Wonderful September, Self-Care October

I can't BELIEVE how productive September was! My business calendar is full of clients and my neighborhood is full of art. Some of those "mini-workouts" were even snuggles! Gasp!!

I sometimes wonder if it would be better to dial out of the daily adventures of fellow American rape survivors, but I don't know if that's possible. So I'm piling on the self-care and hoping for the best. The OK Cupid checkmarks seem the most daunting, but I'm sure they'll be worth it. 

Closing My Patreon and Moving the Affirmation Fun Here

So my Patreon didn't take, but I love writing affirmations and tarot readings so much that I'll keep posting them here.

Also, to your right, you'll find a link to donate to Emily's List, because electing pro choice women, especially women of color, is America's best chance at progress, happiness, and empathy. https://secure.emilyslist.org/page/contribute/donate-to-emily

Birthday Heart Inventory: Thanks 42!

Surprisingly, 42 was one of my happiest years yet. Last year around this time, I wrote about depression as a weed killer and this year, my garden is thriving, both literally and figuratively. There’s a lot of pain in my heart and so much battle still ahead, but my goal of cultivating a life has been met and exceeded.

Mental Health: Like for a lot of women, particularly trauma survivors, the 2016 election season was wildly triggering. In my case, those triggers got me to an amazing place: Women Organized Against Rape. Not only did my (FREE!) therapist there stem the tide of sobbing and panicking to a manageable level, she has also steered me towards a calmer, warmer, more productive, and loving self—she is truly a brain artist. It’s hard work to focus on the trauma part of life every Monday, and it usually results in at least a day of catharsis hangover, but it’s 100% worth it. This year is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling truly worthy of love, especially my own.

Love: Every day I feel the gorgeous, generous, and powerful love of friends, family, and cats, but I could copy and paste the longing for romantic love that I’ve written nearly every year. Though I’ve finally attained the goal of self-containment to a level that seems magical, I dream about boyfriends nearly every night. I try to take loneliness as a sign of health, my heart telling me that it’s ready to open up again.

            This is a good place to confess that there are a couple of guys I haven’t gotten over. I still wish I could hear from them, even though I know they aren’t the right ones. I keep their nice notes and artwork in the Box of Things to Be Worked Out by Unseen Forces. They don’t read this, I don’t think, but I’ll tell them anyway:

Dear _______ and ________,

Thank you for being in my life, for loving me the best you could, for the snuggles, the music, the kindness. Thank you for your face, your kindness, your humor, your support. I’m sorry for the ways that I hurt you. You’ll always be a sparkly gem in my heart because you changed me for the better. I’ll always a little bit belong to you, and I hope that you remember the best parts.

Love, Jane

(With that, I hope I made a little room for some snuggle-able treasures to come aboard.)

Work: I love my tutoring work so, so much. Getting to work with kids one-on-one, getting to know their families, using my teaching skills organically and flexibly, I CAN’T BELIEVE I made it here from where I was three years ago. Even on my lost-est days, a tutoring session brings me back to myself, frees me to live in love and in the present.

            I have one more semester of grad school (I HATE being back in grad school!) and then my teacher certification will be permanent. I hope to build up to a full-time tutoring business—I LOVE being my own boss, and the joy of going to the bank to deposit cash has not diminished since my waitress years.

            Creative coaching is going beyond-well: Coachees tend to transform into friends who guide my creativity just as much as I cheerlead theirs.

Art: At an organizing meeting last November, I introduced myself as a “street artist” for the first time, and that title really does ring true. I love being able to share my work with the neighborhood, watching how well the paintings I staple to phone poles get curated—some of the pieces have been up for more than a year! It’s a way to give and get love every time I take a walk, and fulfills what I think are the deepest purposes of art: to give, to love, to connect. Sometimes a neighbor even thanks me, and it’s the warmest, most fulfilling, most enriching feeling.

Activism: Remember when we thought it was sometimes not an election year? Transitioning from activism being a once-once-in-a-while pursuit to being a Daily Action feels healthy and sane. I’m so inspired by those who stay engaged and also by the way that we’ve committed to self-care as part of the resistance.

Plus, it’s always a good time to remind myself that this happened:

Grief: Although the Rapist-in-Chief causes the most horror in my heart and worldwide, it’s the misogyny of the 2016 Democratic primary that has caused me the most personal day-to-day grief, including making me wonder if I can ever date a man again. I’m working on a separate post about the ongoing soul-rash that is The Bern, so I won’t spend any more of my birthday typing about him.

Family:  My family of origin seems to have forgiven me for my Thanksgiving-ruining, welcoming me back like a prodigal daughter. My poetry family is mostly not connected to me anymore, largely a casualty of the misogyny-storm of the primaries. My immediate family is my ex-wife/bff and my two cats, and that’s a really, really nice life.

Spirituality: I’m addicted to Insight Timer, going to yoga weekly, and I’m even getting monthly massages. Sometimes I think I might just float up off the earth.

It’s been, in many ways, a year of luxury, of radical self-care, and I hope I can continue that spirit through age 43 and beyond. Thank you for helping make my life so rich, complex, and loving—wishing you all of the healing and happiness.

August Checkmarks, Birthday Month Goals

112 Ways to Be Soft with Myself

This post owes a lot to my favorite piece of street art from the DC Women's March (below) and to Elizabeth Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, and Elizabeth Craft, whose podcasts Magic Lessons and Happier  have been steering me back toward my happiness wheelhouse these past few weeks. 

            Last Monday in therapy, I got to a breakthrough point that was as relieving as an exhale. Closing a volume on a particularly ensnaring story, I felt space open up around me in a way that I haven’t felt in years. The urgency, defensiveness, and vigilance that has always fueled/plagued my life has, for the moment, receded.

            Friday afternoon, just before being let out of a phone session early (Because of happiness!) I told my wonderful therapist (SERIOUSLY. Call Women Organized Against Rape if you need help even a little. (215) 985-3333. https://www.woar.org/ ) that in order to preserve this lovely margin that has opened up for me, I want to make my life as soft as possible, to give myself every advantage over the harshness that is unavoidable both in my head and in the world. Here’s what I have so far, in no particular order:

1.      Be imperfect.

2.      Just sit for a minute.

3.      Take pictures of flowers and other beautiful things.

4.      Think about chakras.

5.      Plant things and see if they grow.

6.      Read chick-lit books and pretty magazines.

7.      Read in bed.

8.      Sit in the park.

9.      Treat the neighborhood mini-libraries as oracles.

10.  Write whenever and whatever I want.

11.  Build up my money cushion.

12.  Read children’s books, especially biographies of cool-as-heck ladies.

13.  Keep Hillary in my heart.

14.  Do yoga at home and in classes.

15.  Leave places whenever I want and then

16.  Go back whenever I’m ready.

17.  Never have a classroom again.

18.  Call a hotline whenever I need it even a little bit.

Women Organized Against Rape: (215) 985-3333

William Way LGBT Community Center Peer Counselling: (215) 732- 8255

19.  Always have a therapist.

20.  Keep taking Prozac.

21.  Give others margins too--be slower to judgement.

22.  Learn to distinguish between microaggressions and annoyances and then

23.  Push back as often as needed.

24.  Block any number I want to, for any reason.

25.  Date in real life, not online.

26.  Expect softness from partners, and give it.

27.  Continue to not watch Twin Peaks. Fuck off, Dead Girl Town!

28.  Sleep in.

29.  Go to bed early.

30.  Go back to bed.

31.  Take naps.

32.  Keep being addicted to Insight Timer and sending strangers around the world “Thanks for meditating with me” messages.

33.  Keep loving Yoga Nidra and other guided meditations.

34.  Keep swimming.

35.  Keep getting on the elliptical, even if it means sometimes having to watch the news.

36.  Be late for stuff.

37.  Or be early.

38.  Earn the amount I deserve to, which is at least $50 an hour for tutoring and creative coaching.

39.  Keep having jobs that allow me to regularly stop and put cash in the bank, I’ve loved that feeling since my waitress days.

40.  Look at baby animals.

41.  Walk in the woods and around my magical neighborhood (which has woods too).

42.  See my niece and nephews.

43.  See my siblings.

44.  Go to the beach, alone or with family.

45.  Get haircuts.

46.  Get my car washed.

47.  Canvass for candidates I believe in.

48.  Donate to good causes whenever I can.

49.  Call the government a few days a week.  (Daily Action and ResistBot really help with this!)

50.  Get in marches, protests, and demonstrations whenever I want to.

51.  Make, enjoy, and photograph street art.

52.  Use my art museum membership.

53.  Draw.

54.  Paint.

55.  Collage.

56.  Color.

57.  Bake.

58.  Make soup.

59.  Have breakfast for dinner.

60.  Look at gemstones.

61.  Visit the Hope Diamond, which I think is the most existing thing I’ve ever seen.

62.  Learn the names of birds, butterflies, flowers.

63.  Read Rumi every day.

64.  Listen to happy podcasts! (Right now I’m bingeing Magic Lessons.)

65.  Write a haiku sometimes.

66.  Wash the dishes and do the laundry.

67.  Enjoy my time working in the bookstore with Amy.

68.  Buy one feminist book per month.

69.  Watch movies.

70.  Accept invitations but

71.  Cancel plans whenever I need to.

72.  Ditto for calling in sick.

73.  Keep fresh flowers in the house.

74.  Send mail.

75.  List gratitudes and accomplishments daily.

76.  Say thank you, I love you, and I’m sorry easily.

77.  Be a guest house for emotions and other things recommended by Rumi.

78.  Go on mini-artist-dates whenever I get a little pocket or time.

79.  Or do nothing.

80.  Always be doing The Artist’s Way.

81.  Do self-help books, or “emotional sudoku” as Maria Bamford calls them.

82.  Watch, read, and listen to funny ladies. (And, okay, other funny folks too.)

83.  Honor my sacred alone times: Fridays after yoga, Sunday morning swimming, whatever else comes along.

84.  Make alone time on family visits.

85.  Always have good candles, notebooks, incense, and meditation stones.

86.  Goof around in thrift stores.

87.  Drink wine and watch Steven Universe.

88.  Believe that the Universe loves me and wants to shower me with gifts, blessings, and synchronicities.

89.  Admit to being a romantic.

90.  Have pretty clothes.

91.  Say yes to free stuff.

92.  Keep umbrellas, headphones, lipstick, cardigans, and chargers EVERYWHERE.

93.  Increase my IRA deposit whenever I can.

94.  Turn off the phone.

95.  Or just go ahead and scroll through Instagram.

96.  Play games.

97.  Watch sitcoms.

98.  Notice and enjoy silence.

99.  Celebrate having a body.

100. Say no to things I don’t like.

101.   Allow for the possibility of grey areas.

102.   Assume good intentions.

103.  Use and celebrate my voice.

104.  Treat everyone, especially myself, as if we were The Prodigal Son/Daughter/Non-Binary Child.

105.  Look at collections, varieties, arrays.

106.  Enjoy my friends.

107.  Have some tea.

108.  Believe fortune cookies, encouraging tea bags, and other messages from the Great Whatever.

109.  Keep a stock of tea lites.

110.  Notice magic every day.

111.  My neighbor once told me that “Living in a community is a constant state of forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

112.  Put loving myself first, always.

What are your ways? ❤ ❤ ❤

Very Mediationy April and May Goals

A Very Fulfilling February, Flowery March Goals