🥾 SELF MADE goes hiking! Join us THIS Sunday, 7/17 for a 3-hour, 5-ish mile hike in SF's magical Presidio. This is a FREE event! IN-person! Register here! Let’s high five/hug/bat our lashes at each other IRL!
✍🏽 Writing workshop returns Sunday, August 28th: Register here.
📣 I’ll be chatting about it below but in case you what to jump to the chase: click below to subscribe to the SELF MADE community (launching today!).
❓Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.
Hey everyone.
It’s July 11th.
I’m delighted to share that both phase one of my website and paid subscriptions are LIVE.
To subscribe to SELF MADE, click here. (In case you missed it: here’s an explanation of how this space is changing). First issue of The Practice and community calls start the week of August 1st. Slack will be available immediately, and our first Creative Friday will be Friday, August 12th (mark your calendars!).
To learn more about working with me individually and to sign up for 1:1 coaching, click here (if we’ve worked together before, no need to schedule an Alignment Session, unless you want to!). These spots will sell out so please be in touch/sign up for a 30-minute complimentary Alignment Session if you’re curious or have questions.
Ok so that’s the announcement. If you’re ready, yesssss.
Otherwise, here’s my attempt at “selling:”
🐣
I spent last week on the first beach vacation I’ve taken since 2014 poniéndome morena, listening to this song on repeat, relaxing with some of my favorite people and laughing harder than I have in years. I journaled every morning with the sun rising at my back and the ocean brightening before me, felt my nervous system for real downshift for the first time in who knows how long. As the week wound down I fantasized about a breezy return, sitting in my city apartment reunited with my Tater and calmly gliding through the list of things I had to complete and prepare in time for SEVEN ELEVEN.
Instead, I came home with a stomach bug of digestively biblical proportions (sorry), a general post-vacation malaise exacerbated by, you guessed it, San Francisco summer fog, and, for good measure (should I say it should I say it? I’m going to say it), the arrival of my cycle. Not to mention that just like all of you, I am also figuring out how to be a person who exists under the shadow of under our current circumstances, which is to say, fascism.
The typically dependable connection I foster between my head my heart and my guts was scrambled. I grasped for words. Even writing a basic to-do list felt insurmountable. At the moment I most needed to focus, the last thing I could do was concentrate.
Did I give over to this? Did I treat myself kindly? Did I take any of my own advice? Not at first. At first, I did what I’m guessing you too are familiar with: I stressed out. I tried to force myself to produce. I sat and squirmed and you can bet I talked some shit to myself.
This is life, isn’t it? Laughing at our best intentions. Demanding that we adapt and shift and move and flex. This was my body, doing its sweet best to heal, calling to me to rest, to put my overactive brain on the shelf for a while.
It was also an opportunity for me to practice what I teach, which is that when things get messy, instead of trying to force order, what is actually helpful is to get down in the dirt and roll around in it. Give over to the mess. Stick my face in it, let it have its way with me. Let the mess reveal the order it desires, rather than exhausting myself by micromanaging every last thing (I am slowly but surely learning from experience that this approach literally, not once, has ever worked, at least not in a way that feels good, and may I remind you, that despite everything, we are here to feel good).
Recovery is a practice of giving over to the messiness of being human, and allowing a new form to take shape.
Everything is chaotic everywhere and I am hesitant to come across like I’m capitalizing on this most sacred and precious undertaking.
But it’s also undeniable that where we find ourselves is URGENT—indeed, things have been urgent for decades—and if we continue to anesthetize ourselves away from reality we stand no chance against shifting it. And I believe we have the power to shift all of it. And yes, I’m speaking directly to you.
We heal ourselves not to hole ourselves up in our pretty little apartments, hoarding resources and becoming more controlled, presentable, palatable, perfect.
We heal ourselves so that we can sustain ourselves inside the long game of what it takes to create a world that works for all of us. So that we can carry each other and be carried. So that we are not forever treading water but can actually start fucking swimming already. So that we can let in joy and beauty and delight and sensuality and salt and sweat and tears and so that we can MAKE ART, all those things that only we can make.
The world is chaotic, absurdly so. THIS IS REALITY. Recovery is learning to be steady inside of chaos, to partner, to move-with chaos, instead of being at its mercy.
But we can’t do it alone. Neither the hard work nor the joy and delight happens in a vacuum. We need each other, and I’m inviting you in.
If you want to chat more about working together 1:1, sign up to meet with me - I’m not going to “sell” you, we’ll be together and see if it feels good to work more closely.
And: if you’re reading this, and you’re curious, and also thinking, OK, this sounds good, but this is for other people. This isn’t possible for me.
I offer this: you don’t have to know how to do any of this. You don’t have to believe me. All you have to do is show up, exactly as you are, in all the ways that you are, and see about starting a practice.
🐣
Last month, visiting my energy healer, I was lying on her table when she declared:
The universe doesn’t want you happy! The universe wants you alive.
Recovery isn’t simple or easy but it will guide you more deeply into your own aliveness. Inside of community, we stay close to joy and delight along the way.
This is what we are up to. This is the invitation I am extending to you. This is my hand, this is my whole heart.
See you there?
In love,
dani
From the archives ~ this time last year:
⭐️ On Misplaced Longing (this is a GOOD one, if I may.)
SELF MADE is a rebellious recovery community that empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and to step boldly into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, founder, writer, coach, and recovery advocate based in San Francisco, CA.
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