Hypn07, Day 11: Every team needs a badass

This covers day 11 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotist hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

A tool is just a tool: in the hands of a great chef, a knife can create masterpieces; in the hands of a murderer, mayhem.

Yesterday, we met The Edge. I didn't know her name was The Edge; when she came out, all hardy, strong and pleased-to-meet-you, Greg was asking to meet the part of me responsible for procrastinating. No one could have been more disappointed to see such a friendly, can-do, back-slapping go-getter. This was me procrastinating? NO WONDER I CAN'T GET ANYTHING DONE!!!

But this was not Procrastination, it was the part of me who'd been tasked with procrastinating. And apparently, I had some pretty fierce need to not get things done; we put the biggest, loudest badass of the bunch on the task.

Not an especially nuanced nor strategic thinker, this Edge. Give her a job and she gets it done, but she never questions orders. I guess I had more fear, more to protect than I'd reckoned with.

God bless Greg. He asked The Edge if she might be persuaded to be errand girl for some of the more neglected officers of communicatrix Command Central, say, the Financier, who's been patiently waiting by the open, dusty vault for eons, or Self-Esteem, who's simply never been, and got a resounding "yes!" I swear, I have a Selling Machine for an Edge.

For those of you laughing at all this, please note that this morning, before work hours, The Edge took the Financier, Monkey Brain et al on a fine, three-mile walk to make both a personal and a business deposit, and that a few of the checks fell just inside the 90-day safe range. Granted, there weren't any colossal-sized checks in there, but all told, there was enough to cover the rent and treats for the whole gang. [In the comments, a reader pointed out that this paragraph was a bit unclear. What I meant to illustrate was that I am: (a) so fearful of de-vague-ifying my money that I'll put off dealing w/ it for a really, really long time; (b) like most fears, when you turn the light on it, it is not as big or horrid a reality as you thought; and (c) I like the idea of myself as a kind of nerd version of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang.]

That Monkey Brain...she sure do like Peet's coffee...

xxx c

Image by Erica Simone via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Days 9 & 10: Ultimately, it's all your choice

This covers days 9 & 10 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotist hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

One of the reasons Greg chose me to do this project with him is he knew I'd commit myself 100% to the conditions we agreed on. There was someone on deck before me, but he flaked early on. And all he had to do was show up at Greg's office every day to be supervised as he listened to his recording; at that point, the idea was more to see what progress one could make if one repeated the lesson for 30 days in a row.

The first five days were more intense than either one of us could have anticipated. We backed off a bit to give my poor brain time to digest, trying some "fun" experiments (making me forget, making me cluck like a chicken); as the weekend approached, we talked about and agreed to let me listen to my recording at home, checking in to assure Greg I'd done the work.

Both days, I chose to listen at night, before sleep. Typically, I have problems falling asleep unless I'm sick and/or exhausted, so it was immensely pleasurable to go O-U-T before the recording had finished, I woke up about 90 - 120 minutes after putting on the 20-minute recording, pushed away the headphones and nano, and went back to sleep.

Last night was a bitch, though. It had been a long weekend, The BF had freshly laundered sheets for the bed, and as I got ready to go night-night, I realized with horror that somehow, the last iPod sync had wiped the hypno file from the drive.

For the splittest of seconds I considered blowing it off...and then, at 10:55, I got in my car and drove the five miles back to my place so I could resync and do it right.

Everything about hypnosis, it turns out, is a choice: even whether you do it in the first place...

xxx c

Image by websteria via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Hypn07, Day 8: A day of parlor trickery (or, "Scott Adams on why we go under")

This covers day 8 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotist hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

While Greg and I spend time each session on the actual hypnosis, most days we speak at least as much about the actual process of hypnotherapy, what my experience is with it and because of it, and why it works or doesn't.

As I've mentioned, the last couple of days we'd decided to "play" a little bit: Greg hypnotized me, and during the hypnosis also gave me permission to forget everything that happened during the session.

This is a critical component of hypnosis: a willing subject, and the understanding that the subject is choosing to do all of what the hypnotist is suggesting. So the "best" subjects are people who are really willing, and the "best" hypnotists are the ones who are really good at suggesting.

I realize that sounds stupidly simplistic, but it's the crux of hypnosis: all you're doing is uncovering what's actually there, whether it's a desire to do something, to change something or to think about something.

In the comments of my last post in the series, Curtis Sawyer pointed me to a fascinating post by Scott Adams, best known as the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, less known as a practitioner of hypnosis (well, less-known by dilettante geeks like myself). In it, he does a better job than I ever will of defining what hypnosis is (and isn't) and what it can (and can't) dol. So just go there. But for the lazy, here's the crux of it:

We talk of people “going under” hypnosis, or “going to sleep.” Both are misleading. A subject under hypnosis is fully aware of his environment. He's awake, for all practical purposes, and can ignore any suggestion that might be objectionable. In the history of hypnosis, there's no reliable record of anyone following a suggestion he thought would be harmful to himself or someone else. The subject doesn't lose control.

So what does happen?

I describe the state of hypnosis as acquiring a power. The subject has all of his regular faculties operating plus he gains some more, if he has no objection to those new powers. For example, a subject under hypnosis would get a little extra power in one or more of these areas:

1. Extra relaxation 2. Extra imagination 3. Extra focus

As Adams points out elsewhere in his post, a small slice of the population seems really able to tap into the superpower thing; they're the ones who end up on stage, barking like dogs and seeing people naked. On the other end, all but a few diehards can benefit from the relaxing effects of hypnosis; I've been listening to my recording at night and it puts me under before it's over, which, if you know me and Monkey Brain, is pretty impressive.

I am willing, even eager, to experience some of the parlor trickery, far-out aspects of hypno, too. So Greg and I tried that on Friday. It was an experiment for both of us, since he really uses hypnosis as a therapeutic goal-setting tool, not for stage purposes.

We tried:

1. making me cluck like a chicken in the middle of singing the Star Spangled Banner
2. having me see both of us naked (when, just to be clear, we were not)
3. having me hear him speak in Spanish (he speaks it, I don't)

Numbers 1 and 2 worked pretty well. Though as I said to Greg, I'm perfectly willing to cluck like a chicken under most any circumstances, I've done far, far more embarrassing things on stage, for free, with less prodding. (No one ever asked me to get naked on stage; interesting, that.) So I knew as I was clucking, that I was clucking. And I didn't want to "help", but I did want to let whatever was going to happen, happen.

The best way I can describe what happened with the clucking is that it floated up on a bubble. I knew I could stop it, but I had a mischievous impulse to cluck, like burping or farting in church on a dare.

Similarly, with seeing us naked, I didn't see us naked, but I found myself giggling as if we were naked, like we had a goofy secret between us no one else knew about.

I wish I could say I heard every word he spoke in English as though it were in incomprehensible-to-me Spanish; all that did happen was it was ridiculously hard to grok what he was saying in English: like my comprehension skills took a nosedive, or the way it's harder to read a complex book when you're tired or tipsy.

So it seems I'm gifted with middling powers as a hypnosis subject. And hey, I'll take it! Just being able to relax, or to turn off the buzzing and focus, or to give my pretty gigantic imagination a chance to strut its stuff, is pretty wonderful.

But like Adams, I'm wildly jealous of the one-in-five "who can give birth without pain, or see an elephant in the room, or eat an onion and think it's an orange, or have multiple orgasms on suggestion. My name for that group is “lucky bastards.” For them, hypnosis can fix a lot of problems."

And quickly.

Lucky bastards...

xxx c Image by Scott Adams and © United Feature Syndicate, Inc. "Borrowed" w/o permission; hopefully, the nice people at Megolopolis, Inc., will let it slide.

Hypn07, Day 6 & 7: What hypno?

This covers days 6 & 7 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotist hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

I went into this hypnotherapy project with (wait for it...wait...) my eyes wide open. I knew there would be doubters out there, because to be 100% honest, there was a seed of doubt in me, as well.

Was this parlor trickery? Or just another manifestation of my deeply ingrained desire to please? As Greg always reminds me, you do these things because you choose to, not because you have to. That's why they say you can never make someone do under hypnosis what she wouldn't do anyway. (It's also why stage hypnotists won't choose people who clearly don't want to be hypnotized. Because, like, they won't.)

Since we'd covered so much ground and I needed some time to digest it all, we'd done a tape for later use (okay, a recording) on Day 5. Neither of us felt the need to do a whole lot more digging on Day 6, so I asked if he could try the experiment we'd talked about before: hypnotizing me to forget what had happened during the hypnosis itself. (I'll pause while you wrap your brain around that one.)

When he brought me back up, I had that same feeling you get when you first awaken from a dream: chunks of it are vivid, but unless you work at remembering them, they fade pretty fast. I was marveling over it, picking at my brain to get at what was underneath, what I knew was there but couldn't remember. Greg kept laughing, but told me to stop it: he'd also given me a post-hypnotic suggestion that the less I remembered, the better it would work.

For the rest of the evening until bedtime, I kept feeling the memory want to bubble up. But then I'd remember what I was supposed to, that it would work better, whatever it was, if I let it go. (Talk about your zen lessons.) I didn't know what "it" was, but I knew I wanted it.

The next day, being a stubborn cuss, I wanted to try it again. Greg laughed, but complied: this was a great way to help me convince me of the power of me. So he put me under again; when I came back, same thing, faint, blurry dreams I wanted to grab at, but Greg warned me that the more I let them go, the better they'd work.

I can tell you honestly when I tell you that until today, Day 8, when he lifted the forgetting curse during hypnosis, I could not remember what the hell I was supposed to forget.

• Day 6: sleep deeply and restfully
• Day 7: things would go smoothly though I had a nightmare day of anxiety-bringing new things and tight scheduling

To be truthful, I don't have the best memory to begin with, or not the most reliable one, anyway. I blame my drug-addled 20s, but on top of that, I've always had an amazing, self-preserving way of remembering what I needed to and pushing everything else the hell out. (Raise your hand if you're an adult child of an alcoholic.) But those weirdly dreamlike moments coming up cinched it: there is something to this hypnosis thing, and I am rapidly becoming its poster child.

xxx c

Image by Foxicat via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Day 5: You are getting sleeeeeeeepy

This is Day 5 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotist hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

One may accuse me of many things (and be right), but letting moss grow under my ass is not one of them.

The first stretch of hypno mirrors the way I live my life: on "10," followed by a crash and some rest. Only I'd found with the hypno, rest was becoming difficult, since I suddenly had all these new things to think about. And I'm not a muller, so much; I'm all about getting a thought and immediately moving on it.

So naturally, coming in yesterday after all that mental activity, I was a little worn out. I was game for whatever, because that's the attitude Greg and I went into this with, but I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to meeting four more needy or neglected personalities. Plus I'm under a couple of insane deadlines this week, and while I love spending time on the hypno exploration, there are only so many hours in a day. (Plus-plus, I'm still in the grip of The Cold That May Never Leave.)

There's a way things work, though, and when they do, it's a beautiful thing. I walked in and almost immediately Greg said he was thinking of just making me a recording that day. So he did: a lovely, relaxing recording I could use to reinforce this (very) new idea that I really, truly need rest, just like normal human beings. The file is too big to upload, but imagine soft music, a hammock and some dulcet tones giving me permission to make like a rag doll and collapse and you pretty much have it.

One interesting observation: while we were making the recording, I heard, and tried mightily not to obsess on, every pop, hiss and crackle. This recording will never make me relax, thought I, IT IS TOO FULL OF POPS, HISSES AND CRACKLES.

I loaded the file onto my nano last night and listened before bed, and you know what? I had to struggle to hear the errata.

Which I quickly dispensed with. Silly, waking me...

xxx c Image by Film Colourist via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Day 4: You cannot use what you do not have

This covers Day 4 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

I have skills.

Nay, I have mad skillz.

I have a fierce, almost unnaturally healthy drive to do better. I have learned to work better/harder/faster, it would seem, as a matter of survival. The various "characters" who have buffed these skills out to a high gloss to save my damn bacon have come forward eagerly, willingly, wholly, in the first few days, introducing themselves and making their complaints heard. They're, like, over it.

There is one skill set, however, that is virtually non-existent: my inner She-Ra.

Most people would likely never guess at the frighteningly low levels of self-confidence I operate under most of the time. But it's true. Greg put me under and the poor, sad, half-formed, 98-lb.-weakling that is my Self-Confidence showed up to prove it. She has no "age", like the rest of the characters, because she was never allowed to develop. It just wasn't a priority. (Or maybe, disappearing act was its own act of self-preservation.) She has no shape, no strength, no presence, no say. She is Self-Confidence who isn't.

And yet to look at me, you'd probably never know it, just like if you saw me in most social situations, you'd probably never guess what a roaring introvert I am. I have gotten very, very good at doing things I'm not particularly suited for.

I'd feel terrible about my appalling lack of self-confidence except for one thing: I know it's there, ready to be developed, and I know that all of these other mad skillz will only be enhanced when they don't have to pull double-duty, standing in for something they're not.

Curiouser and curiouser, this trip down the rabbit hole...

xxx c

Image by massdistraction via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Day 3: Wherein the Ambassador wrassles a few notions to the ground

This is Day 3 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which you can read more about here.

Yesterday another member of Team Communicatrix came forward: the head of the spear, the friendly face of the operation, "headquarters", as we were calling her at first, stepped up, threw up her arms in frustration with the workload she's been asked to maintain along with her cheery demeanor, and, after a bit of griping/crying/discussion, got down with the idea of delegating.

It's a new morning in my universe.

I may elaborate on these various "characters" that have been coming forward at some point; Greg and I have already discussed this being a really great topic for the podcast we're planning to create once the experiment is further along and we have a better sense of the whole of it. For now, I want to make two things really, super, crystal-clear:

1. I'm an actress; that is, I'm a little bit crazy, but in a really sane way

These are parts of me I'm giving voice to, facets of my personality that were honed to their mirror finish, or not, as you'll see tomorrow, during various points in my life. (Sorry for mixing metaphors without a license, but all my language outside of the sessions, which leave me as drained as they do exhilarated, seems to be getting sloppy and floppy. Plus, hell, I'm coming off of a two-week cold, people!)

Anyway, we'll get more into process in the podcast, or I'll address it in a separate post down the road. For now, I'm just trying to get the gist of each session out there.

But know that we all have different "personalities," even if they're ever-so-slightly different. You can call it behavior, if you like: we act differently with our friends than we do with our bosses than we do with the cop who's just pulled us over for a major traffic violation when we're driving on a mover already. I probably have a higher comfort level than a lot of civilians who aren't as conversant with their various selves, but trust me, there's no spooky-ass hocus-pocus going on.

2. The process, and the results, are at least as important as the theatrics

As a writer, I understand that the idea of these parts of me showing up with different names and voices and opinions from out of nowhere is inherently dramatic.

As a human being, let me assure you that of far more importance is what's happening as a result of the sessions:

• I can feel my anxiety ebbing. And for very real reasons in addition to any post-hypnotic suggestions of relaxation: in a matter of four days, I've been able to implement more real changes about structuring my time with less to-do than any time in recent memory.
• My desire for diet "illegals" has, well, vanished. The same extraordinary thing happened after one, yes, one, single session addressing my need (my uber-desire) to stay on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet I use to control my Crohn's. I see the muffin, the rice, the tortilla and it's there for the taking. I know I can take it. I just don't want to. I make the choice, but without the stress of GOING ON A DIET. Remarkable, but true.
• I am able to see solutions more clearly. This is an adjunct of the anxiety ebbing, but just as real and a little bit differently flavored. I will liken this to how one can think more clearly when healthy than sick, or rested than exhausted. Of course, I am also getting over a cold concurrent with starting hypnotherapy, but this switch to clearer thinking has none of the manic quality that my recovery usually brings. My temperament is simply more even, not my natural state of being, as any intimate will tell you!

I'm going to do my best to continue posting every day, because I want to give people a taste of the rhythm of the whole thing. I'd also like to start addressing any comments that come along. But this is an exceptionally busy week, with lots of commitments and some hairy deadlines. So no promises. Because frankly, Team Communicatrix has taken a long, cold look at the overachieving thing and you know? It doesn't work so well for us these days...

xxx c

Image by wiseacre photo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Day 2: Little Miss Lax and her never-ending lists

This is Day 2 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which you can read more about here.

At the risk of sounding like Sybil, someone else showed up today in hypno: the 12-year-old tyrant and Chief Keeper of the Lists. While the pole is placed pretty far up the poor girl's ass, Greg felt bad giving her an uptight name, so he settled on the gently teasing "Miss Lackadaisical", or "Miss Lax", for short. There's no real secret to "her"; it's the part of me that took over when reduced circumstances forced us to give up our home and move in with my maternal grandparents into a falling-down house of Gothic horror far, far from my friends and all that was familiar to me.

My very strict Swedish grandmother, Chief Enabler in the House of Alcoholics, was suddenly calling the shots. You toed the line and trod softly in her house. The adults drank, except for my grandmother. No one was happy. My sister and I were shell shocked. I was hungry, cold and/or lonely for a year and a half: all three at once, in the winter. If it wasn't for my youngest uncle feeding me National Lampoons, Led Zeppelin albums and Monty Python, I wonder if my spirit wouldn't have been entirely flattened.

It's not like I've ever forgotten the experience, of course. Those were seminal years, as formative and important in their hideous way as was the nightmare of Mean Girls at Camp. But I'd never connected the two until Greg put me under; once he did, it was startling how quickly the memory of those days bobbed to the surface.

Hopefully, I'll become more articulate on the process of hypnosis as I move forward. Right now, the closest I can come to describing it is a kind of super-relaxed waking state. For those of you who are super-relaxed in your actual waking state, this may be meaningless. But what I find is that the state of being hypnotized is much like my own waking state, only with the governors removed. I might be able to come up with some of these same thoughts, ideas, statements, etc. fully awake, just talking to Greg, we are close friends, after all, and don't have many secrets, but I'm less self-conscious about bringing them up under hypnosis, so they float to the surface more quickly.

xxx c Image by rosefirerising via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hypn07, Day 1: Where Monkey Brain meets the other 80%

This covers day 1 of 30 for the Hypnotherapy Project, which I'm collaborating on with Los Angeles-based hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hope to accomplish here.

I've said it a million times: Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom. , Jack LaLanne, ancient fitness guru who could totally kick my ass, and with one hand tied behind his 92-year-old back

* * * * *

FIRST things FIRST

• hew to my goals
• stay focused
• treat my body like the kingdom (NOTE: "kingdom" underlined twice)
• lead by example (NOTE: "lead" underlined twice)

, list created by Colleen Wainwright going into the Great Hypnotherapy Project

* * * * *

I came to my first day of the Great Hypnotherapy Project armed with notes, a quote from Jack LaLanne and a feeling of dread.

The excitement I'd felt when Greg first suggested the experiment, 30 days of one-on-one hypnotherapy with no objective other than to see what happened, had morphed into a melange of fear and worry (my favorite cocktail). How could I possibly have thought this would work? I was, after all, a mountain of insurmountable problems covered in calcified habit; what I wanted was nothing less to become...perfect. (Even though, as my shrink once pointed out via vivid illustration, nobody wants to be around anybody who has "perfection" as an agenda item, much less anyone who's actually gotten there.)

But if there is one thing I've actually bone-learned in my decidedly imperfectly lived 45+ years, it's to feel x and do it anyway, where x equals fear, dread, certitude of impossibility, etc. Yes, you're unhappy about this, and...?

So we sat and chatted for about an hour. We can do this, Greg and I, because we're close and we love to talk, but I imagine kind, wonderful Greg would do this with anyone. He understands that the getting at something is often an elliptical process; me, I'm like a dude: I want to get in there with the blowtorch and the scalpel and FIX. THE. PROBLEM.

He is, of course, right (at least, in this sort of situation), and somewhere in that hour a light went on and I scribbled in my notes:

[connect all this to joy b/c right now it looks/feels like a big chore] (NOTE: "big chore" underlined twice)

We agreed that this was perhaps a rich vein, and to proceed. Greg put me under, and after a minor flip-out on my part (my jaw! it won't open! [note: it was my eyes that wouldn't open, not that it's any better or worse]) and Greg putting me back under, we met Monkey Brain.

Monkey Brain is seven, and under the delusion, poor thing, that she is the boss of everything. I'll spare you the details of my overachieving childhood; suffice it to say that Monkey Brain has been pulling hard duty for a long time with bad tools (she's seven, for chrissakes) and she's over it. Tired. Mad. Scared. Monkey Brain is only 20% of the show, but she feels responsible for all of it.

So Greg had a long chat with Monkey Brain and the other 80%. After some assurances that Monkey Brain could get a few treats (sad, really, how little she asked for), we hammered out an agreement to move forward as a team toward the same goals. Greg brought me back, I felt great, and I'm once again really excited about the Great Hypnotherapy Project.

Oh, and Monkey Brain is very excited about the new, red shoes we got on the way home...

xxx c Coming up on Day Two: Miss Lax, Gloomy Manor and the Problems of the Very Clean Room.

Image by tedfoo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

What we learn from the mundane

The Great Hypnotherapy Project will be slightly delayed owing to the unexpectedly protracted illness of the guinea pig.

It's probably to the benefit of the project. This bout of whatever has left me more like a real guinea pig: gentle and slow moving, with a soft, soft underbelly in need of protection. Fewer barriers to break down, fewer gates to storm. Purged of the vices one is allowed to accumulate when one is higher up in the food chain. Vices are bad for self-development, right?

The funny thing was, there were parts of this illness I enjoyed. A week ago tonight, I was almost merry as I drove to pick up my Tom Yum Goong and other assorted verboten treats. Workaholics don't take vacations; we get sick, and watch our DVDs and take our hot baths and eat our comfort food.

Only this cold wouldn't go away when I wanted it to. So I pushed it aside for a few hours on Thursday night to get inducted as Chief Nerd at my Toastmasters club, and became twice as ill as punishment, even, in an ironic touch, losing my voice for two full days.

I finally gave in Friday night. If there is was a 12-step program for control freaks, I gave myself up to it, admitting myself powerlessness in the face of the Illness' grip on me. I cried in the shower even, bargaining with God to give me back my voice. I would redouble my efforts to use it for the powers of good, not evil. There are no atheists in foxholes and 95ºF apartments, it would seem.

I'm better today. Foggy, but better. I see some light at the end of this tunnel, faint, but it's there. It will probably be a week of nothing much and not too often. But I have promised two medium-sized children that I will see them again before they toddle back to the Midwest for the rest of their summer. And so I will be better soon.

In fact, I feel better already...

xxx c

Image by ratterrell via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

What's your Learning Edge? (The hypnotherapy project)

This is essentially the first post about a 30-day experiment I called "the Great Hypnotherapy Project, which I collaborated on in July and August of 2007 with Los Angeles-based hypnotherapist Greg Beckett. You can read more about this experiment, what motivated it and what we hoped to accomplish here; you can read all of the entries in chronological order here.

While I don't take naturally to change, I've grown to love it so much that I've learned a lot of hacks to help facilitate it.

One of them is the very public 21-Day Saluteâ„¢, as practiced here on communicatrix-dot-com. Building on the notion originally put forth by Dr. Maxwell Maltz that it takes 21 days to change a habit, I did my first three-week stint to Cheer the Hell Up, but I now use my little wind sprints to get myself back in the habit of blogging when I've fallen off the wagon.

Another one of the things is, NO DUH!!!!, enlisting help. Pretty simple from the outside, but when you're born and raised in The Stiff Upper Lip Club, easier said than done. I've gone from flying solo to having:

1. a shrink
2. a business coach
3. a designer's support group
4. a Toastmasters club, and...
5. a women's manifestation circle.

(Don't freak out on me: most of the appointments are monthly or even bi-monthly; the only ones that happen weekly are Toastmasters and my coaching appointment.)

So when my good friend, Greg, offered me the chance to combine the two, I leaped (leapt?) at it.

Greg Beckett is an amazing hypnotherapist. He's actually an amazing person, in general, but he has a true gift with hypnotherapy. And flan, of all things. Seriously. He has to hypnotize me to not eat the flan.

Which is what he's going to do, at least to start with. I'm the very excited guinea pig for Greg's 30-Day Experiment: 30 consecutive days of hypnotherapy with the same client, to see what happens. We figure 21 days to change a habit and a little extra for good measure (and a round number).

Initially, we're going to use the sessions to get me back on SCD 100%, at least, that's one of the things we'll work on. Having done a little experimentation with Greg's hypnotherapy before, I know that all this stuff, these blocks, these ways of avoidance, these willful fits of procrastination, is interconnected. Hell, you don't need to have done hypnotherapy to know that.

All of this dovetails beautifully with a group project Adam Kayce (aka Monk at Work) initiated recently: What's Your Learning Edge? His thought is that growth is contingent on continuous learning, and it's up to each of us to continually re-ignite that passion for learning by going deeper, by finding the "edge" that leads us in. To participate, all you need do is one of two things (from Adam):

1. If you're not currently pushing the envelope of your intellectual horizons… or if you're feeling a staleness in your life that you wouldn't mind giving the ol' heave-ho to… then I invite you to pick something that you've always been curious about, and dive into it with all the passion of a two-year-old on a playground.
2. Write a post about your “learning edge” and what you're into these days. Feel free to mention any books you're reading, classes you're taking, people you're learning from or collaborating with, etc. Tell us about the gems you're picking up, the fun you're having, etc., especially if they're shifting the way you look at what you do.

So that's my Learning Edge, 30 days of me and a big, swinging, gold watch, getting sleeeeeepy...sleeeeeeeeepy.... (Just kidding, it's a silver watch.)

I'll be covering what happens on the project here. Greg and I have also discussed doing some kind of podcast. (Hey, we're both former hams; might as well use what you know to share what you're learning.) We were supposed to start yesterday, but I've been derailed by some nasty summer flu/cold thing, so Monday is D-day.

Meanwhile, I will invite, not tag, but invite, Bonnie Gillespie, Jason Womack, Chris Glass, Evelyn Rodriguez and Jeremy "Be Careful What You Wish For" Cherfas to share with the group.

I mean, it's not like you're not out there learnin' it up, anyway...

xxx c

Image by XI*Erica Simone*XI via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Anatomy of a meme

This comes to me via my pal, Jeremy Cherfas. I admit to being completely befuddled when I first looked over the questions. Then bummed.

And then, I figured out what to do with it...

1. What's in your pocket?

Left rear: a rectangle of vivid orange velvet, trimmed for me from a larger rectangle of same by a small fry of great passion, kindness and unbridled creativity.

Right rear: A "communicatrix.com" card I had printed up for SXSW last year, deposited there by aforementioned small fry.

Great meme-responding requires a delicate mix of wit, bravado and truthiness. This response has none of those; all but the most diehard readers of this blog will hightail it out of here after reading this first response.

2. Is the pork ready?

If it's been cooking in the gravy for a minimum of eight hours, yes.

Right away, we see the the author of this meme is either: (a) non-American; (b) trying to out-smartypants his respondents; (c) all of the above. Note to would-be meme crafters: attempt (c) at your own peril. You will almost certainly fail, either at propagating your meme on a broad scale with the many, or out-smartypants-ing the few.

3. Have you ever had to rock to and fro to make your poopie go?

Yes. Apparently, the constipated are as likely to develop Crohn's as the loose-poopeys.

After reading this question, I am fairly certain of the meme's provenance. The question, while not particularly clever, feels steeped in foreign idiom. The best way to handle memes like this, should your colloquialisms not align with those of the meme-writer, is to mainly take things at face value, then look for an opening.

4. Do you like onions?

Yes. Unfortunately, the feeling is most decidedly not mutual.

While awaiting an opening, try to maintain a good ratio of wit to truthiness.

5. So, how big is it?

Big enough to know better.

See above. This is a sass-based answer, although not smart enough to turn off a reader who's made it this far.

6. Budweiser or real beer?

No beer on SCD.

Another excellent function that memes provide is the chance for internal links. Also, in my case, I never met a platform I couldn't turn into a soapbox.

7. What do you feel about your nose?

It's less what I feel about mine, than what I do about other people's, namely, how the hell do most of you breathe out of those pinholes?

Remember, a good part of truthiness is deflection. This is not untrue, but it not the full (and boring) truth. For posts about my nose in full, stay tuned to this blog channel.

8. Children: Baked or broiled?

Yes.

With memes, as with all lists, the better part of excellence is often restraint. Mix your longs with your shorts, people, your longs with your shorts...

9. Do you like it when I do this?

Depends on my mood. I'm a mystery wrapped in a goddamn enigma.

There are a good deal of perverts in the intertubes. If you don't believe me, feel free to browse some of the search strings that brought people here. A firm hand is a lady's best friend. Don't give the pervs an inch. (Cf #7 re: deflection)

10. Do you like the sound of chickens?

As an enlightened person, I prefer the sound of "womens".

This is one of those Dennis Miller lines. Hope both of you liked it.

11. Would Beyonce clip her own toenails?

If what...she had hands? If her hands were broken and she could only use her teeth? If someone stole her clippers and she had to use two toothpicks and a piece of string? How can I be expected to answer these incomplete questions?!?

Not a bad question, but this is where we separate the meme-boys from the meme-men, as it were. Seize every opportunity to grab the reins.

12. Do you like pork?

Yes. You want go at it now?

For example, when the bar is (supposedly) raised by this second pork question, it's important to establish superiority. Resist the urge to build on your previous pork answer. Sharp left turn. Comedy is the unexpected meeting the ill-prepared. Or something like that.

13. If the butter is soft, does the bus arrive on time?

Wait, is this some foreign meme?!?

With memes, as with most interactions, timing is everything. Note how I bided my time, waiting for the right opening? NOTE: another nice way to deal with this is to drop a hint-joke in early and do a callback later on. In this case, since the first indication that this might be a foreign meme was rather oblique, I opted to wait.

14. When do you get up?

When I'm stiff from sitting.

Filler answer. Pacing, remember?

15. How did you survive childhood?

By hanging on with all my might to the occasional glimpses I got of me as an adult, free of them all.

If you want to make a serious point, it's almost always best to slip it in amongst a lot of silliness. That way, it will both be more effective, and more deniable.

16. What do you do before bed?

Indulge in some sort of media input.

Pacing, again. Think of certain of your answers as sorbet courses in between the saucy richness.

17. What are your hidden charges?

All fees negotiated up front and signed off on by both parties.

Ramping back up to something racier.

18. Who's behind you?

Those on the Side of Right, Jesus, and elite team of venture capitalists. (Duh.)

Bang! Even slipped in a Jeebus crack!

19. Why don't people go to the bathroom on TV?

It shorts the circuitry.

Everyone loves a little potty joke. I skipped the obvious one, on poop, above. You do want to play to your audience a bit, though.

20. What's a soylent green popsicle?

Whoville-illians.

Rule #407: Obscure must be met by more obscure.

21. What does it taste like?

I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

Rule #408: Everyone likes a follow-up joke.

22. Why doesn't Consumer Reports rate hookers?

No balls. (Get it? No balls!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!)

If you don't see the joke immediately, come back to it. I couldn't see the obvious joke right away as I was too close to this. The Consumer Reports part, not the hooker part. Animals....

23. Does George Bush replace the toilet paper tube?

When my super-Christian, ultra-capitalist, uber-Republican father met with GWB back in the late '90s to discuss running his ad campaign for the first election, I braced myself for the worst. But Dad turned down the gig, noting that dude was a wrong guy, the kind of person "who probably pulled the wings off flies when he was a kid."

He leaves those two last sheets that are stuck on with glue, drinks the last of the mild and puts it back and doesn't redeposit the balled-up Kleenexes that glance off the rim back onto the floor. An entitled putz, we have for a president.

Save up your stories, you never know when they'll come in handy. Opportunity comes in strange guises...

xxx
c

P.S. While I thank Jeremy for the opportunity, I'm afraid this meme comes here to die. I have absolutely no idea who to tag who wouldn't come back an kill me in the night.

Image by via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. Pass it on...

The Life, Death and Rebirth of a theater company: a brief History and Cautionary Tale

1. small but passionate band of artists form company in 1995
2. entire company sucks it up/busts hump to help build amazing reputation/following
3. reputation/following grows
4. reputation/following grows
5. reputation/following grows
6. heartless capitalist landlord gives band of artists the heave-ho
7. awesome (loaded) members of company contribute huge sums of money, buying the theater a home to live in
8. awesome (not-loaded) member of company contributes huge amounts of sweat equity and genius to create sterling reputation in local theater community to raise the theater's profile
9. entire company sucks it up/busts hump to help build amazing reputation/following
10. reputation/following grows
11. reputation/following grows
12. reputation/following grows
13. grumbling in the ranks about too much sucking it up/hump-busting, particularly as regards being cast in plays
14. outright denial of unfair treatment by management
15. miscommunication builds
16. miscommunication builds
17. miscommunication builds
18. sides are taken
19. loaded members take ball and go home
20. not-loaded members take mailing list and go live out of (metaphorical) shopping cart
21. website mysteriously vanishes
22. former member/webmistress/general design lackey comes out of hiding to save "vanished" website, purchasing new URL, redirecting to new server
23. former member/webmistress/general design lackey, peeved over having to spend time needlessly recreating work because of childish vendetta, propagates new URL all over the intertubes to get Google rank back up, then shamelessly requests others to come to her aid and do same

xxx c

P.S. The new home of the ER online is evidenceroomtheater.com. Pass it on...

Helpful Thing of the Day: Putting the "useful" into URLs

TinyURL is great for making big-ass emails shorter, no question. I've used it regularly for a couple of years now, and it's reliable and great.

But while it takes care of overly long URLs, it doesn't do it very gracefully. Those of us who don't understand the numerous hideous things that can happen upon clicking a blind link don't do much to assuage the fears of those who do.

Then again, there are geniuses like my new best friend, the adorable, kind and wildly talented Doug Stern, who totally get it. Since Doug is a master self-promoter (i.e., he does it well and for the right reasons) I don't think he'll mind if I share his email sig (it's a screenshot, kids, so don't make yourself batty trying to click on things):

When I saw that list of clean, orderly URLs at the bottom of his sig, I almost shat myself. While I love my newsletter service provider, I hate being their free ad everywhere I go; even more, I loathe the stupid URL I got. (I think they offer some way of creating permalinks for your newsletter archives on your own site, but if there's a way to put it on a subpage of one's own site, I've yet to find it.)

Anyway, I immediately did some quick Googling and interwebbery, and found the magic site that will cure all of your wonky permalink woes, Metamark. Not only does it take a big-ass URL and shorten it into a nice, clean redirect--it will add the short, vanity extension of your choice. Behold, my original big-ass, gibberish newsletter signup link from Emma:

https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:19736

Meh. And bleh.

Now feast your eyes on its brief and elegant cousin:

http://xrl.us/eNewsSignup

Note to the extremely nervous: nothing is infallible. Metamark was upfront about their failing, which 86'd a number of URL redirects in early June.

But since my main use for these will be visible URLs--i.e., the kind that grace my email sig rather than the kind that hide, invisible, embedded in HTML on a website (hover over both of the above to see what I mean)--I don't much care. Email's shelf life is such that I don't think a lot of people will be digging through theirs to find that one link I included to my newsletter signup.

And in the short term, it sure is pretty...

xxx c

Illustration Friday - Suit

I have not yet got the hang of this Illustration Friday thing.

Apparently, you IMMEDIATELY draw the topic when it's announced on Friday, then upload as soon as possible so that everyone sees your thumbnail first. (Non-competitive and non-judgmental, my Aunt Fanny....)

So it is too late to submit my entry under last week's topic, "Suit".

But it is never too late to start drawing. Or thinking, for that matter.

Next week's topic: "Rejection".

After 10 years of acting and 45 of living, how hard can that be?

xxx c

The reluctant expert, or "Why teaching is sexy"

While I'm no expert in the ways of things blogular, I've been doing it long enough, and obsessively enough, let's face it, to have learned a few things along the way.

The same goes for acting (which I was relieved to let go of almost a year ago), writing, design, presenting, cooking and, just because I've pulled 45 summers with my eyes open, for living.

Occasionally, an awareness of this knowledge floats to the surface on its own, in those rare moments when I am both lucid and chatter-free enough to let it. An appropriately sized bubble of gratitude and wonder will float to the surface, pop, and I'm back at my task, persuading or kerning or chopping. A nanosecond's awareness in the moment.

For a true sense of distance, I need a marker or a mirror, either someone I've known in my clumsier days, who helps me mark the distance between then and now, or someone seeing it for the first time.

While the former is great for boosting my ego (the student OUTSHINES THE MASTERRRR!!!), the latter is more deeply satisfying. Seeing the lights go on and the wheels start to turn, watching the world of possibilities unfold before your very eyes is unbelievably exhilarating. Maybe not better than sex or cookies or making someone laugh, but right up there with them.

I can see how it might be addictive, even for those poor souls struggling to do it the old-fashioned way, amidst the inclement conditions much of our public school system offers. Hell, maybe even more so, for the right kind of masochist.

Doing it with willing and capable students? O, bliss.

My introverted nature means I can only offer so much in the way of up-close-and-personal teaching before I need to crawl back into my cave for some serious "me" time. Yes, I'm energized after a few hours of coaching or an evening of nerdmasters, but I'm also noticeably depleted. I've become more careful about scheduling in general, at least, scheduling time with others. I think I'll probably struggle with overwork until I drop from it.

But after years of wondering who in the world could stand to be a teacher, and why, I know the answer to both. We are all of us teachers, connecting each other to the light. And a life without light would be like a life without sex or cookies or making someone laugh: bearable, I suppose, but only just...

xxx c

Image by via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

8 random facts about the communicatrix

What do I love after I've been sucked dry and spit out by a 21-Day Saluteâ„¢? I loves me a meme!

Like the title sez, 8 utterly random facts about the communicatrix:

1. The first "rock" concert I went to was Sonny & Cher.

2. The, um, second "rock" concert I went to was also Sonny & Cher.

3. When I first started elementary school, someone got the bright idea I should be moved up a grade. But I hated the second graders so much I cried until the nuns let me go back to first. My promotion lasted a total of three hours, and started me off on a lifetime of manipulation through deviosity.

4. I lived in a bubble of privileged belovedness that was forever rent when I attended Cimarroncita Ranch Camp in Taos, New Mexico, during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. My very good friend of seven years, Alexis LeBlanc*, washed her hands of me at some point when the train that brought us from Chicago passed through Texas and her "real" friends, the ones who'd been going to CRC since they were wee tykes, got on. From that point on, I was openly reviled, mocked and tortured until my return home, the nadir of my experience being the ingestion of FOUR!!! COUNT 'EM! FOUR!!! squares of Ex-Laxâ„¢, administered under highly false pretenses. I and my colon, temporarily renamed "the greased chute", spent 24 hours in the infirmary, and after a good talking-to, the girls dialed down the hatred to a simmering-but-dormant "yellow alert" status.

I would like to say I told Alexis LeBlanc to eff off and that I have never been mean since, but in truth, while I never trusted her again, I hewed to the old "keep your enemies closer" line when it came to Lexy**. And was slightly less mean where the rubber met the road.

5. My favorite thing in the whole, wide, wonderful world is to make someone laugh who's not given to it.

6. If I am in a deep funk, nothing sets me to rights like a viewing of Car Wash, The Magnificent Seven or Superstar.

7. I have had sex here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

8. I have been driving around for over two months with 30 lbs. of unused fabric I've been meaning to donate to my costume designer friend, Ann Closs-Farley, and I'm hoping this meme shames me into actually unloading it from my car.

Thank you, Rob Kendt. And now, it's time for these eight merry reindeer to chime in...

• Bonnie Gillespie
• Dave Greten
• Chris Glass
• Anne Sertich
• Danny Miller
• Neil Kramer
• Jenny Amadeo
• Brandon Rogers (that's right, motherf*cker, go find a guest blog spot to kill off this damned meme)

xxx
c

*Not her real name
**Not her real nickname

Image of me, circa 1974, along with my five merry Torquemadas and the adult who was supposedly in charge of preventing this kind of Animal Farm-foolery

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 21: Baby buddhas

I've been caught up, or catching up, with work lately, and today was no exception.

So by the time I got to my Country House, the Youngster had already been here for awhile. He and The BF's kidniks had been hanging out, playing frisbee down at the park, lolling around and such. They do a lot of that, hanging out, but all the same, they have a way of commanding your attention. Such is the result of being constantly present. It's exhausting for us who are more used to being partly present, albeit for longer stretches.

The kidniks were off somewhere in the other room, amusing themselves for a moment or two, and The Youngster turned to me and remarked how it had done him a world of good to spend some time with them. Because you realize that none of It matters. All that crap. As the Youngster said, "I realized, hey, I could just go to Italy."

Because none of It matters. Not really. All that stuff we get so caught up in. That deadline. Those meetings. This blog.

Don't worry, I'm not going to stop blogging. But I'm going to start bringing more attention to it when I do.

Lesson #22? Be here now. Wherever "here" is.

Go forth, fellow buddhas, and be...

xxx c

Image by kiny via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 20: Learning to take one's medicine

For years, the only things I took orally, and let me pause here ever-so briefly, that some of you may retrieve your mind from that trench below the curbing, were food and drink.

I was young! Healthy! Carefree! I thought the corrals of pill bottles blooming on my elders' nightstands were needless, if one lived life well and thoughtfully.

46 years later, the joke is on me. On top of the Crohn's medication, I take a multivitamin, a calcium-plus-magnesium supplement, an acidopholus capsule and an omega-3 supplement. And that's when I'm doing well, like now.

Most of these pills are no big deal once they're in my gullet. (Other than the omega-3, which makes my burps taste like three-day-old fish for the next five hours.)

Getting them down is another thing, entirely. And I've gotten worse, not better, with practice. The longer I take them, the more episodes of choking and sputtering and heinous powdery throat afterburn I get. And so I come to dread taking them, which, given my tendency to bow to the Woo, makes me feel like they're enemy agents, not helpful troops.

Today, I ran out of the calcium supplement. (I figure I'll live until I can get around to re-ordering, I eat enough yogurt to sustain the bone health of the entire population of Sun City.) With the usual dread, I filled my mouth with water, mentally prepping myself for the daily chokefest, and...nothing. Nothing! Went down like a couple of old skool Sudafed.

Apparently, the calcium tabs, specifically, the large and chalky nature of them, were what put me over the top. So it would appear that all I need do when they're back in rotation is... take them separately!!!

Lesson #21: Bigger problems are swallowed in smaller doses.

No kidding...

xxx c

Image by Wahish via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Zen of Everythingâ„¢, Day 19: Making peace with emptiness

For years, I lived my life like the plate spinners.

You know, those guys you'd see from time to time on Bozo's Circus who, for their grand finale, kept what seemed like dozens of plates spinning atop dozens of poles via timely reapplication of force (and the apparently gyroscopic effect of the sabre dance).

It was funny to me, until it wasn't. After all, no matter how skillful you become, it still requires a great deal of energy and focus to keep those plates intact and in motion, which exacts a toll. And for what, ultimately? To prove you are a skillful chicken running around with your head cut off?

As I was getting my breakfast ready this morning, I realized that my life has become less about plate spinning and more about banana rotation. See, I'm not allowed to eat regular bananas on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, so for the past five years, I've gotten in the habit of staggering my banana purchases so that I always have a few just coming into that overripe stage that puts them in the SCD safe zone.

Only sometimes, I screw up. I get busy (spinning plates, probably) and don't get to the store and all of a sudden there are no bananas, or only unripe (or perfect) bananas, which is the same as having no bananas on the SCD.

Here's the thing: when you fail to keep your plates spinning, you have loud noises and broken crockery; when you fail to rotate your bananas, you have...apples. Or yogurt. Or any one of a number of other foods to fall back on. Quiet, non-stressful foods that, while they may not be loaded with potassium, certainly can get the job done in a pinch. Lesson #20: Yes! we have no bananas

Talk about your zen koans...

xxx c

Image by greenhem via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.