Isn't it funny how some memories just hang there as if they were yesterday no matter how long ago they are?

I can remember being halfway through the day on my half-birthday when I was twenty-five and a half which is halfway to half a century, so vividly... and that was three years ago!

And so much has changed in just ONE year. Here is a snapshot:
Last year at this time I worked at Mills. Even though I had a regular and decent paycheck, I was struggling with bouncing checks, having my wages garnished by the tax people, and, of course, I fucking worked at Mills. Three things I posted around this time last year:

Work makes me sad....

"I hate working here now. Oh, I have had it with Jasmine's flaky bossing behavior.... "

I was getting tons of warnings at work, and plus I had to deal with Caeli's checks bouncing and the replacement checks bouncing and THOSE replacements bouncing....

Of course, I was also letting go of my job, envisioning better things for myself, journaling about it, meeting with a PRG about it, sitting with my feelings around it, and generally getting lots of tools I needed.

THIS year, I am financially solvent for the first time and doing everything I can to keep that going (like, I found out that I owe $165 in late fees on Jan. and Feb. rent so I sat down, did my numbers, and figured out how to pay that and what I needed to do to pay other things before they are due next week, including a water bill that I didn't think would be due this soon)... I'm applying only to jobs that I think would really satisfy me, and doing geek things for money meanwhile... I have a roommate that I like living with and my first healthy romantic relationship... my house is clean most of the time without a lot of effort from me... I have no more abusive fucks in my life (I even think that David is the one at my house right now, not Lottie as she had said it would be, and I don't have to have any dealings with her at all still)... I am doing a half an hour of yoga almost every day and I can do shoulderstands and backbends like nobody's business! And I am working toward buying a house and getting published and all kinds of things I like. And learning a lot about how to have joy and fun in my life in awesome quantities.

Now I am sitting in Cafe Suzie (at Mills) working by myself, on my new laptop, in the sun outside most of the day, eating a Mills brownie to celebrate my half-birthday while my laptop sings Happy Birthday to me, while people at my clean house figure out what they will need to do to FINALLY JACK IT UP SEVERAL FEET SO THE DOWNSTAIRS IS A LEGAL UNIT. Can you believe it? The UNOCCUPIED downstairs thankyouverymuch. Woohoo!

The awesome thing about recovery is that now I can show up for my feelings. I can feel the pain that I have from working at Mills and then it can dissipate and leave me with what I learned from it:

1. The people I actually liked and identified with in my second-round interview at Mills were the ones who were my age, doing similar work to me, who said almost nothing in the interview. Because they didn't really have any part to play. Because they didn't have any voice.
2. I didn't know it at the time, but that was a big sign about the kinds of things that were fucked up at Mills. Pretending that people got to be a part of things but not listening to them. Forcing people to sit through things that had nothing to do with them. Dysfunctional as hell.
3. Hey! Now that I CAN recognize these things, I can watch for that during THIS interview! I can learn from that and escape it!
4. HEY... maybe there are other ways to do second-round interviews! Maybe this place will do it differently! I can't believe I never thought of that before!

So, the interview I went to was pretty cool. There were six people there: four of them were people who did the same kind of thing I would be doing and the other two were higher-up folks. It was confusing in a way because I still expect there to be a right and finite answer to questions, like in a test, and this was more like essay questions... I get to decide what the right answer is and when it's over, and I wasn't really prepared for that. I wanted them to tell me when they were satisfied, and they weren't playing that game. They just wanted to hear what I thought was important. Which is awesome, because that teaches me good skills for the future and it's actually pretty healthy - I have to validate myself and say what I think is right, not watch them for a sign that I'm pushing the right buttons.

Lots of questions about boundaries, which is true so far of all my interviews and will probably keep being true because boundaries are so fucking crucial to this kind of work. I will have to come up with more examples of setting boundaries with people. It's hard because so many examples that spring to mind are laden with drama, and even though they are stories of me setting boundaries in the midst of other people's drama, I don't want to go into really dramatic crazy stuff in an interview. Maybe I can go with those examples and find ways to pare them down to focus less on the drama.

And we got to role-play! They were all, "ok, let's role-play you doing a presentation on teen dating violence!" Which was funny because, like I told them, I had actually imagined presenting an ADULT dating violence workshop on the way over, in case they asked me - but not teens! But it was SO MUCH FUN OMG. They were the funniest teens, and really got the teen thing dead-on - slightly out of control and playing around but totally wanting to show up for the thing they are there for - and it was just a lot of fun to play to that. I got to do my favorite thing of grabbing on to little things they say and telling them what a great point they've made and tying it all back in, using their questions and examples to show them the big points and show them how much they don't realize they know. It was so cool. And it was cool that I could just jump into it. I still wish I had gotten up and used the dry-erase board, which I think would have gotten me even more points. I thought about it at one point, but then I was answering so many questions and talking to them so much and I let that little doubt about whether or not it would be appropriate keep me in the chair. But it was fine either way, and they said I did a good job.

So, they had one more second-round interview to do on F... oh, today... and they are supposed to call people sometime next week with a decision. And Monday is a holiday, which delays things. Meanwhile, I have my foster place interview scheduled for Wednesday morning at 10. And the great thing is that - like I told them in my thank-you-for-interviewing-me card, which I am very proud of doing - role-playing the teen presentation really affirmed how much I love doing this work with young people too. I was afraid of it before I did it, a little bit, and then it was awesome - and so it would also be fantastic to work at the foster youth place!

I have my second interview for the domestic violence outreach person job tomorrow afternoon at 3!

Also, besides totally killing in that interview, the current case manager sat in on my case manager interview at the place that didn't hire me, and after some answer or another of mine, she was all, "Wow. You have really done a lot of work on yourself." Which was a pretty freaking cool compliment to get in a job interview.

It's kind of scary painful to have a second round interview, mostly because it reminds me of Mills. Because that was how they did interviews, and after my second round interview they ran away and then came back and offered me the job. Which is great, but the whole concept of second round interviews reminds of my dysfunctional job there now - everyone sitting around patiently being there for the interview, knowing that our opinions didn't mean anything, watching them consider total suckasses and ask them stupid pointless interview questions, et cetera.

But that is ok. I can show up for my painful feelings about past painful experiences! I don't HAVE to just freak out about the current experiences as if my feelings about the past mean anything about the present and future.

( Plus, the following job just called to schedule an interview )

Just in case you are wondering, based on my research so far, this is the most gorgeous house that ever lived.

It's on the block behind mine. It is in fact exactly behind the apartment complex two doors down from me where all the kids live.

It's funny because I was playing with realtor sites, fantasizing about all the pretty houses that I could buy when I got a job and then a mortgage from NACA, and I got tired of all of them showing me the same listings. I was all, I want to see pretty fancy listings! And I remembered that Annie and I used to look at some site that had crazy gorgeous houses built around trees, and things like that. And I remembered that it was someplace I found because I was looking for a house I'd seen for sale off of Piedmont that was super-pretty. And then I asked the internet and it was all, "Oh, the Grubb Company does most of the houses in Piedmont." And I guessed the url on my first try - and the first super-pretty house I saw was this one - and then I was all, hey, that's right by me. HEY, that's right behind me! HEYYYY, it's open house there for nine more minutes!

And I ran around the corner. SO PRETTY. So more than I could pay for not-a-duplex. I want the universe to show me a place that is that gorgeous in that way, and is a duplex, and... well, would you like to see my list of What I Want In A House? Of course you would.

My House Needs:
A coat closet.
A linen closet.
A broom closet. (Annie just pointed out that an armoire would solve that as well. Touche!)
3 or 4 bedrooms in at least one of the units.
Wood floors.
Solar power (I assume I'll have to add this).
Central heating?
A fireplace. A WORKING fireplace.
Yard space which is or can be an awesome overstuffed explorey garden.
Sauna? Hot tub? (More likely these will be things I can think about adding.)
Great colors of paint. (Also clearly something I can add myself.)
Tile/marble in bathroom, kitchen (counters, I mean).
A really great kitchen. (This place had an old Wedgewood stove. I like those a LOT. Or fancy brushed-steel stoves. Or... whatever, just something that qualifies in my mind as a "really great kitchen.")
Huge bathtub(s). Clawfoots especially.
Lots of windows, lots of light.
Back door that leads straight to the garden (because there is, like, a psychological block that prevents me from going left and down a huge stairs to get to it).
Front door that goes straight into house - not like mine where you go up and turn right. No turning right!
GIANT washing machine, so that I can put my rugs in it without it defuzzing them.
Built-ins: art-deco/craftsman-style windows and overall architecture outside and in. Built-in bookcases and china cabinets and....
Double-glazed windows (but if I can't have that AND artsycraftsy windows, I'll take the pretty windows).
Great insulation.
A place for chickens.
A place for a pygmy goat.
Window seat(s), preferably in bay window(s).
A creek within easy psychological walking distance. (That's an unculverted creek, not "oh, there's a creek under the street somewhere," about which I obviously do not care.)
A balcony would be good.
So would a porch swing.
And it must have a really awesome porch.

( here are some pictures i love of house stuff. lots of pictures! )

Next step: get a fabulous job.

Requirements:
It has to be within a reasonable commute (I'll do up to half an hour, for the right job); it has to involve work that I am passionate about (educating people about abuse, most likely); it has to be with awesome people and only awesome people; it has to pay $42,000 a year or more. Also, I would like the working environment to be nice, I have to get lots of sunlight while I work, I have to be able to do an awesome job and be totally respected and adored for the awesomeness of my work, good benefits would be good, and.... that'll do, I think, probably.

I went to two job interviews last week, which will soon be "the week before last." At the domestic violence one I believe I totally kicked ass. I mean, on top of everything else, there was a written portion at the end; of the two questions listed, one of them was about gender roles in domestic violence, and the other was about how I would increase the organization's cultural competency. Okay so: gender! And: I had just finished talking to her about whether they worked with agencies that served other linguistic commuities!

She said they would be doing interviews into this last week, and that they would call people for second rounds after that (where applicable). I am hoping they do, but I'm also trying to remember that I don't need THIS JOB, I need whatever the best job for me is and I don't know or control whether this is that.

The other one, I kicked less ass and I realized later that I didn't want to work in the kind of office it was, and then they called to let me know that they hired someone else who had a shitload of experience in the area. Then I applied for a couple more case manager type jobs that were more local to me, this last week, and I have a couple more places to apply to right now. Including a writing job and a web design job for UCBerkeley that pays a shitload of money, and which although I qualify for, I kind of assume I will be beat out for by the tons of people who have way more fancy web design experience. But you never know!

Now I have an interview for ( this awesome position )on Friday!

The woman who called me had a little bit of an Irish accent going on, which I consider to be a bonus.

I saw, while I was pasting it here, that it does say how much it pays and it is within a good range for me (although it's no $45k! it's $41,641.60.) and my first reaction to that was to assume that I had applied to some job that would not be a good fit just because it paid well, and then to feel scared about the interview as a result. But in fact the opposite is true. I was worried that the folks tomorrow would offer me a job because then I wouldn't get to work at any of the other places! Because I'm only applying to jobs that sound awesome and (as far as i know from the ads) fill all my needs! And why don't I get to do ALL of these awesome jobs? Hee.

AND I went to my meeting with a NACA counselor to work toward getting approved for a mortgage. No money down, fixed-rate, one point below the average interest rate whenever I get it, and sensible people who explain everything to me. Plus they insist on things like coming in with a spending plan and not spending more than 40% of my gross income on mortgage payments. Hell yeah.

So, I'm working on that. First step is to get a job. And I got a job interview!

( It is for a Community Engagement Specialist.... )

I'm all, make presentations about abuse? That's what I DO!!!

Huh. I didn't get no Application for Employment to complete and bring to the interview. That's funny. I asked if there was anything I should bring, too, and they said no.

I keep playing with numbers and with this salary calculator, trying to figure out whether I can settle for $36,000, which is my comfort zone. I keep wanting to talk myself into it because there are lots of jobs that make $33-$36k that I know I can get, it would be easy, I could just take something that makes just about enough money and doesn't really give me any respect, just like I always have. Tra la la. Keep sucking it up because it's EASY, and there are no What Ifs.

But in fact, no. I need and deserve to make a whole hell of a lot more than that. I am GOOD at what I do. I have incredibly fabulous skills and recovery to bring to the table. Anyone should be ecstatic to pay me, say, $45,000. Even if I have to turn job offers down to get it!!!!

So I feel like I am standing at the edge of this high-dive. And I know I can dive, and it will be fabulous, and it will be a total change of pace and scenery and environment and living. Into the water! This leap of saying "instead of renting from lunatics and never allowing myself to have what I need or take on jobs that I deserve and would be great at, I am going to ask for tremendous abundance. I am going to ask for a house and the means to pay for it and a job that gives me everything I ever wanted."

And I realized today in my COSA meeting that I don't have to be afraid up on that high-dive. I can just experience this as a moment of getting ready. I can enjoy this little pause right before I leap.

So, it's been frustrating to do East Bay Energy Therapy in some ways, because I don't earn the money to do the marketing that would bring in the money I need to do marketing - or anything else - and also, I realize, because it's not exactly what I do.

I had a little adventure at the Mills library last week. annathebean had a book on her truck that she had already processed, that was all ready to go out on the shelves, called Working Happy: Making Changes, Dodging Bullets, Finding Joy. And I was like, that is my exact new year's resolution this year, of course I need to look at this! And then I looked it up in Minerva to see what subject headings it had (lord, I'm a nerd. An awesome nerd!) and I went to see what else was under things like "job satisfaction" and "employee morale" and "quality of work life."

And I saw a book called the Intuitive Businesswoman, and I was like "I totally need to look at that! That is so what I need in my life!" And then I went to find it, and I discovered a very funny and readable book by Barbara Ehrenreich where she supposedly investigates "the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed." Which was weird because I assumed it would be people like me who make, I don't know, $50k and below doing office work (or in my case, hover in the low to mid 30s doing unappreciated and unrespected work that is underpaid, which I fucking plan to end soon)... but it's all stuff that people would get paid like $100,000 for. And all kinds of weird corporate mindfuck about how to fit into the corporate culture and network and crazy shit. Which I am not totally convinced is necessary to make that money or do those jobs - but even if it is, it seemed like she was making the same mistake I've made in the past, of hopping from one strategy to another (image tooling! networking! career coaching! resume sending!) without really giving any of them time to work.

But anyway. That was just for fun. But then along with that, there was a book called Dancing Naked: Breaking through the emotional limits that keep you from the job you want, which I thought would complement all of the work I've done to break through the emotional limits that kept me from making my business work and promoting myself.

And I flipped through it at home and saw this little story about a bigshot in the wine industry. And he retired. And then he really missed all of the talking to people about wine and being important and respected and all of that. Nobody listened to him as much. And he thought, well, I'll go get a little bitty wine job. And then he got fired from that because he wanted to talk to the customers more than to sell them bottles of wine. And he was shocked! And the book explained that it didn't work because he wasn't being aware of where he was, of what was going on with him, of what he really missed and wanted to do. And eventually he got into viticulture and grew vines and was important there and talked to people there and he loved what he did again.

And it made me realize that I need to do what I do. Not what I think I should do. Like, there are things that I am passionate about and drawn (or driven) to do. Writing. Exploring and teaching about recovery. Workshops. All that shit. All the shit, in fact, that my little business kept evolving toward. I never really, really wanted people to come over into my house and have EFT sessions with me. I never created workshops that just taught people EFT. No, when things blossomed they were like, here is a series of workshops about recovering from abuse and letting go of fear - some of which incorporate and teach EFT. Working with people one-on-one or running a whole community clinic and having to use it on everything, that seemed very exciting but it also scared me. And not in the way where I wanted to do it even though it was scary. In a sort of pinched-shoe-that-doesn't-fit-me way.

And also, I want someone to pay me. I don't want to have to be responsible - at this point - for making enough money in my business to pay myself a salary. I want other people to be like "Wow, you are so awesome, let me shower you with money. Let me organize everything for you so that you just have ONE job that you do, instead of having to be the CEO and the marketing person and the admin assistant AND the practitioner." I could do any one of those things. But for the love of god not all of them at once with barely any income! If I could hire someone to do the structuring and organizing part while I did the practice, that would be fine. But then, I'd have to start out making a ton of money first, wouldn't I?

So I realized that what I WANT to do is write my books, and work to get my books published, and work toward making a shitload of money doing that. And create and perform my workshops, and work to get people to pay me for them or at least host them in some way, and work toward ... honestly, I'd do that for free, but I DO want to make at least SOME money doing that.

And then, get a "real job" - this time meaning a job that not only pays me as much money as I want, but where I am respected for doing WHAT I AM GOOD AT BESIDES SEALING ENVELOPES. I refuse to do any more data entry unless I am worshipped for doing it and paid about $56,000. For fifty-six thousand dollars and total adulation, I will type all day long. No fucking less than that.

I insist on doing what I am DRAWN to do, in all areas of my life. So I went to craigslist and looked around.

( All the entertaining job-looking )

So besides that, I did my fear workshop at Mandana this week. That's the one where if they like me, I get to do workshops there where I charge actual money! And I TOTALLY KILLED.

I went in without a script. The other time I did this workshop, at the CoDA miniconference, I wrote a whole script and I read it while I went. This time, I was like, you know what? My understanding of how to let go of fear has changed so much in the past three months, this script no longer applies. So I wrote down a couple of notes about what I could use from it and then what else I wanted to say, and I just totally winged it. And it was so great!

Here are ALL the comments from my feedback forms:
Everyone checked off "Very helpful" and "I found this presenter knew the subject well and gave an excellent presentation/workshop" and that they would recommend it to others if it were offered again. And then they wrote:
(What did you find especially helpful?) "Practical doing of tapping, etc. Feeling fear level actually lessen."
"Sound content! Good presenter. Practical tecniques. I felt this was very beneficial. Enjoyed and benefitted."
"The actual practice of the tapping techniques - very relaxed, humorous, supportive demeanor of the presenter."
"Good presentation of background experience and personal experience using techniques."
"Her own experience; her credibility."
"Her good sense of humor. Relaxed manner of leading us. Patience, acceptance of us and our questions. Kindness. Good leading of EFT. Her recovery."

(What could be improved?)
"Would be great to have an ongoing Reiki class with Dani."

And it is SO AWESOME! Because you know what the message here is? The message here is that *I'm* the value that I bring to my work. Like, all of this is about getting paid and appreciated for just being myself. And that's exactly how it should be! I bring my patience and humor and compassion and relaxed supportive demeanor and my recovery to everything I do and that's what makes it good! Otherwise, it would be like so many other workshops I've been to - some good content and a lot of awkwardness or bad handling of questions or boring parts or wildly offensive statements that start an audience fight or whathaveyou!

And that's true everywhere! And it's the ideal! Like Annie said when I told her about it, it's the most natural thing in the whole world. And it's so about all the work I've done here over the past year, because now I can bring confidence and compassion and a relaxed demeanor - and therefore humor and good pacing and patience and all the rest of it - to what I'm doing and be present for it while I'm doing it! And believe in it!

Isn't that AWESOME?!?

As a direct result of being fearless I can stand on my head!!!

Because when I took my yoga class in college, a bunch of times, she showed us how to get into a headstand, but I was too scared to really try to get my legs up without someone holding them or standing there to catch them. I could tell that I was capable of it, but I was scared in class and I was even more scared to try it on my own after I stopped taking yoga classes.

And then I was doing Wai Lana Yoga, which is a totally awesome yoga tv show that I love that I TiFaux (record on my DVR all the time) so I can do yoga on my own. Which is another miraculous thing in my life but it's more part of working on recovery at large than fearlessness - except that doing yoga at home is part of working for myself which is part of being fearless. And Wai Lana is very brisk - when the show starts, she's not all, now let's sit around breathing or stretching or hearing about what we're gonna do. She's all, bend over, put your arms here, put your legs out, lean your head over, blah blah blah, all these little bitty right-away steps and before you know it you're upside-down or backwards or both! It's VERY exciting.

And she did one where she went upside-down! In a headstand! And I was really scared of doing it. I thought that I was mostly scared that if I kicked my legs up, I would keep going right over backwards and break my spine or something. I moved close to a wall. I figured that would make it okay. But then I was still scared.

I was determined to stick with the fear and feel it. It seemed like every new position I moved into as I moved toward getting upside-down brought up new kinds of fear, new waves of feeling. I kept on determinedly feeling them and waiting all the fear out. Then I got this sudden insight, this message from the universe: this is exactly what I do with work, too. I don't make a distinction between times that I should go into my feelings and explore them and times that I shouldn't: I do it no matter what. This seems good, but it deprives me of the opportunity to have boundaries with myself around my feelings. I don't NEED to do these extremes of either repressing them or almost wallowing in them - I can explore totally different possibilities, like just experiencing them and moving on instead of exploring them all the way down as far as they go. Acknowledging them and seeing what I need to learn from them. Thinking about what to do in response. Et cetera.

So work moves very slowly, because I think I have to slog through and process completely all my fears about, say, promoting my business and talking to people about it and handing out brochures in person and going door-to-door and meeting total strangers and what they might think or do or say in response to me, before I can, say, go down the street telling people about what I do and inviting them to make an appointment - which I haven't done, because I haven't processed all of that! And then I can't, say, do a headstand, because I think that I need to process, deeply explore, every single feeling and reaction that comes up about it every step of the way.

So I decided to try one more time, and see what it would be like if I just set all my fears aside, detached from that completely, turned that all over to the universe and just went with doing the things that would get me into headstand, as Wai Lana told me to do them.

And all of a sudden there I was, upside down!

I totally squealed and threw my legs back down. And then I did it again! And again! I can even do it without the wall if I use the wall first, like swing my legs against the wall and then move them away and balance. And soon if I practice I'll be able to do it without ANY WALL AT ALL! I did it five times and it made me dizzy for the whole next day (the internet said it was fine) and then I did it to show my family at Xmas and it was so much fun. I love being upside-down!

I can't wait to show this off at Burning Bowl 2007.

So, I was thinking about where fear still holds me back. And I was thinking about how much more present I could be in my life and how I shrink back from that. I'm afraid that my own emotions and experiences would be too intense and too overwhelming and scary for me if I really felt them full-on, in the moment.

And the basic rule of thumb that we've been using here, little handy tool kind of thing, has been that fear is remembered pain. And I was like, well, I can see that this is just how I learned to survive my childhood, by dissociating to some extent most of the time (back then it was all the time) and it's actually fine now. But I still didn't want to let go of this fear and try something different. And I realized that fear is also a kind of control. I'm trying to control what I get to do and experience by clinging to this fear.

So, that's fun, huh? I am actually happy that I don't have anything more to say about that, because usually I don't journal about this stuff until I have it tied up in a neat little bow. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this, to get to being more present or letting go of it - and hey look, I totally am trying to control it and plan it out. That's the SAME as the fear. So....

OH my god. I just shared this with annathebean while she was reading me our horoscopes. Then she went to the bathroom and I typed it up. Then she came bak and read me mine for Virgo and this is what it said:

Try not to let your desire for a calm environment motivate compromises you might later regret. Yes, the immediate future is uncertain—but that’s always the case. And what makes that tolerable is our ability to stay grounded in the now.

And then she read me Libra and Scorpio, which are what most of the rest of my chart are. It is crazy. It is like it just started talking to me and went right on:

The trick is not to make everything “better” but to find the serenity to accept some things as they are. Keep your optimism realistic, and you’ll be able to approach each situation with wisdom.

It’s a trust exercise, never an easy challenge for you, dear Scorpio, but that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in this quest. The secret is being generous at the same time you’re learning to believe in abundance.

Fucking... WHAT?! HOW DOES SHE KNOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW....

Just before she retired from therapizing!

I was talking about how I was too crazy to date anyone, and she said, "Why?"

And I looked at her. And she was like, "What is it about you that makes you unable to date anyone?"

And I was like, "...."

And, you know. The scales fell from my eyes.

And then I gave her all the reasons that I rely on that aren't true about me anymore, you know: I pick abusive fucknuts but not anymore, I don't have any boundaries but I do now, I get mad and act out at people but now I have tools for not doing that, it's scaa-ary but now I'm doing things that scare me.... She said that the real reason she heard was that it was scary, and she was like, yes, it is scary for most people!

Not that I'm going to go out on dates or anything anytime soon. After she said that I was like, "I should! I could! It would be exciting and different!" and then I decided that I would be too judgmental to date... oh right... I'm not supposed to think like that huh. But I just kept imagining myself going out with total strangers from OkCupid or something and obsessively taking each one's inventory and figuring out exactly which 12-step groups each one of them needed (in my wild opinion) to be in and not being able to enjoy it. Which, I realize now that I'm telling you about it, is just a reaction to fear. Well, I continue to learn and grow....

I ganked this meme from maeve66 this year round! It is the first bits from all our entries here this year!

January: For New Year's Day we went to siriosa's house for Burning Bowl! And it was so great!

February: Happy Imbolc! Practically.... I noticed a funny thing today. I've been excited because I've been eating less - not because I think it's bad to eat a lot, but because for me it's... this is hard to explain.

March: I'm trying to be present with how it feels to be at work. I need to actually experience it and accept it if it's sucky so that I can choose better things for myself somehow.

April: I did a great job last week! Wait till you hear! John was really really drunk and sitting on the edge of his mom's yard across the street singing easy listening loudly. Wow. That was one hell of a sentence.

May: Yesterday I was totally stressing out about work. I was freaking out about coming in to clean out my desk, and about talking to HR, and about ever having to see Jasmine again much less have her (I imagine) sit around watching me pack everything up.

June: My mother forwarded me this. His phone number's at the end if anyone wants to call him! Ha ha. What a funny joke I just made.

July: 1. I can touch my toes! for the first time! I couldn't even do it when I was little because my knees and hips were so tense.

August: So, I decided that I don't need my glasses anymore.

September: we were first on the docket, but then they got to spend literally an hour reading and discussing the papers that i didn't get to serve them, in the hallway, while i waited. like, what the hell is so interesting?

October: I got free lunch, which is always nice, and the food looks actually good which is not always the case in these situations. And I got to do four EFT mini-sessions with people, and that was a lot of fun, and they got a lot of relief from their problems, and in a couple of cases we talked about what the process would be like if they came to me for other more complicated issues that they had identified. I even met someone else who was in a ton of twelve-step programs, because I was like, you know, we would work on this this way, and also there are twelve-step groups that are really good for it, and she was like, yeah!

November: I found the music video (aka the clip from the movie) of my favorite song from Dil Chahta Hai!

December: I ganked this meme from maeve66 this year round!

Okay, even though I have some tiny remaining fear about it, I am going to call Bananas and say something like, "Hi, I'm a workshop presenter with East Bay Energy Therapy. I have a great workshop that teaches tools for dealing with bullying, nightmares, and other childhood problems, and I would love to talk to someone about presenting it at Bananas."

Actually, that sounds like something I could do EFT on!

There. I did a round of EFT, and then I called and was suuper-professional-sounding, and they took all my info and are going to have someone call me about it. Tra-da!

I am rapidly running out of fear and shame and guilt to deal with. I am completely out of controlling assholes, too! Where on earth did I put them all? They are all gone!

Also in case you did not already go be friends with eft4peace, I am going to start... wait for it, this is so fucking cool... doing a weekly PODCAST THINGIE. With video! I do not even know what that is called! I am going to put it on YouTube and everything! And there's more!

So I figured this. Mondays, I will do a little video that shares some wacky little tip or trick with EFT. Wednesdays, I will post ... Wait, I think that's backward. I think it's that Mondays I will post an exercise people can do that week, Wednesdays I post a related video, Thursdays I share some kind of insight or a recovery essay or some shit, and Saturdays I post one of my favorite articles from emofree.com. It is going to be so fun and interesting, your eyes might blow up!

That'll be my new slogan.

Also, I have the best most awesome new destroying-shame exercise.

So I was letting go of a ton of shame last week through EFT, which I should share about separately, and I realized that one of the ways that I shame myself is that I'll look around the room and note every single thing that's wrong with it - OCD is good for that - every paper that's out, everything I haven't cleaned yet, everything that I am not done painting or wanted to decorate but haven't, all of that shit - and then I feel bad about it, and about making myself live in "squalor," and just all this crap. Boom! Like a crap bomb inside my head! Don't think about that image too hard, okay?

So, first of all I am trying to consciously look at the room and notice all the GOOD things I've done in it, everything I like about it, everything I've improved or cleaned at some point. And that makes me feel more joyous and appreciative of myself.

But also, I decided that every day I am going to spend an hour (in bits and pieces, usually) working toward "living like a rich person." Embracing abundance instead of things that make me go "squalor" and feel ashamed and deprived.

And it is so much more awesome! It makes me feel better about cleaning because instead of just cleaning, it's like, "I am moving myself closer to living like a rich person! I am removing the things that make me feel bad!" And it's fun because I get to take all the wacky ideas in my head about how rich people live and take them for myself instead of arguing with myself about them.

It's also educational, because when I list some of them off the top of my head, it's like, "A rich person would have a clean fridge! A rich person would have a car that was clean inside! A rich person would have a swept floor! A rich person's room would be the color they wanted it to be! A rich person would have a clean desk!" Like... really fucking basic stuff. And also, I get to commit to keeping on doing it through and past the basic stuff, doing an hour a day and getting more creative until I can be like, "A rich person would have that fabulous couch I've wanted for two or three years!" and actually be able to get it. There is no limit to what I can do if I keep raising my standards for myself! And also, it's really awesome to have a set amount of time I do it per day, because then I don't feel bad about still having dirty dishes or whatever - I can just be like, yes, and I worked on cleaning things for an hour today, and I will do more tomorrow.

I highly recommend it. I don't recommend starting at an hour necessarily!

I totally figured out how to make just one cell of a table padded! And thus, we have one new little padded cell... hm... on our fabulous East Bay Energy Therapy website. Ta-daaa! It has lots of great new stuff, including slideshows of all three cats!

This is also a note to say that all info and news about East Bay Energy Therapy that isn't specifically about overcoming fear and stuff will now be taking place at eft4peace. It's new! It's exciting! It's geeky! Go look!

I have become aware lately that I spend a lot of time subconsciously shaming myself and that it takes a big toll on my life. It drains my energy, it makes my body feel ill, it holds me back from doing a lot of great things in my life and really truly loving myself. It is like a slow poison left behind by the abuse.

Well, I am working on my 8th and 9th steps and I need to make amends to myself for this constant shaming. I tried turning up the volume on the shaming thoughts in my head, only to find out that there are way more of them than I thought and they are scarier to me than I thought! So I wrote about them for a while....

I am afraid of being a joyful, exuberant, free person because then someone might notice and rape it away from me again.

(The usual survivor misbelief because NOW I have all the power in the world that I care to grasp, and the knowledge and wisdom and boundaries I need to protect myself - the whole reason they preyed upon us as small children was that we didn't have that. The reason we were reabused as adults is that we didn't have that. Now we are saying NO to abuse of us and have successfully been doing so for a long time!)

I see myself as small, miniature even, young and inexperienced and worthless (so clearly a picture burned into my mind and heart when I was small - and was very distinctly being treated as worthless, see above) and then I think/believe that I need to shame myself as if the shame were reins that I could use to control myself and keep myself from "making a fool out of myself" - from, gods forbid, doing anything wrong in my inexperienced and youthful state.

(Again, this is from the abuse - I was treated as if I had to do everything perfectly or else be shamed, screamed at, hectored, even physically threatened, choked, or hit - internalized those ideas, that treatment of me, and grew up to direct a silent torrent of shame and negative, self-limiting ideas at myself almost constantly, so quietly that I idn't even know it! I don't need this, it didn't help or teach me then, it only damaged me - it's certainly not saving me or helping me now! It only scars me further and keeps many of the old wounds from healing. Hurting myself is against my recovery!)

It bothers me that so many of these statements are so obvious when I can look directly at them. I feel like I should already have known them and that knowing them should have fixed them instantly - and erased all my abuse history! That is me shaming myself again - I "should" know or do or be something different. Where I am is not okay or valid or justifiable. That's crazy! I am exactly where I am supposed to be and I deserve my own love and compassion for every ounce of this - the healing that I accomplish and the wounds that haven't healed quite yet.

( Things I Feel Ashamed Of: )

Not not not. Why are these all negatives? It's like I don't do anything wrong, I just don't think I do anything... right or at all.

Like not having called places or visited them to set up workshops or blah blah blah. Which the Goddess hasn't even assigned me to do - but then, I haven't always been listening - argh! You see!

It suggests almost that if I let go of the reins and just was myself and lived my life to the max, I wouldn't have anything to be ashamed of - but of course not, because I would have let go of the shame - but it's like my shame wants me to go full throttle and totally be myself. But not to do it shamelessly - to do it only in very specific areas, with very tightly controlled boundaries. Fuck that!

We have the same end goal, but one of us (hint: it's the shame!) wants to control everything along the way, as much as possible. Like some kind of internalized parent. Hell no. Bye bye! Enough of that! Time's up! Game over!

Other shame messages I have: This looks bad, I look bad, I'm too hairy, I'm too ugly, my voice is too male and rough and not passable as female, I sound congested, my house is a mess, it smells bad, I have terrible self-care. All about appearance as self-worth. What am I "supposed" to look like? My mother: put together, professional, in control, clean, hairless (I remember her using Nair or something on her fingers even!), skinny, angry, judgmental... I am doing it wrong, wrong, all wrong, by deviating from that - it's not even a question of being myself, its just about my belief that I need to be her. How very peculiar! Like a baby duckling imprints on its mother, except INSANE.

I remember being deeply convinced that my parents would want me to follow in one of their footsteps, as a child. Eventually they corrected me on this. But I definitely thought that I had to emulate them in order to make them like me. Maybe if I did it well enough they would stop abusing me. There's also not much more going on in RA than monkey see monkey do, at a certain level anyway. Boy howdy.

I wrote this all last week and since then I've made all my phone calls, cleaned a lot, and done a lot of work on my finances. But I still need to do the assignments I gave myself:

1. Write a bio being proud of myself and describing who I am
2. Do EFT on "Even though I don't think I can let go of my shame/this won't work/I deserve shame/I need shame to survive/I am worthless/I need to be tightly controlled...." Test it by looking at how I feel about all those "nots" up there.
3. Do EFT on "Even though I am small...." (I have a whole sheet of aspects of this issue written out already.) Test it by looking at how I feel about seeing myself as a businessowner, as a therapist.
4. Do EFT on "Even though if I am totally myself and exuberant, joyous, shameless, and free, someone will rape it from me...." Test by looking at the shaming ideas in my mind and my fears about being totally powerful.

I found the music video (aka the clip from the movie) of my favorite song from Dil Chahta Hai!

A few lyrics to get you interested:

Let people say, let them keep saying how very insane we are
This world is ours to kick around, so what do we care?
While there's breath there's a voice, so why hesitate?
We'll sing the melody of our hearts
The world may quarrel; let it quarrel
The world may fight us; let it fight
The world may struggle against us; let it struggle
Just keep singing your madness
The world will sulk; let it sulk
Ties will be broken; let them be broken
Some will leave you; let them go
Don't worry yourself!
We're the new way of the world; why should we keep with the old one?
Lightning is in our eyes,
a storm in our breath
What is fear, and what is defeat?
We are strangers to them!



It will motivate you to take on the world! Or wear very shiny disco pants! OR BOTH!
I wonder if I still have those shiny rainbow holographic pants....

I've been driving myself crazy all day.

I haaaaaaaaate this shit where I only have to do two things each day for work. Like, today it was to put my database into Address Book and then to print out and put together this big mailing I'm doing. I had collected addresses for 47 clinics and therapy centers and the like last week, I had finished the workshop catalogue brochure, all I needed to do was put all the addresses into one program and then insert them into the letter I had already written and print them out. And print out and fold a ton of brochures to send.

It was supposed to be fun. I could clean while I printed. I could watch TV while I folded.

Instead, I made myself totally frantic. As usual, I decided that the list wasn't anywhere near long enough, and I spent all this time trying to do other stuff. I added a bunch more organiations to the database. I tried to add all of them that I could ever possibly want to add, but fortunatey I stopped somewhere around the letter A. (I had found a rREALLY long list of mental health organizations in the bay area that I could proably spent a week grabbing)

I'm also driving myself nuts going back and fixing EVERY SINGLE TYPO that I see in this entry as I type it because everything I do has to be perfect. So from here on, I'm not changing anything. So there. My computer has decided to be really slow abd it's not worth it. That's why it's not worth it, not because, you know, it's damaging to be obsessively perfectionistic and detail-oriented and judge every single tiny thing I do on some level. Anyway.

And then I read this blog for a local businessand decided that I totally needed to be promoting myself obsessively and doing a ton more work - and the blog wasn't even about promotion, it was about all the work they had to put into permits and shit to open their store, which has nothing to do with me right now - and instead of printing stuff while I did something healthy, I printed stuff while I obsessively tried to find places to announce my workshops online besides what I've already done. Which drove me crazy and is a completely separate task from what was on my list today. It is not a small task. but I was convinced that if I didn't do it NOW all of a sudden, nobody would come to my workshops and that therefore I would die in the gutter. Because it's just that simple and concrete.

And I've been shaming myself all day. I did this really cool EFT thing in the bath, where I was listening to iTunes and it started playing this EFT teleclass on money that I downlaoded, and I tapped along with it, and it felt really great and freeing and exciting. And then I exprfienced a backlash of fears around it, or maybe just didn't really finish dealing with the fears that the class dealt with. I guess I can learn from that - that when I do classes and workshops that are similar, i want to give peoplesome information about noticing what comes up and making sure to check in with it at the end. Or that when I want to take - I mean, when Ido take, these classes, I need to pay more attention to whether all my fears are getting resolved or whether I'm burying some of them under the stuff that does get addressed.

So anyway, it was all about changing your - my - financial set point, which I've done EFT on before and written about here and which is great and stuff, and I got a lot out of it. And also, it really ended up with me reaizing that I am afraid of succeeding in my business and of how other people would feel about that, a very codependent issue, and then just beating myself up all day about how I can't possibly do this. Finding all these ways of arguin that nothing is ever going to happen and I won't be ready and I'm not ready for success and I'm doing a shitty job and blah blah blah blah blah.

This weekend I presented the short version of the Fear worksho - now renamed Freedom From Fear - at the Codependents Anonymous miniconference. It was rad; people came to it (which, funnily enough, was not the case with the workshop that we were actually on the schedule to do! About 15 people came to the fear one, three came to the one on Sponsorship. OF course, there were three or four other workshops on Sponsorship on the schedule.) and everyone seemed to really like it and get a lot out of it. And I was very well-behaved in not promoting my business or workshops at all - because that would totally violate the 6th tradition of the twelve traditions that the program is built on, tra la la et cetera. I can't go to a CoDA event and be like "you should totally give me money and use my services." But i got the impression that when I do it :for real" at other venues, people will be interested in private sessions with me as a result. Which is eaxctly what my higher power has been telling me - that this is how I will build a private practice and stuff.

What is my point here That no one has signed up for the workshops at my house? Yet? That ... oh I know whta it is.

So, the really cool thing was that normally, I would have ben sweating buckets and totally scared durin the whole workshop. And obsesing about everyone in it and whether they liked it and what they thought I ws doing wrong and what I should do to make them like me and think I ws doing a good job. Which I did do some of - but mostly, I Wasn't scared! I was able to be really calm and secure in what I was doing! And that's such a great display of the work that I've been doing this whole year.

And at the end of the workshop, we did a ten-minute visions meditation about what our lives would be like without fear. And I wasn't even thinking about imagining what my life would be like without fear, I was just thinking about how I hadn't been afraid, and it made me feel really srene and calm like I wrote about last week. And then I realized that I could totally choose to look at all the little dregs of fear, all the things thatI don't even thin kof as fears even though they plague me, like all the moments I spend obsessing about what what other people want or think of me or all the things that bug me about myself and my life that I don't want to think about eough to recognize as fear.

And I think that's really what's going on for me today: that the universe is happily saying, "Okay, here they all are!" That now I've chosen to consciously face them, an they're scary, and I'm like, "why is this scary?! i thought they would stay as smal-seeming as they were when I Was minimizing them and ignoring them! no fair!" And you know, now I get to keep learning how very much it does not serve me when I get all caught up in old controlling patterns instead of just really doing what my higher power says, and trusting that, and I get to deal with the rest ofm y fear, and this is all great. It just feels scary!!!

Is this not a bitching craigslist ad?
I also paid the Thumbtack Bugle people $60 to distribute 100 of the flyers... and now I'm wishing that I had asked them things like how they decide where to distribute them...! But I can still ask....
And I found 47 clinics of various kinds and put them into a spreadsheet so that I can send them a letter, flyers, and brochures, Real Soon Now. I still have to make a brochure about the Many Fabulous Workshops We Have Available, but I finished one about the Idora Park Peace Program the other day and it is FAAAbulous. Which also means that I could print and fold it and distribute it around the neighborhood myself, and will pretty soon.

And then I'll advertise the workshops more online, and finish the EBET blog and myspace page.... and go around posting more flyers myself.

So anyway, I love EFT. Last week I had a sore throat and I felt like I was getting sick, and I did EFT on the sore throat and everything was fine. Like, the sore throat went away completely after less than two rounds, and then I felt really tired all of a sudden and took a nap and I never did get sick.

And then a couple of nights ago I was slicing stale bread and I cut my thumb with the bread knife. And it was bleeding, and I was sucking on it, and then I got tired of the taste of blood, and it hurt, and it wouldn't stop bleeding even when I held it above my head and tried the old girl scout pressure-point trick like tourniquets use, and I finally did EFT on it and during the second round it not only stopped hurting, it felt good. And I don't mean in some getting-off-on-the-endorphins kind of way, I mean it didn't hurt at all and it felt like a happy thumb on a normal day!

And then the other morning I woke up early freaking out about money and whether anyone would come to my workshops and whether I had already spent all my money and whether I would check my bank account and find it magically overdrawn because I hadn't looked at it recently, and a lot of similar stuff that I couldn't do anything about right then and had no reason to be scared of. And I did EFT on that (I was half-asleep, I don't even remember doing the EFT but I remember THAT I did it, if you know what I mean) and in the course of doing that, I ended up feeling really, really good and stable and calm and happy inside. And a lot of the time when I feel like that, it's like... a table top that isn't connected to the legs, like if I push on it it'll flip up and smack me and fall apart.

But this was different, totally solid and there was nothing I could do to budge it! Serenity. It was very very cool.

And then the day was still hard because I was trying this new thing. See, usually I just work 9-5 and pack in as much stuff as I can every day. And my higher power has been trying to point out to me that this isn't working, and that it means that I overwork and get sick a lot and that I get caught up in all these little things that my brain tells me to do and I don't end up doing the big things that actually move my business along. And finally she said that she wanted me to try not working 9-5 and instead just having two specific big things to do every day, no matter how long or short they took.

And that was scary to me! And that was the first day that I tried it. And it was like, I was done with the two actual things by like 3, and I was really tired, but then instead of just stopping, I kept trying to find more things to do. And it sucked! And I spent so much of the day messing with my own head and just discounting every single thing I was doing as "not work," like nothing I did "counted" because it wasn't hard enough or didn't put money in my pocket immediately or something. And it was like, aargh!

But the good thing was then I finally stopped the crazy by going to the ABA meeting and getting to talk about all the crazy in my head, and I realized how much I really got done and how much better my day would have been - and how much better it would have been for me - if I had just done things the way my higher power said to and stopped when I was done working. So in a way, that was a good confirmation of what I was trying to do. But it was hard getting there!

http://myspace.com/eastbayenergytherapy

SO much gorgeouser than almost any myspace page ever. Especially if you scroll down a little so the banner ad doesn't show. Shout-out to fairybluebird, for fucking sure.

Also, today I have filed the small claims case against Daniel, written those four workshop descriptions, finished the workshop catalogue, made a pretty logo, and battled with three separate graphic programs to find one that would let me fix two images on the myspace page. And done yoga, which included putting my legs all the way over my head to touch my toes on the floor (full plow pose!) AND shoulderstands - several times each! SO AWESOME. And the whole time, I was questioning my ability to get things done and thinking that I wasn't working enough and blah blah blah, and then I look at it all!

Of course, what all that questioning really means is "I'm scared of myself because there are so many times that I've failed myself in the past, where I've decided to something this awesome and then totally flaked out on it and never followed through, and I'm scared I'm going to pull that on myself again." And when I can appreciate what I'm actually doing and forgive myself for the past, there's no more fear! Only proudness and excitement!


Also, nanowrimo starts next Wednesday and I am TOTALLY DOING IT again - for the fourth time - now that I don't have a job that actually sucks at my soul. Who's with me?!

I wrote descriptions for four more workshops and made a brochure for all of them!

The Childcare Workshop introduces participants to handy acupressure techniques that can be used to heal childhood fears, colic, temper tantrums, bedwetting, bullying, nightmares, and many other common (and uncommon) problems, Great for teachers, babysitters, foster parents, nannies, daycare providers, grandparents, other family members - anyone who cares for children!

Participants will learn and practice basic EFT techniques on themselves; will learn playful ways to introduce EFT to children; will complete roleplaying exercises with a partner; and will share different situations in which they would like to incorporate this helpful material.

The Kids’ Workshop teaches children of all ages basic EFT tricks and techniques using games and fun exercises. Participants share common troubles and practice using these tools to heal sibling rivalry, test anxiety, junk food cravings, and scary memories.

Participants will learn basic EFT techniques. Younger children will listen to a story about common childhood problems and learn how to use EFT to resolve similar problems in their own lives; teenagers and pre-teens will discuss what angers and scares them and learn EFT techniques for dealing with these issues. Everyone will have the opportunity to discuss different tools for self-care around food, family, feelings, and other fun stuff.

The Transgender Workshop addresses many common fears in the transgender community. Participants explore common bonds across the community and learn to release fears of all kinds - from the drag king’s stage fright to the common codependent fears around passing - and reclaim the power they so richly deserve in their lives.

Participants will share their experiences in their gender journeys; explore their own investments in what other people think of them in public and personal relationships; and practice easy EFT techniques and other tools for releasing their fears and embracing their true selves.

The Health Workshop teaches the history of EFT, basic EFT skills, and coaches participants through applying EFT to achieve relief from simple health problems like migraines, colds and fevers, cuts and bruises, and tension.

Participants will learn how EFT was developed; learn the basic EFT procedure; be guided through practicing it on current physical problems; and discuss simple tips and troubleshooting techniques as well as other potential applications.

Annie, out of nowhere: "Dude. Physical abuse is a kinesthetic reinforement of low self-esteem."

She wants me to specify that she's including sexual abuse within physical abuse.

Discuss!

Let me see. I want to write more about what the point of each of those workshops is to me, so that I know what I need to include in them.

They're based on my theory of the six things that people absolutely need in order to recover from abuse. Maybe if I brainstorm here about what that involves I'll get what I need:

FEAR: This is the flip side of recovery. It is our fear of how much we have harmed ourselves and others that fuels recovery at first. As we grow in recovery, we grow out of fear.

Every effect of abuse boils down to fear, one way or another. The better we understand our fear, the easier it is for us to leave our fear-based ways of living and move into loving, joyful lives. It is only by facing our fears that we can escape their dragging weight and soar.

This workshop is unlike the others because instead of teaching us to work its subject into our lives, it teaches us to face and then release it. Becoming able to release fear makes it much easier to take the brave, life-changing steps that all of us need in order to have the incredible lives we deserve.

HOPE: This is the absolute most basic thing that people need to begin recovery. They need to be able to believe that it is possible for things to change for them. They need to be able to imagine that things can be better. Recovery is like anything else: people need to hear at least some kind of argument that it is a Good Thing before they are willing to start working on it.

Even someone who is suicidal every few weeks, cutting, who can barely leave the house or function in their lives because they are so easily and violently triggered, who struggles with basic self-care and human relationships, won't be willing to start doing any kind of work on it unless they've seen that there honestly is something else out there for them, something better, and that other real people in their situation have gotten there. In fact, while many of us would assume that that person would be the first to do almost anything to change their painful life, the opposite is true - the weighty hopelessness created by years of abuse from within and without becomes nearly invisible to the sufferer. The energy it takes to deny most of this pain, and the pain of past abuse, is so great that there is almost none left for working toward change. In order to change anything, the suffering person must acknowledge the pain they are in, which releases much of that energy so that they can use it for recovery. This process is also known as "the first step."

Eventually, in recovery, this process becomes quicker and quicker. When people have really been working on their problems hard for several years, they begin to see what is possible in others' lives, understand how they got there, and take on the job of getting there themselves quite speedily. But at first, many people don't have the slightest idea that their lives not only can but should be better, much less the willingness to do anything necessary to get there. Hope is optimism, joy, that little spark of connection to the universe that leads us forward. It is like headlights in a tulle fog, showing us a little patch of safety and freedom up ahead.

COMPASSION: I keep debating whether this comes before or after boundaries. I suspect that in order to be willing to take that scary step of setting boundaries, we have to have enough compassion for ourselves to understand that we deserve to set them.

Compassion is crucial, most of all for ourselves. We need to be able to raise our standards for our lives. We spend far too much of our time and energy worrying about what others will think, what we are "supposed" to do, how others feel about us, what we can do for other people. Recently I saw a poll on someone's livejournal where 16 people said that they would welcome a giftless guest to a party where gifts were expected, but half of them said that they wouldn't go to a gift-expecting party if they couldn't afford a gift. It is codependence, abuse, fear that make it seem eminently reasonable to hold ourselves to harsher rules and standards than we hold others. It is compassion that helps us balance that equation and strive only for our own true standards for humanity, instead of the unreasonable standards we fear everyone else will try to make us meet.

Compassion is the leavening that makes it possible for us to take on the heavy tasks of recovery. I have seen people work twelve-step programs as if the steps were some sort of personal punishment, using each one to scourge themselves for the wrongs they had done in their addiction. This compassionless method leaves out many of the crucial life-saving pieces of recovery. It is, for example, only with compassion that we can accurately tell the difference between situations in which we need to made amends and situations in which we are taking on inappropriate responsibility out of a sense of guilt and self-blame.

Compassion makes honesty and amends much less painful. It is only with compassion that we are able to really commit to sobriety of any kind - because committing to it in order to stop harming others makes it easy to argue that we understand this harm now and can control our addictions and act out without hurting anyone else. We can't really, deeply, commit to stopping until we can accept the ways that it also hurts us, and feel committed to doing anything to support and nurture ourselves instead. Which is why compassion is also the antidote to abuse.

BOUNDARIES: Boundaries are crucial to recovery from abuse. A boundary is the line between what is okay with us and what is not. One very simple definition of abuse is that it is treatment that is deeply and absolutelynot okay. The process of recovery, on one level, is the process of drawing and adjusting these lines over and over. We cautiously admit that a situation is not okay with us; fearfully and bravely declare our boundaries; become closer to our own feelings and experiences in our lives; learn new things about where our boundaries need to be as a result; and carefully redraw that line in an even better place. And repeat the process, watching the adjustments become easier and smaller each time.

A boundary is our sense of what we need, of what we want, of what we deserve. At first, it is what we are willing to put up with; later, it is what we are willing to reach out and grab. Boundaries can make our lives safe, enjoyable, even luscious. They are crucial to recovery from any form of abuse or addiction because they are what make safety possible. Without safety and stability in our present-day lives, we can’t successfully heal from the chaos and pain of the past.

I remember how we went into CoDA meetings, almost four years ago, just wanting someone to tell us what boundaries we were allowed to have. Intellectually we knew that this was not really what boundaries were about – at least eventually we knew this – but still we wanted it, just to have some basic idea of what most people might be willing for us to say and do. We did find lists of “human rights” that explicitly said unbelievable things like “you have the right to say no to anything you want,” and that helped. But ultimately we had to (or got to) learn something much more important.

Boundaries are a function of human interaction. There are plenty of people who won’t respect any boundaries on that list; those are the people to walk away from. There are also people who will respect all of them but will never get the chance if you don’t believe in your own rights enough to try them. Everything in between those two extremes is also up to you. If we can create worlds for ourselves in which we are always in an abusive relationship and an abusive work environment, we can also create worlds in which we have all the rights and power that we want. That’s the incredible thing about recovery from abuse: once you attain adulthood, you have absolute power over the presence of abuse in your life. And the shitty thing about abuse is that it is only the non-abused folks who arrive in the adult world knowing that. The rest of us have to learn it the hard way – but we can.

HONESTY: To be able to bear the burning glare of honesty requires the cooling shade of compassion. But what about boundaries? Should they precede or follow honesty in our travel through recovery?

Of course, all of these elements stay with us and build on one another. But they tend to come in a certain order, at least when we start out with none of them truly under our belts. I think that compassion naturally leads to discovering and understanding our boundaries. And this understanding is the beginning of real honesty in our lives.

Honesty comes so late in this list because it is so intimidating and difficult. It can be terrifying to admit the ways that we have harmed ourselves and others, the bad decisions we have made, and especially the behaviors we need to change. It is also incredibly, deeply necessary. Without rigorous honesty, our efforts to love ourselves, to choose better things in our lives, and to set boundaries with ourselves and others will inevitably grind to a halt, leaving us stuck in a slurry of self-abusive behavior.

SUPPORT AND SERVICE: These are two sides of the same coin: community. There is no workshop for these because they can only be achieved through individual action. Everyone in recovery – or, more accurately, every living being everywhere – needs a community of support. That is how we learn that we are worthy of love and admiration. If we do not learn this as children, we need to find a way to get it as adults.

Humans thrive on community. We are meant to have healthy, interdependent relationships in which we can get our needs met, and help others get their needs met, in appropriate ways that allow everyone room for growth. Just as we need to have a community that supports us – to help us move, to tickle our funnybones, to split the cost of a pizza, to experience joy and sorrow together, to talk things out – we also need to do service in that community.

Service balances the equation. It teaches us that it is all right for us to get support by letting us see what it is like to give that support. In twelve-step programs, people are encouraged to “sponsor” others, to help them work the steps. Sponsors inevitably find that they get as much out of this relationship as their sponsees do, whether it is by seeing much their own lives have changed or by being inspired by an action or point of view they’d never thought of. That is how service works: it reminds us of how far we’ve come and helps us grow further.

So, I talked to one of the pastors at church about doing the workshops there. She was interested and asked me to send her descriptions and objectives and mission statement and timeframe and number of people and lead time that I need. So it's good that I talked to her, because I got a lot more insight into the kind of information that I need to give people! And I outlined a bunch of the workshops (more are coming) which will make it easier to write scripts for them (two are finished! barring future changes) and it inspired me to make a brochure that I can give organizations to show them the kind of workshops I can present!

Check me out:

Mission Statement: This series of five workshops is designed to expand understanding of the nature and effects of abuse and, most importantly, to instill the elements that are necessary for a successful recovery.

Timeframe: I have 1.5 hour and 3 hour versions of each class. The two versions cover similar material, but the longer versions include more information and explore the material in more depth. You can choose any number of the classes for your venue.

# of People: Unlimited; the presentation and exercises can be adjusted to accommodate three participants as easily as three hundred.

Lead Time: At least a week of lead time is required in order to advertise the workshop properly.

Descriptions and Objectives:
The Fear Workshop explores the many faces of fear, including anxiety, shame, and even anger. Participants are guided through a variety of tools for putting fear in its place, and discover the abundant world that their fear has been blocking for so long.

Participants in this workshop will learn to identify their fear in its many disguises; will learn to use EFT to dispel their fears; will explore the roots of their fears; and will become able to recognize the dreams and goals that their fear has hidden from them.

The Hope Workshop will guide participants in seeing how people can heal from the damage of trauma and abuse. Along the way, they will discover the passions and interests they have abandoned, explore their potential calling, and plan how to integrate joy and dreams into their daily lives.
Participants in this workshop will gain a greater understanding of the common effects of abuse; will learn from special speakers that healing is possible even in the most extreme cases; will complete written, collaged, and group exercises designed to help them rediscover abandoned parts of themselves and recommit to joy.

The Compassion Workshop will teach participants to distinguish between their abuse and their true value, and unearth a well of compassion for themselves that can release emotional pain and body memories. Perhaps most importantly, this compassion will lead to the ability to raise their standards for themselves and build wonderful lives. It's easy when you can truly commit to yourself!

Participants will learn to apply EFT to release the shame and guilt that they took on for their own abuse histories; will learn and discuss specific levels of self-care; will recognize and learn to combat negative self-talk and other forms of self-abuse; will create "before and after" artwork illustrating what causes them pain in life and how they can change it; and will commit to the group to make specific changes.

The Boundaries Workshop will use fun physical and written exercises to identify boundaries. Participants will become experts in their own feelings, and do great detective work using those feelings to unearth long-neglected boundaries. From there, they will find out how to express, defend, and respect their own and other people's boundaries, and become incredibly powerful in their own lives.

Participants will perform kinesthetic balancing exercises with a partner; will learn tricks for identifying previously avoided emotions; will do written exercises that explore resentments to reveal the boundaries within and the power of responsibility; will engage in further kinesthetic exercises using marbles to visualize the power they are giving away or reclaiming; and will learn to use EFT to strip the fear from their plans to reclaim their boundaries. Particular attention will be given to self-abuse and the way we violate our own boundaries without noticing.

The Honesty Workshop will challenge participants to take careful inventory of self-harming behaviors from bulimia to bouncing checks. It is only by being honest with ourselves about what we want, need, feel, and do that we can become free. This workshop will focus on integrating the commitments and experiences from past weeks and preparing to move into newly joyous and free lives.

Participants will complete a written exercise which helps identify present self-harming behaviors; will learn the connections between past abuse and present-day life; will learn to use EFT to let go of shame around self-harming behaviors, as well as the behaviors themselves; will share their experiences of the workshop series and/or their personal recovery work overall; and will receive tools for continuing this work outside of the workshop environment.

I had so much fun!

I got free lunch, which is always nice, and the food looks actually good which is not always the case in these situations. And I got to do four EFT mini-sessions with people, and that was a lot of fun, and they got a lot of relief from their problems, and in a couple of cases we talked about what the process would be like if they came to me for other more complicated issues that they had identified. I even met someone else who was in a ton of twelve-step programs, because I was like, you know, we would work on this this way, and also there are twelve-step groups that are really good for it, and she was like, yeah!

And I got people for my mailing list, and lots of folks took newsletters and brochures and event flyers, and I mentioned to the Department of Student Life woman that I want to talk to her about having an event on-campus (you have no idea how cool this event will be) and I traded information with a lot of people like BAWAR (bay area women against rape) and HIFY (a queer youth health organization) and the Tang Center (UC berkeley health services). And someone's mom's friend does EFT, and someone's hairdresser does EFT, and it was all just very good.

And I signed up for another health fair in Berkeley from 9-3 on Oct. 28th! I should post more information about it later because it's hosted by some organization for some disease I have never, ever heard of. Apparently the most common blood disease. I could do a trivia contest here. What is the most common blood disease in the United States? Hint: It has a lot of consonants in it.

Plus I got a firefighter's hat! The best part is that I wasn't sure I could do any of this, the whole glad-handing thing or the whole charm-and-tabling whatnot or especially the mini-sessions with total strangers for only ten minutes. But it was all so easy and cool! And I feel like the universe is asking me to do crazy things and when I do them I learn amazing things about myself and what I do and what I'm capable of that I would never, ever have been willing to believe otherwise. So fun!

Ok. Time to eat my free lunch!

Dear Money,

We're scared of committing to you. Why? It's not you, it's me. I know that sounds trite, but I have never done well with committment in relationships. Or elsewhere. I have a history of committing REAL HARD to things that are usually bad for me and then being afraid to commit to what's good, both because I don't think I deserve it and because I don't trust myself to be picking something safe and good for me this time.

I know that all the times that I have felt like you hurt me in the past, I was really hurting myself. I didn't want to have abundance, I sabotaged myself, and I blamed you. It's crazy-making for both of us and I'm sorry. What can I do to heal our relationship?

I thought of some possibilities. I want to appreciate your place in my life and how you help me. Maybe I could make a "gratitude list" of all the ways you've been there for me in the past and what we've done together. Look how you're inspiring me! I could write or draw more about my visions for what I would like to do with you. I need to spend more time with you - see where you are every night by checking my bank balance and keeping my numbers, every single day! - and let you be around me more. And let myself be around you!

And most of all, I want to help you grow, the same way that you help me. I Want to make room for you in my life, keep you around as much as I can. Maybe I could make a rule of keeping you around for at least five days before I can spend you, and put a lot more of you in a savings account where you can grow even more! I could also look for a lot more ways to invite you into my life - work I can do, ways I can promot my business. I want to say YES to you, money!

Let's work together to lay down some ground rules in our relationship that will help us both to show up for it in a healthy and loving way. I love you, money! Thank you for being willing to work this out.

Dear KH,

I love you but you just seem to throw me away! You never want to spend as much time with me as I do with you. Whenever I drop in, you are in the middle of some huge crisis and you practically shove me out the door! I never get to just hang out with you anymore. Actually, I'm not sure I ever did! When we used to hang around together, you were totally emotionally absent - I'm not sure you even knew I was there! You never really did things with me or paid any attention to me when I was in your savings account as a kid - you just used me to fight with your brother and find reasons to resent and torment him! I don't ever want to come between you and someone else again, okay? I'm not a weapon! Or a jealous lover! I'm just money!

And when I did get closer to you, when you could use your savings, you just pushed me away. I remmeber the good old days when you were little and you loved to count me and organize me in different ways and play with me. That felt really good! But then you saw that camera you wanted and after that it always seemed like you couldn't get rid of me fast enough.

Remember when your mom said I burned a hole in your pocket? That made me so angry! I never did anything like that - you were just being incredibly rude around and with me.

I'm sorry that your mom yelled at you for thinking she would spend me on you and your dad tried to cheat you out of spending time with me. They were stinkers. But now if you want to be with me, you are going to have to stand up for yourself, tell the truth, be honest with both of us, and change the ways you've learned to deal with me. I have a lot of self-respect: I'm money after all! I only want to be with people who love and respect me and treat me with dignity. You've treated me like a clown in one of those crazy old-timey stop-motion silent films!

I just want to have a healthy relationship with you. We used to be so good together! I fly in to see you when you say you really need it but you never change, always packing me out the door like I have no place in your life. If you don't change things I won't come at all and then what will you do?

I don't want to be mean. I love being around you! You are so creative and interesting and you have such big dreams! But you never commit to them! I just want to have a healthy relationship with you and I'm not willing to settle for anything less. Can we be friends again? For real this time!

Sincerely yours,
MONEY

I'm on several EFT-related mailing lists, and the other week I got an announcement for a workshop on EFT and money that had the following interesting "parable".... ( Read more... )

It made a lot of sense to me! I knew that my codependence and my money problems were connected. Like how both CoDA and DA talk about spending money to shower people with gifts so that they'll like us. I have verrry expensive relationships, mostly in dating. Lately of course I've gone the total opposite extreme, not holding up what I think of as my end of the birthday present deal. I a