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<p class='syndicationauthor'>Posted by Havi Brooks</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/the-opposite/">https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/the-opposite/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://fluentself.com/?p=76072">https://fluentself.com/?p=76072</a></p><p><img src= "https://fluentself.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_0434-scaled.jpeg" alt= "a network of roots have surrounded the bottom of a fire hydrant”/></p> <div class="mouse"><em><strong>Reflecting on</strong> a network of roots surrounding the base of a fire hydrant where I was seeking treasure someone left me and did not find it, sometimes the treasure-seeking is the treasure,sometimes not-seeking is the treasure, and so on…</em></div> <p></br> </p> <h2>A breath for these tough times</h2> <p>Sending out extra wishes of Safety &#038; Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.</p> <p>Also, unrelated to the tough times, weird things are happening on the website, the comments disappeared from last post, the header disappeared, doing what I can to solve the mysteries, gotta do upgrades and updates.</p> <h2>Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques </h2> <p>I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.</p> <p>Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from <em>a long time ago</em>, and it’s been helping.</p> <p>I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money <a href="https://www.fluentself.com/barringtons-discretionary/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><strong>to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund</strong></a> in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️</p> <div class="separator"></div> <h2>Scary times to be a person</h2> <p>I am in beautiful, creative, vibrant, peaceful, playful, Portland, Oregon, a place of much whimsy and good-heartedness and care, and also we have national guard troops here pepper spraying protestors, and there is a lot of contrast there.</p> <p>It is both absurd and terrifying at the same time.</p> <p>There are people I know in crisis and I am worried about them. I am worried about my beloved trans friends. I am worried for the safety of so many people, and for all of us.</p> <p>And I am lighting candles for SANCTUARY, SAFETY, MIRACLES, SURPRISE EASE, things shifting and changing for the good. With some strong Return To Sender spells.</p> <h2>A little hex, a protest spell, Return To Sender</h2> <p>May the fascists be hexed with so much clarity (this is my best hex).</p> <p>May they be delivered so much exquisite clarity that they have a dark night of the soul over it, over and over, seeing themselves revealed in this mirror of clarity until they have no choice but to either do better as humans or perish.</p> <p>This is my protest spell, and it is not enough, but a breath for something better, this situation speedily solving itself, and for safety for everyone in harm’s way.</p> <h2>Sanctuary and entry</h2> <p>Sanctuary for the sanctuary city. Brutal clarity for the people doing harm. May their machinations be undone and thwarted over and over, gracefully when possible, or not.</p> <p>And now we turn inward, to the right here right now of it all. Recentering. </p> <p>Which itself is another small form of protest. Staying intentional.</p> <h2>The intimacy of intimacy</h2> <p>Last week I wrote about heart wishes, and <a href="https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/knock-knock/" target="_blank">knocking at the door of my own heart through <em>listening</em> to it knocking back to me</a>, a call-and-response living breathing knock-knock joke of exquisite self-treasuring.</p> <p>Here I am. Here we are.</p> <p>And I didn’t state this explicitly but all of the wishes I have been wishing were and are wishes about intimacy.</p> <p>Intimacy in the sense of presence, listening, being embodied, staying close to my own heart, being intimate and vulnerable with myself, and creating safety around that experience. What beautiful wishes.</p> <h2>Predictably, you know how this goes</h2> <p>And in the predictable way that we wish a wish and then either immediately are confronted with the opposite of our wish, for contrast…</p> <p>Or in the predictable way that we can wish a wish and then run at top speed in the opposite direction of our wishes…</p> <p>Or both, realistically, often it’s both…</p> <p>You know where this is going.</p> <p>I wished for intimacy with my own heart, and then went knocking on a bunch of other doors that were not my own heart.</p> <h2>Looking for love (intimacy) in all the wrong places</h2> <p>Yup. Looking for love (intimacy) in all the wrong places.</p> <p>And, equally predictably, I was disappointed in what I found or didn’t find at those doors. </p> <p>It happens.</p> <h2>It goes like that</h2> <p>I was craving intimacy and got the opposite of intimacy.</p> <p>In fact, I got the kind of lonely that is made worse by being in physical proximity to someone who doesn’t know how to share closeness, or who can only offer closeness in a way that feels like distance.</p> <p>It sucked, in a way that was entirely predictable, because I forgot to stay with my own heart and let myself open inwards instead of outwards, and entirely forgot about being a well-boundaried beam of love.</p> <p>So, yes, it goes like that. We wish a wish and then we learn about its opposite.</p> <p>The <em>contrast</em> and the ongoing practice of discernment are where the learning happens, and then keeps happening.</p> <h2>What do we add and what do we subtract</h2> <p>What do we add and what do we subtract in these situations, as we meet them, and ourselves, with patience. </p> <p>Because this is a known phenomenon and it happens, and it hurts and also nothing is wrong.</p> <p>We add: COMPASSION. GRACE. PRESENCE. SWEETNESS.</p> <p>We add softness and softening.</p> <h2>Adding softness</h2> <p>I was taking yoga class with a very young man who had the energy of a golden retriever puppy (“Let’s gooooooo!”), and I was not expecting anything profound, just to do a bunch of arm balances.</p> <p>But then he asked, “Can you meet this challenging moment with some softness?”</p> <p>And I nearly laughed, because what could be more profound than that…</p> <p>Can we add softness to meet a challenge?</p> <p>Can we soften when challenged?</p> <p>I don’t know! But I love this question. A good question for intimacy and matters of the heart and the right now.</p> <h2>Returning to practice</h2> <p>And then I went to yoga class with the doom metal yoga person, and the theme of that class was about how you just need to keep returning to the practices that help instead of being mad about how long it’s been.</p> <p>I needed to hear this.</p> <p>Mainly because it seems like I have been entering this new year by making one mistake and misstep after another, to the point that I already have all my corn chip regrets for next year ready to be cast into the river.</p> <p>It was Rosh Hashana, and then I entered the year with a bunch of <em>whoops that wasn’t what I wanted at all</em>, and can I meet this challenging moment with some softness too?</p> <h2>Context</h2> <p>Context is also something we can add in these challenging moments.</p> <p>For example, I am being hard on myself about having forgotten to tend to my poor sweet heart after wishing for intimacy and tenderness.</p> <p>And yet let’s look at the context, including but not limited to:</p> <ul> <li>It is the anniversary of my mother’s death</li> <li>My father is going through a mental health crisis and it is is terrifying and I feel even more helpless than usual</li> <li>Monday was the anniversary of a meaningful to me day that was all about deep, intentional intimacy with a human whose heart I loved, and now we barely even talk to each other</li> <li>Right, the fascism</li> <li>So many people I know either breaking down hard or on the verge of breakdown or mid-crisis, or circling around crisis, and I want help for everyone, and stability for everyone, and there is not much I can do other than breathe and check in…</li> <li>I am about to head home to my life of quiet in the wildnerness which is very beautiful and meaningful and what I need (sanctuary space for me), but is also a hug-less dance-less life, and I am panicking about that and thinking about how it could be changed and what that would involve…</li> </ul> <h2>Reset restart reconfigure</h2> <p>Yes, let us name the context, and make room for the contrast.</p> <p>Let’s add sweetness and compassion and softness to meet the challenges and the experience of being challenged.</p> <p>Let’s meet our wishes through learning about the opposite, and meet learning about the opposite through cultivating even more heart-listening. <em>Knock knock, it’s my heart</em>.</p> <p>And mainly it’s just returning, without wasting time judging this, to doing the things that work and help.</p> <p>No recriminations, just RESET RESTART, TRY AGAIN, LET’S GO.</p> <h2>Can I be done with the boring stories?</h2> <p>Truly it is such a boring story to be frustrated by repeating the same lessons, so what if I can channel EXCITEMENT for the same lesson.</p> <p>Like <em>ooh yeah my old buddy I know this mistake and how to maneuver out of it.</em></p> <p>Here’s to having been there before. I already have the beta on this climb.</p> <p>As the golden retreiver in human form yoga teacher would say: Let’s gooooooooo!</p> <h2>Pitter-patter</h2> <p>I went to masked fusion dancing (masks in the sense of kn95 or better, not in the sense of costumes) in Portland, and my dance-crush from long ago was there, and I melted into their arms, and I can only describe it as a sort of rooted floating.</p> <p>Of the earth and ethereal. Each moment a treasure. Dreamy, dreamy, dreamy, real, real, real.</p> <p>The song both lasted forever and ended too soon, and eventually we had to let each other go, and they put their hand to their heart.</p> <p>They put their hand to their heart and glowed at me with their eyes above their mask, and, drumming on their own heart, they said: PITTER PATTER! </p> <p>And then they disappeared into the night like Cinderella, and I listened to the reverberating in my own beautiful loving heart.</p> <h2>Beating, as in keeping the beat or beating as in taking a beating</h2> <p>Immediately after that, I danced with someone who in some senses knows me intimately and also truly does not know me at all.</p> <p>And they said, <em>what happened to you, your heart is beating right out of your chest</em>, and I felt like a reverberating brass door knocker echoing through space, because they were not wrong..</p> <p>Pitter-patter, thump thump thump thump, knock knock knocking. What happened to you babe.</p> <p>Oh right, gotta reset. Back to my own beautiful loving door. My own space for just-me.</p> <h2>A good volley with the universe</h2> <p>Speaking of wishes that come in their own timing, a few months ago I made a wish about <a href="https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/a-pleasant-volley/" target="_blank">having a good volley with the universe</a>, and lately I have been having many such volleys.</p> <p>On Sunday, dance friend James took me on a fun walk around Mt Tabor.</p> <p>We saw some musicians playing, and one of them plays with James in another band so we stopped for a while and chatted and then of course we had to dance, which was wonderful.</p> <p>Then two women passing by joined in and started salsa dancing, and one of them had a banana shaker in her purse, so she temporarily joined the band!</p> <p>Superpower of always having a shaker in your bag. You never know.</p> <p>We kept walking and people kept saying, “ooh you’re the dancers!” and wanting to chat, and we had all the time in the world, so we stopped and chatted with all of them, and I never do this, and it’s really great actually?</p> <h2>Connecting</h2> <p>One of the people who said, “HEY YOU ARE THE DANCERS” was an older man named David who told us that his wife had just died a few weeks ago.</p> <p>They’d been married for 61 years and he’d been her caretaker, and he told us that now he doesn’t really know what to do with himself, so he just goes to the park. But they used to dance. In fact, they used to jitterbug way back in the day.</p> <p>He said that if his wife was there, she would have wanted to join in and dance with us, and then James asked if he wanted a hug and he did, and it was a beautiful day of heart-healing and connecting in Portland, sanctuary city of good hearts.</p> <h2>Jamming</h2> <p>In the evening there was more dancing with friends, and more music-making and music-appreciating, and more connecting, in ways that were simple and sweet and didn’t hurt my heart or involve compromising anything.</p> <p>Just the back and forth of hearts saying <em>oh wow yes I hear you too</em> and <em>thank you for that</em>, a jam session of hearts, every heart getting a good solo in. Good solo time, together.</p> <p>Adding sweetness, subtracting whatever is unnecessary or extraneous, softening, pulsing, a lot of grace.</p> <p>I feel so extraordinarily lucky.</p> <h2>Undoing stories to rewrite them</h2> <p>So that’s what is on my mind right now. </p> <p>Undoing the boring stories of HERE WE GO AGAIN, THE SAME FUCKING MISTAKES.</p> <p>And softening enough to welcome some new stories about how sometimes I get the opposite of my wish and sometimes I get an unexpected form of my wish, and how it is all very special to experience even if some of it was painful.</p> <p>I am glad to have been the right dancer in the right time and right place. The right dancer for the job, the right heart-haver for the job.</p> <h2>Softening even more, but not an unboundaried softening</h2> <p>And I am also trying to soften into some thankfulness (not forced, just thoughtful and thankful) for the harder and more challenging learning experiences.</p> <p>Specifically around this ongoing reminder that a lot of attempts at intimacy that I think could be meaningful do not in fact support my heart or my emotional well-being.</p> <p>My heart and my softness deserve sanctuary, and they deserve high regard, and they deserve way better boundaries, and this is the practice. Ongoing.</p> <p>The lesson remains: I need to take more tender care of my heart, and I want to, and I plan to, and sometimes I will fuck up spectacularly, and we reset, restart, reconfigure, and dance again.</p> <p>(Let’s gooooo! And may it be so.)</p> <h2>May it be so, or something even better</h2> <p>Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.</p> <p>I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.</p> <p>Let’s source some wild joy, some <a href="https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/loving-clarity/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">loving clarity</a>, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.</p> <div=class="separator"></div> <p></br></p> <h2> Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company</h2> <p>Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone. </p> <p>Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.</p> <p>You are invited to share any related situations or musings, or name any wishes in process.</p> <p>And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, bingo card wishes, clues received, or anything on your mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…</p> <p>I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.</p> <p>Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss <a href="https://www.fluentself.com/blog/habits/throw-it-in-the-pot/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">into the wishing pot</a>, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.</p> <h2>Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!</h2> <p>If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can <a href="https://follow.it/fluentself" target="“blank”" rel="noopener"><strong>can solve that here</strong></a>.</p> <p>This will pop up a new page on <em>Follow.It</em> that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and <em>that’s a very imaginary number</em>, once a week is the dream.</p> <h2>I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!</h2> <p>Anyone who gives <a href="https://www.fluentself.com/barringtons-discretionary/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><strong>to the Discretionary this week</strong></a> (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!</p> <p>I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.</p> <h2>A request!</h2> <p>If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. </p> <p>I am accepting support (with joy &#038; gratitude) in the form of <a href="https://www.fluentself.com/barringtons-discretionary/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Appreciation Money to the <strong>Discretionary Fund</strong></a>. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave &#038; Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.</p> <p>And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/the-opposite/">https://fluentself.com/blog/personal/the-opposite/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://fluentself.com/?p=76072">https://fluentself.com/?p=76072</a></p>