Connect, create, ⚡️catalyze⚡️
A new way of being is *right here* + January events with Self Made + links for this week's group calls!
First up: Register for this week’s group calls here:
🌀 Group Call #1: (Tuesday, 1/16/24 @ 6pm PST // 9pm EST): Register here.
🌀 Group Call #2:** (Wednesday, 1/17/24 @ 9am PST // 12pm EST): Register here.
**This call (EXPAND) features structured breakout groups of 3-4 people.
This morning my energy healer (yes) told me that I’ve spent many past lives as a nun, or monk. Cloistered, was the word she used.
I almost burst out laughing—not because of what she said, but because becoming a nun or joining a monastery is a thought that tumbles through my skull not infrequently. It’s one of my “third door” thoughts—you know the ones, you probably have your own—the rabbit holes of imagination my mind takes me down when just existing seems like too much, and I want some portal to another world to open and shunt me (and Tater) somewhere else, where things are different, which is to say, easier.
(Other recent third door thoughts - alien abduction; winning the lottery {I’ve never so much as bought a ticket}; becoming a Hollywood ingenue {at almost 40} because the pilot episode of the script I’m {not even} writing gets picked up by Netflix and I’m suddenly thrust into the $$$potlight).
The thing about these third door thoughts is that typically, they are the result of life not feeling great (at best; overtly awful, at worst). It makes sense—when things are going well for you, you don’t imagine being plucked out of your apartment and whisked away to a friendlier planet full of benevolent beings who understand their interdependence, prioritize art and beauty along with everything else, contribute to tending to the environment, and, I don’t know, mind their own businesses.
What is evident to me in this current era: life—in general, and to varying degrees, of course—feels not great for most of you. You’re overworking, or looking for work. You’re raising a family with minimal resources and seemingly endless obstacles. You can hardly afford to heat your house because the gas and electric company just increased prices 20%; you’re fighting to not get sucked into the Quagmire of Mediocrity™ alive and popping on the dating apps; you spent so much time cloistered in your apartment this past weekend, by Sunday afternoon you were questioning whether or not you existed (it’s possible these last three are highly specific to a certain individual). And then there’s state of global and national affairs, that omnipresent background hum that you have to compartmentalize to the farthest reaches of your brain in order to function, but in moments when you let it in (and it’s getting harder and harder not to let it in all the time), drags you into despair.
So we are all low-grade-borderline miserable and I know I already wrote about this last week but the thing that I can’t wrap my ahead around is how we still haven’t collectively pulled the fire alarm.
I’m currently putting together an outline for a book (!), and so I’ve been going back to the beginning of this here Substack, where I started writing three weeks after San Francisco’s first shelter-in-place order—all the way back in April 2020. I thought revisiting work from a few years ago would be challenging, because it’s always a bit cringe to review past work through the lens of the (slightly) more sophisticated writer I am today. And the essays are difficult to revisit, but not for the reason I expected. Early essays are difficult to read because at the time of writing, I was so deeply convinced that we were going to “learn” something from the pandemic and be…better, or something.
And here we are almost four years later and everything is as uncertain and awful and nasty as ever, maybe even more so.
So I’m pulling the fire alarm in my own life.
Honestly, I don’t quite yet know what that means, or how I will do it. So I’m going to experiment.
A different world, a different way of being, is right here. If I commit to this different way of being, that means that everything I do, everything I say, every interaction I have in real life or online or in my work or with friends and family or my neighbors, every decision I make, every time I shop, the way I tend to my health and well-being, every community collaboration, every word I write, is an opportunity to practice creating a new world. This is the opposite of closing myself off to reality. And because there is no separation between the micro and the macro; the individual and the collective; our bodies and the earth’s body; every single action I take, every thought I think, every time I show up heart-first and genuinely connect with another human brings a new world closer to fruition.
So this is the experiment: Stepping off the death machine, and into the garden.
If you want to join me in playing around at creating something new, I have three events this month at various price points (including free) where we can experiment in community:
🙋🏻♀️ Connect
In addition to the two weekly (weekly!) calls that are part of your subscription here at Self Made, I’m hosting a casual, agenda-free “office hours” on January 25 from 11am PST - 12pm PST. I’ll bring my curiosity, and I hope you’ll bring yours. Drop in for ten minutes, stay for the full hour, whatever you choose is great. We can discuss whatever is on your mind and heart—whether that’s a question you have, a resource you want to share/solicit, thoughts you have about any of the above, or a recount of your own encounters with aliens.
These are not sales calls in disguise; simply an opportunity for us to connect.
Register here (free/included in your subscription).
✨ Create
I have a few different coaching sweet-spots. One of the reasons people are drawn to working with me is because they long to be more creative. Some inner urge is nudging them toward greater self-expression, and they either don’t know where to start, or feel shy and bashful about getting started. So many of you want to write, you have things you want to say…so I’m inviting you to hop back in, or get started.
✍🏽 January Creative Writing Workshop
When: Sunday, 1/28/24
Time: 10am PST - 12pm PST
What to expect: This generative writing workshop is based off the Amherst Writer's Method. There will be two opportunities to write. Then, you'll be invited to share your work aloud if you like (no one is obligated, you can pass at anytime). Readers receive feedback on what listeners like and remember from what they heard; there is no critical feedback (critique is great and can be very helpful—it's just not part of this style of workshop).
This workshop is appropriate for all levels. If you have questions, let me know—I'm happy to answer.
Cost: $33
⚡️ Catalyze
This is a new workshop. The aim of this workshop is to give you all the tools to create honest and reliable structures of internal and external support for yourself.
☠ Close to the Bone: Stay fortified to stay engaged
When: Wednesday, 1/31/24
Time: 5:30 PST - 6:45 PST
What to expect: As we ease into 2024, I am thrilled to share a powerful framework for incorporating self-care into your daily life in a practical, flexible, intuitive way. Learn tools you can immediately apply as well as how to continue to adapt the tools as you—an ever adapting, wild and alive animal—evolve and change and grow and EXPAND.
I know "self-care" is the buzziest of all buzzwords imaginable. What makes this approach different is that it's both actionable and offers you a way to connect to your intuition. Learn how to offer yourself what would actually be nourishing and supportive to you—a gloriously imperfect human—and release the unhelpful ideas of what you think "should" be doing, or what you used to do, or what that person over there is doing.
NO MORE SELF-CARE CHECKLISTS!
The stakes are too high to obsess over checking off boxes. Now is the time to stay fortified so we can stay engaged and in service to our communities and to the health of all life on this planet.
The workshop is one hour plus a Q+A that will go fifteen minutes or as long as there are questions.
Mark your calendars, sign up, and see you soon!
Cost: $13
If you made it this far; if you’ve been a longtime reader/supporter; if you’re picking up what Self Made is putting down—I invite you to become a paid subscriber.
+ If you are curious about working with me, you can click the button👇🏽 to get on my calendar and we can talk.
P.S. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LAST WEEK: check out my midwinter Spotify playlist, STAY TOASTY. Recommend you listen on shuffle.
SELF MADE is a call to deeply connect with the self—self-knowledge, self-trust, self-development—and then to make, small step by step, a life that you savor. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Certified Integral Coach, and Holistic Recovery Guide, based in San Francisco, CA.
Click here to learn about working with me 1:1 and/or here to sign up for a complimentary Alignment Session. Let’s talk!
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