New Year, New You 2018: Week Four (technically – in place of week one) – Be Kind To Yourself

Here we go again, kids.
 
I’m (once again) doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. It’s a good mix of practical, magical, and thought-based exercises to help accomplish specific and significant change in your own life. If it’s relevant to your interests, give it a try!
 
Instructions: This particular prompt was originally written for Week Four BUT it comes with the caveate of “do it whenever you hit the first week of January”(or some other culturally significant New Beginnings and Goal Setting date, but mostly early January) regardless of where you are in the exercises. I’m just starting this off, and I feel a bit silly starting it on the prompt that says “Maybe just don’t?” but here we are. This week, the plan is to “give yourself permission to enjoy the fruits of your labor and to give yourself something nice“.
 
Tarot Card: Nine of Cups. I chose this specific iteration of the Queen of Cups partially because it’s from my latest deck – the Next World tarot – which I’m rather excited about, but also because the artist’s write-up in her Little Book says specifically that the Nine of Cups “reminds us to stay glamourous”. (I’m snickering a little because, the last time I did/wrote-up this particular prompt, I was Having The Feels about bad patterns and bad habits and wanting to have a Nine Of Water week and… not really succeeding).
 
I’m having an easier time saying “Nope. Nine of Bottles. This is the Time, this is the Hour” this time around but also am having feelings about bad habits and patterns that I’m spinning in.
I mean, maybe I’m spinning in those particularly well-worn tracks all the time anyway, BUT it’s been hitting me a little harden in the past 48 hours, so there’s that.
 
Anyway. On the subject of Stay Glamourous… You know that I’m doing the Esoteric Experiments in Miss Sugar’s book, Glamour Magic: The Witchcraft Revolution to Get What You Want (yes that link will get me tiny amounts of cash if you buy her book through it). So, partly I chose this card as a reminder not to let myself down on that front, even on Laundry Day. But this card is also about “the magic of self care” and how the sensory (touch, sight, smell) side of my femme-nicity matters a LOT to me feeling good in and about myself. It’s a reminder to be kind to myself by remembering that I’m worthy of pleasure, sensuality, “easy days and pretty things” (to draw on Kathryn Payne’s essay about Lineage in Brazen Femme) and that beating myself up about, or punishing myself through deprivation over, Bad Habits and Patterns isn’t actually going to help me stop perpetuating those things.
 
So.
Two Nice Things for me this week:
1) I upgraded the internet. With a discount, no less. This isn’t actually going to change until Monday, BUT it will mean that my lovely wife and I can watch movies-on-the-internet (and chill, or maybe even “chill”, wouldn’t that be lovely), and also I will worry less about “running out of megabytes” when it comes to uploading stuff as per this particular version of the Nine of Cups. It’s a practical thing, and it doesn’t only benefit ME, and I did it mostly because the internet-provider just happened to call and offer it to me today (which is why I’m aiming to do two things, rather than one), but I did it. I am allowed to have nice things and do not need to exist in austerity all the time.
AND
2) I haven’t entirely decided this one, but chances are good it will involve an afternoon – or maybe even a whole day – spent curled up with either a beloved old book (OR a fascinating new one) and a box of chocolates I got on post-new-years clearance. There will be lounging. I am allowed to do things that are pleasurable purely for the sake of pleasure and do not have to Be Productive all the time.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad.

New Year New You 2016: Week 4 – Relax, Don’t Do It

I’m doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation (again) because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. You should try it!
 
Okay, so I’m switching the order of Week Three and Week Four because: Instructions.
Week Four says (paraphrasing):
 
Instructions: New Year’s energy, in North America, is very much hovering around setting unreasonable goals that you over-work at for 1-2 weeks and then proceed to (a) fail at spectacularly, and (b) beat yourself up over. AVOID THIS MESS by taking this week to do something nice for yourself that has nothing to do with your NYNY Goals.
 
Tarot Card: I’d like to say it’s the 9 of Water… but it’s not. I’m not sure if calling it the 8 of Air is too much, though.
 
Thoughts:
I… may or may not have succeeded on this one.
I bought myself a new tarot deck (WildWood, for those keeping track). I bought myself a copy of Fury Road. Those are lovely gifts to myself, and am enjoying both of them (although my Little Book for said new tarot deck seems to have gone AWOL…), and I’m not sure that they count since I ordered them well before Week Three and they technically arrived during Week Four but… Meh.
I went to the usual NYE party that I go to, saw a bunch of awesome people and, because it is That Kind Of Party, got to beat up some lovely human beings. That was great.
As far as “doing something nice for myself” goes… I went to that party solo. I didn’t feel guilty about leaving my tired wife at home to get some rest. In the two scenes I did (one pre-planned, one impromptu), I got to have the luxury (which really shouldn’t be a luxury, though it’s not necessarily one that you get if you’re doing the topping) of all the warm-up I wanted, and that made doing the work of topping someone else easy. It was enjoyable without all the fraught feelings of “Am I being mean enough fast enough to keep up with this person or am I just boring them to tears?” The negative self-talk that’s been super-loud since mid-December actually shut up for a couple of minutes, which was amazing.
 
Sounds like a resounding success, right?
Right.
 
Except… That goal of mine is ever on my mind. I feel angsty and guilt-ridden for watching Fury Road instead of washing dishes and canning stock. I tend to run to my tarot cards when my insecurities get the better of me (which they’ve been doing just about every three days, of late, it seems), so how is this not just feeding into some sort of Bad Pattern[1]? Topping is easy and fun because (okay, yes, because it’s specifically easy and fun and a good way for me to get fed, but also because…) it doesn’t require me to the do the scary-vulnerable work of receiving and opening up.
 
And, yeah, the whole point of this week’s prompt was to do something nice for yourself that you enjoy, but I still find myself asking: Jeebus, if I can’t accept a fucking gift, that I already know I like from myself, then how the fuck am I going to achieve this Queen Of Cups business that’s all about receptivity and trusting other people??
 
It’ll probably be fine.
I just need to shake off the Woe Is Me attitude and see where things go.
 
Okay. Onwards!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch.

Small Kindnesses (New Year, New You)

So. Last week’s injunction to Relax, Don’t Do It in the name of avoiding New Years Resolution mania and burn-out was… okay.

Or possibly not.

I didn’t actually do anything Super-Extra-Special for me. Which is not to say I didn’t do anything nice, it’s just that I try to do Nice Things for myself (and, okay, my partner) just in general.

I can sing my own praises well enough — got through the initial Hard Bit of my second stocking extension (and it seems to be the right width, so good). Bought my girlfriend’s anniversary present (should arrive in plenty of time) and am feeling Very Excited about the likelihood that she’ll like it a whole bunch. Took a shiatsu class with my girl (thanks, Groupon); Tqaught a friend to knit. Made a Nice Dinner (or two) — and burnt myself all over half of my face while doing so (woops)[1] — Came up with a tasty new cupcake recipe; started Educational Reading for both my kink endevors and my magical endevors[2] and have been taking the time to Actually Read Them(!!!); …and similar. But I haven’t made a big point of doing something Special just for me.
Although I did buy myself a chocolate bar. Which is something, although not a Big Hairy Deal of a something.
Anyway.

I think this is… weird.
I mean, I’m a sensual headonist. Doing nice things for myself is basically at the core of my life’s mission[3]. And yet it’s so much easier to do Nice Things for myself when they come with added Virtue OR added participants. Making a nice dinnner for the two of is includes making a nice dinner for myself… but I’m unlikely to do it just for me. Reading a novel in a coffee shop while drinking cappuccino and nibbling chocolate-hazelnut biscotti is… glorious. But I tend to feel ever-so-slightly guilty about doing it when I could be reading (or, um, working) at home where I can make the cookies myself and the coffee costs me a tenth of what would cost in Bridgehead.

So, yeah.

Maybe I will make myself slippers or something. I don’t know.

Anyway. That’s where I stand on that particular prompt. 😛

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] I’m fine. I was making borscht – the poet I was hosting for Voices of Venus turned out to be vegetarian. Woops – and the lid of the blender decided not to seal properly (I swear I pushed it all the way down), most likely because it was a little too full – and I ended up getting sprayed with hot (though thankfully not boiling) beat soup. Some quick thinking with lavender essential oil, followed by a lot of cold compresses and some aloe-vera gel (and in ibuprofen) meant that the swelling and – more to the point – the pain were mostly down and gone within four hours. It’s not likely that I’ll scar, let alone sustain Actual Dammage. So it’s all good.

[2] I got At Her Feet: Powering Your Femdom Relationship for the kinky D/s stuff (so far, so good, further thoughts coming soon to Syrens) and, more relevant to this blog, I got To Fly By Night: Craft of the Hedgewitch, some early thinky-thoughts on-which can be found over here.

[3] Not to mention it’s my major goal for this whole New Year, New You project…