chewed up all over the floor and the clothes I just thrifted that had to be washed and sorted and the long list of other work and generally nothing being ordered or calm.

I had a clean kitchen.

Now, I had an orgasm, a to-do list and a settled mind.

I've tried so many systems and plans other people have suggested and I'm on this adventure to figuring out my own damn self. I gave up alcohol so I could feel myself in my life and save my relationship because I really freaking like this partnership when we aren't drinking. That opened the door to seeing myself.

I don't like a lot of what I see. And when I don't, it is always the places where I'm not in integrity with who I am.

As simple as thinking I can become a person who laser focuses in on their work while their kitchen is dirty. Not me. Dishes before all else (except coffee, and I even drink decaf).

Or being a person who clears their mind and chases away all other thoughts while they are having sex. Nope, not me, I'm going to have a whole party of thoughts going on. And then an amazing finish.

Right now my personal work is around telling the truth. But I have to figure out what that is first. I create so many stories and fantasies that I get lost. I put others comfort before mine and I get lost. I have resentments and lose my way to reality.

The other morning I wanted to talk to Dave about a fight we had had that was lingering far too long. He said, "Let's talk about it on a walk with the dogs."

My entire body went tense. I said, "Fine." (Code for not fine, as we know.)

In the past I would have waited and gone on the walk even though that was so not OK for me at all. I would have done that to make Dave more comfortable.

I took a breath and said, "Actually that doesn't work for me. Walking the dogs right now is incredibly stressful for me and I won't be able to talk then."

He asked me when a better time would be. We were laying in bed, the kids were not awake yet.

"Right now."

And much to my little past self's -pretend to be what someone else wants you to be- surprise, he agreed. We talked. Right then and there and both were able to wake up into better days.

My truth. My process.

My truth. 

I have a couple questions you can play with.

When did I not tell the truth today?

Where did I change what I wanted to make someone else comfortable?

Was there a chance to share a truth with someone and I said what I thought they wanted to hear instead?

Who in my life do I trust to hold my truths?
.......

I trust all of you and I thank you, always, for helping to create safe space here to empty out what is inside of me so I can continue to create and teach and learn and connect and hopefully, serve. 

The most ordinary of birthdays.

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.” 

― Paulo Coelho

.......

It will begin with the quiet sounds of paws on metal through a monitor designed for babies. She is my baby, I wore her in a sling made out of a turkish towel when she was six pounds, nuzzled in my neck.

I'll look at the clock and remind myself that I enjoy the early rising, that simple reminder almost as effective as the promise of a hot mug of coffee.

Dave who usually does not stir will have reminded himself the night before to notice my waking and say Happy Birthday. He already wished me a Happy Birthday Eve in his sleepiness three days ago, then realizing adjusted it to Happy-Eve-Eve-Eve.

I will open Bunny Blueberrie's crate first while Delilah gives me the look of a puppy who is already older than her years and would like to sleep past 5:30am. Bunny will bust out and run into my body, a crash of puppy love. I won't let them lick my face like the rest of the family, and they know this, but she has taken to giving my neck a lick or two.

Then she'll roll over and start to bite my hand, gently, playfully and I'll give her a toy instead while I look over to Delilah still deciding how she feels about us. I usually reach up for the latch and I wait, if her tail wags I open it, if she plops her head back down I wait and take Bunny out to pee.

When Delilah comes out it is clear she is the Queen, slowly stretching her front legs out while leaving the back ones behind her, long and unwilling to be moved yet. Then she will slowly come to sit in front of me and put her head down into my chest (she is as tall as I am sitting) and I will give her pets and say "good morning friend" until she collapses into a huge pile of dog on the floor, belly up, allowing morning to be true and belly rubs to be her exchange for less sleep.

The kids will come up or down (in this order: Eli, Evin, Chloe, Bobbie, AJ) after I've poured the first cup of coffee, 1/4 caffeine and the rest decaf. That little bit gives me focus without the headaches and exhaustion too much caffeine will leave me with. I will put some of my mushroom powder in and feel excited for the second cup that I'll be able to froth my milk for.

Chloe will give me the gift she ordered on her own (electric milk frother that actually works because my friend Chels has one) and everyone will want to use it to froth milk for hot chocolate and tea. I'll have made their lunches (croissants and cheese sticks, veggie chips and fruit) the night before so the morning will feel spacious and I can feel sleepy a bit longer. I might wonder how to get belly rubs too.

After the drive to Chloe's school I'll spend the hour before a call taking a shower and picking out a birthday outfit, then I've planned later in the day to do the things I've been putting off. Call for skin cancer screening, call about a bill I shouldn't have received, pay the electric bill, sort through a huge pile of mail.

I have decided to do this, on this day, because not having things hanging over my head, weighing on my gut, feels like the best possible way to enter an odd number year where change is coming fast and in the most ordinary of ways.

I crave this day, I've waited for this day.

Waking up into presence and the life I have crafted and can feel. Beginning with puppy noises and ending with snuggles from someone I love more, the simpler we become. As we are now more boring than ever (making room for teenage drama and angst-thank goodness), I have never felt more quiet joy in each day.

At night the almond flour cupcakes I'll have made with the kids on the Eve, with strawberry jam layered on the frosting and dairy free whipped cream topping the only somewhat moist almond cake, will join us on the couch for Netflix and Berry LaCroix and ginger tea with honey (made with almond milk in my frother).

Memories will pop up, photographs, like this one when I was 16 and in full perm gloriousness with first love's arm around me. He was the best first love a 16 year old could ask for. Memories will pop up as they already are of a million little fuck ups mixed into four and a half decades of trying to get something right until finally realizing nothing ever has to be right. 

And nothing has to be wrong.

I just need to see it, to feel it, to be there from the moment the puppy/baby monitor goes off to when we fall into the coziest bed at night as I turn it back on, listening the quiet hum of the stillness of a magical home, with a magical family, inside of all the magical cracks where simplicity and beauty fall through; the life I'm choosing to see.

I used to be terrified of becoming older, of my life having this arbitrary expiration date I couldn't reconcile. Then I stood next to my 99 year old grandfather and all I feel is joy. Pure joy at what is to come. There is this one spot on the highway when I drive Chloe to school in the mornings that sometimes I have a future memory of. The sun is shining and all we are doing is driving, not talking because we mostly don't. And I feel my 99 year old self remembering that moment, in the sun, in the monotony of the drive.

Why this moment? Maybe because it is the most uninteresting of all of them, and somehow that matters most.

A corner I've turned over and over adding up to miles and miles on the van. A young girl literally growing up beside me as I grow up beside her. That future memory of her turning off the radio because it is annoying or the dogs fighting over the bones in the back seat.

I just want to add beauty to this time.
And let myself be more loved than seemed possible at 16.
I want to be surprised by how different (or the same) my morning will be than I think about it being (this is new for me and this is everything).

I'm ready for you 45, I love you already.

How to build a foundational procrastination practice.

"Fulfillment derives not from lofty achievements, but from ordinary feats. It arrives not once in a lifetime, but every moment of the livelong day.” 

― Karen Maezen Miller

They begin with a practice, most foundational life altering things.

Procrastination is one of them. A ritualized practice of procrastination is one foundation for habit change, brilliant ideas and the surge of energy no cup of coffee can simulate. 

For this practice of procrastination to work you are inserting something productive and stimulating/relaxing into the slot where the thing you need to do goes.

If you have ever wondered how I run my businesses, tend to five kids two puppies one hamster twelve goldfish a hundred plants and one lover while keeping a mostly clean and orderly house (don't look in my van, I don't procrastinate in there) my secret is all here.

Procrastination practice. I'll share with you a few of mine.

1. Play in your closet. Play dress up. Create a costume to become the person who needs to get the task you are procrastinating done. Who is she? What does she want to feel like? This is a tear up your closet kind of dress up play. And then while you are procrastinating further you can make a pile of clothes that don't fit or you know you won't wear to donate or give to a friend.

Here is the magic in this one. As soon as you nail it, you find that feeling and you are embodying it, you will sit down and get the thing done. You'll write the newsletter, you'll pay the bills, you'll send the hard email, you'll write five more pages. Because you have just become the person who can and WILL do that.

2. Walking with ferns. From Zach Bush, "Breathe as many environments as you can. Turns out we can repopulate our microbiome not just by eating, through fermented foods which I love, but by breathing it through the bacteria and fungi in our environment.

How do you do that? You simply get out of your house get out on a hike get near a waterfall get to a swamp get into the mountains get into as many macro ecosystems as you can. And breathe there for a few hours.

Ferns are a really good sign. If you are out in the woods and you see ferns growing, their nutrient base is the oldest eco system on the planet.

A fern is not going to grow unless it has access to the oldest ecosystem on the planet.

So go sit next to a fern and read a book for half an hour. In the sunshine or the dappled shade where the ferns are growing. Sit and read and breathe for a bit.

You are going to repopulate your microbiome and you are going to have a spiritual experience of being under a tree." 

I will add that along with the spiritual experience you will start to become unstuck around the thing you are procrastinating. Trees and ferns just do this for us.

3. Send blessings. Through text, through social media, through the mail or a voice recording. Bless a few people. Five typically works for me. This procrastination is most helpful when you aren't doing your thing because you are lost in comparison or feeling less than. Bless. You will be different. Then go get your shit done.

4. Add plants and goldfish to your home. Plants will change the air quality and goldfish will relax you. Most people kill their plants and goldfish, but if you are adding them as a procrastination practice, they will thrive. I am a bit obsessed with both but I believe what they give me back is a foundational change. They remind me I can show up, I can be consistent, even when I'm procrastinating. 

The idea is for them to distract you from the thing you don't want to do. So you'll spend lots of time watering, talking to them, feeding them. If you ignore either for too long they die. After you've spent half an hour with your houseplants you will be so relaxed, that next task will flow right through you.

5. Do the dishes by hand. Skip the dishwasher and go through the meditative motions of washing dishes in soapy warm water. Your mind will clear. Ideas will flow. Your heart rate will relax. 

There is an affirmation in completion when you wash the dishes by hand and give yourself an empty, clean sink. You'll crave more of it. You will keep going because it feels good.

Create practices that fill in the gaps when you can't do something rather than laying around feeling guilty for what you aren't doing.

You will never regret having a clean sink when you go to make dinner or feel guilty about taking a walk to energize your body when its exhausted from the thing you aren't doing but spending way too much thinking about not doing.

Add to the beauty, use procrastination practices to help you get to thing you are avoiding. Those little moments fill you with kindness and space.

Go make a pot of beans or meditate or sing in the kitchen or make cookies from scratch or go play in your closets.

I adore you.