Another Newsletter In The Same Month? How Impressive!

Also, a little emotional health activity for you

Ok, first of all…burn sage, light candles, think good thoughts that I don’t cause a local or global catastrophe by doing an event at Powell’s. My first event there was right before an ice storm shut down Oregon. The second was the last event before Oregon shut down for Covid.

Now Joe Biel and I did a zoom event during Covid that didn’t seem to cause any lakes of fire so I’m hoping I can go talk about stress and kink and whatever else you want to throw my way IN PERSON without invoking locusts.

In other news, I’m sweating the Kickstarter for my new deck. I’ve been spoiled at how well my books and decks have done and really like this one. It’s struggling tho. It’s been an ass financial time for everyone and if you can’t afford it I totally understand. But if you can’t and you know you’ll be getting the deck eventually…we’d really appreciate your support.

Link is here, yakoke for looking and Yakoke for maybe sharing some of your hard earned monies:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microcosmpublishing/intimacy-conversation-deck

(And I do know how to embed a link but substack’s link button keeps flipping me the bird. So…old school.)

Ok so now that I’m done with the inclines of self promotion (I will never be good at that, I will always be awkward af and painful to watch…sorry), here’s a little self-coaching activity that you may find of benefit in your life. Not just during the holiday season, but maybe extra much so because family gives us so many opportunities to practice our coping skills and boundaries dialogues.

This one is pretty simple, and one of the gentlest ways I’ve found to start engaging with the shadow. When you hear a rule come out of your mouth…

…and I mean rule in the broadest sense…like anything you have taken to be a truth about yourself or the world…

…ask yourself this:

Who’s voice is that?

Where did that voice come from? And if you’re thinking “yeah, no, it’s me…it’s my voice imposing this requirement, obvs” Ask yourself:

Ok, before I internalized it…who was it?

The mean shit we say to ourselves? The rules we set up for ourselves? The decisions we make because we think we have to earn our oxygen to be allowed on the planet? That really isn’t a habit living creatures are born with. It’s a response to pain, of trauma , of a feeling of non-belonging. It’s what we are told about ourselves and everything that makes us odd, loud, interesting, weird…and utterly human.

Happy last few weeks of the year! Come say hi to me in Portland! And when I’m back I’ll be opening the new practice! And hoping that 2024 calms it’s tits cuz we are all hella exhausted.

Take care of you, at least a little bit. Please. For me.

Faith