Category: 30 Days of Anything

99.9% Of You Is Literally Made For Expansiveness

Multiple things are always true at the same time. Understanding this, possibly more than any other single thing, has had the greatest impact on my life. We are earth creatures made of muscle, blood, sinew, and bone. We are 99.9% air. 

I’ve tried many varieties of therapy over the years, starting at age 16. I think most of them did me some good. At the very least, almost all those therapists had a sympathetic shoulder for me to lean on when I felt miserable, and at best, I learned a few things about myself.

I’m still a person who has a therapist now, and I’m damn glad and privileged to have that option. 

The thing I was missing then, is what might be missing from your life now – the tools for changing things and moving forward. I felt stuck. 

After about two decades of traditional therapy, I was tired of someone simply listening. I wanted – craved, tools. 

I didn’t want to just talk about the past. I wanted to feel empowered to make real changes. I wanted to feel better, not just have someone understand why I felt badly. 

I started looking into every therapy type and healing modality I could find and doing some comparisons between what they all offered. Over the course of a decade, I spent about four years and thousands of dollars getting certified in a few different health coaching programs, plus another three years becoming a Reiki master* (I’m not advocating white people do this, please see footnote), even more years taking classes in energy medicine, reflexology, spirituality and religion, learning about essential oils and supplements, chakras and meridians, crystals and spells. 

I joined a narrative therapists practice group, researched the body/mind connection, learned how our body’s responses to our environment, foods, and hormones affect everything, taught art therapy, and held groups on a variety of health subjects like our parasympathetic nervous system and being Highly Sensitive, (which was my intro into neurodiversity and understanding my own neurospiciness because of shared traits) out of my wellness center in San Diego, CA. 

The tail end of that incredibly verdant part of my life was filled with understanding kink and the body’s pain response and reward system, along with our need to reparent ourselves, which led me to offering optional Pro Dom kink services and teaching kink as a healing art. 

I learned a lot during that decade and did my best to keep sharing with others through workshops, speaking at conferences, and writing. 

My own physical health has its ups and downs. There’s no perfect tool kit that will permanently keep you from ever being ill or needing to rest or needing to grieve. There is no “healed” place you reach where you’re done healing and the rest of your life is perfect. And there’s no magic secret that you’ll learn that will be the answer to everything you’re hoping to change about yourself. You can spend your entire adult life searching, putting off actually living and being happy “until then,” but I promise you, it’s a big waste of time and energy and keeps you from being embodied, in the present moment. 

The rewilding you might have heard about is a way to see all of you, not just the parts of you that are socially acceptable, the parts of you that have been forced to comply and play along and perform, putting the parts of you that are sad or sick away because they need to be hidden. You were taught to live this way by your parents, who learned it from their parents, and so on, all in an attempt to live without being picked out of the group as a troublemaker. Being a member of the group in good standing, or, “normal,” is safer. The pressure to be just like everyone else is super real and it’s built into us from when we’re tiny. It’s a safety feature to belong to the pack and teaching you to be this way was how your parents loved you.
 

The truth is that the messy, inconvenient, shadowy, loud, sick, angry, and persistent parts of you are why you’ve survived this long on this trauma-filled planet. That obstinate, crass, sullen teen part of you that you pretend doesn’t exist? They deserve your gratitude (and maybe a break).  The whimsy and fun you long for? Your younger parts have been holding those things (hostage?) for you and you need to make space to incorporate them. 

Doing this work means that over time, you can manage what life throws at you with more capacity and grace, both for yourself and others. The big knocks come but you don’t fall down. You feel the impact, sure, but you know how to receive and process the grief – and give yourself all the time you need to do it. Or maybe you do fall down and give yourself a rest, telling yourself what a great job you’re doing instead of wishing you could be different. You feel less and less like you have to smear makeup on your face and force a smile for the benefit of others. You wear makeup only when you want to and it brings you joy.

You get a greater perspective and understanding about what’s yours and what to leave for someone else, because not only is it theirs, but trying to do their work doesn’t help them and it sure doesn’t help you. 

You will know and love your Self and system so well, that you have your own back and validate all your parts like a motherfucker, which makes you unafraid to say what’s true in any situation and to any person.

My health history involves sexual & medical trauma, DDNOS, and multiple autoimmune conditions, which is complicated and painful. I know what it’s like to live minute to minute, feeling pretty sure that you don’t want to be here tomorrow, because the only thing worse than how you feel in that moment is understanding that you have to do it again tomorrow and the day after that etc. I know what it’s like to feel nothing for months at a time. I know what it’s like to be surprised I turned another year older, again, and feel baffled that I’m going to do it all over again for another year. 

And, I also know what it’s like to have joy – real joy. I know what it’s like to build an intentional life, to feel like myself, finally, and be surrounded by people who love me for me. I could never have known how great my life would be now. I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d tried to explain it to me. I could not fathom what I didn’t believe could be true. I didn’t feel I deserved any of that for myself. I now know what it’s like to want to live through this next year, and in fact, hope I get a long life to come in this funny meatsuit I’m walking around in. 

My life is not easy, even though it is fulfilling and worthwhile. I live with chronic pain and disability which complicates things. I strive to stay in my rituals and daily schedules because it helps maintain my mental health, keeping the 3am demons at bay so they don’t take over weeks of my life. My earlier years were filled with the results of mental illness symptoms and that comes with very real casualties, even today, in the lives of those who knew me then. Like many folks in the trans community, I’ve had huge personal losses in the last few years. Some of these hits are of the magnitude of which I could not have believed I would live through, let alone still be able to feel joy after experiencing.  

This is the stuff we are made of, though. Life is contradictions, pain and pleasure. Multiple things are always true at the same time. These are the real building components, the raw ingredients, of life. We are mostly air – 99.9% of you is expansiveness. You have more bacteria cells in you than human ones, making you more of an earth alien than a human. Sadness and joy exist in you at the same time. There is beauty in the sunset you can only see over the power lines and street lights.

You are at once the most important person in the universe and also of very little consequence. 

I find those statistics to be comforting. I like science and math and magic mixed together. I think therein lies the truth, which is that we can’t know everything, but that everything knows us. 

Today more than ever, so many of the idioms we grew up with are proving to be true:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Be the leaf in the stream.

Go with the flow. 

Don’t become the experience, but keep your eyes open, see what it is and feel it.

Don’t be afraid, or do be afraid, and keep going. 

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

― Frederick Buechner

The clouds and the trees are just as important in my toolbox as being a witness to my big feelings. I need bubbles and prisms. I need ropes and floggers and flowers. I need a recognizable window of tolerance to give me the choice of how I want to act instead of being stuck in reaction mode. I need to be able to truly love myself and know I’m good no matter what anyone else says. I need to be able to laugh. And I need time doing absolutely nothing.
 

Sometimes I live in this Carl Sagan Quote: “Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust.”

I love you <3  xLeoh  * Please read this very clear and informative piece by Lore McSpadden-Walker about Reiki lineage and best practices. I no longer advertise Reiki as a part of what I offer and I no longer give attunements. Energy work will always be a part of what I do as a mentor and Pro Dom and I’m in the process of traveling through my own heritage to see what my roots have to share with me about where my natural gifts come from. 

PS. I’ll be back soon(?) to talk more about 30 Days Of Anything and tell you how I’m doing on moving my body. I hope it’s going ok for you and if you forgot all about it, go ahead and start again today! Why not! xo

—Previously posted on Substack

and I’m already mad about it

Hello friends,

This morning I realized it was March 1 and felt surprised, like it had crept up on me somehow, and I’m for sure that that’s not right, given that I had a whole extra day this year to get ready for the end of February. (Leap Day Williams, anyone?)

My new daily habit for March is “move my body,” and as fate would have it, our friend from Atlanta is in town and wanted to meet for an early coffee at a place just around the corner. “Perfect,” I thought, “look how I’m getting a jump on my habit!”

There are two workshops in March: It Starts With You: Repair After Shattering, and Get Your Kinks Out: Planning Kink Scenes: A cheat sheet. I’d love to have you join me. (Sneak peek at what’s coming up later this year right here.)

My partner and I put on jackets, took the elevator downstairs, and I grabbed her hand as we headed out of the building towards the coffee shop. I was instantly confronted with an uphill climb. You might not know that this past year I’ve lost a little more ability in my left knee. I’ve acquired a “very cool, robust” walking stick that kind of looks like a ski pole. It’s meant for hiking, but I use it for city walking knee support up/down stairs and hills, except today, because I left it at home. And then the coffee shop wasn’t where I had imagined it was – it was further up the incline. So by the time we got there, I was out of breath and in pain, feeling grumbly about my ability to walk, and totally annoyed I’d forgotten my very cool, totally virile, not-cane.

So this is day one. I’m almost done being mad.

I know moving my body every day will increase my ability to move my body every day. Know what I mean? The inertia to get the ball rolling is hardest in the beginning, and I’m feeling every bit of that today.

Activation Energy is defined as “the minimum amount of energy needed to activate or energize molecules or atoms so that they can undergo a chemical reaction or transformation.” I’m trying to find my activation energy, probably to the least degree possible, to create the beginning of the change I’m hoping to see.

We’re wired to lean towards doing things that make us feel good (brain chemical reward), secure (security system activation), and comfortable (combination of both).

We’re wired to lean towards doing things that make us feel good (brain chemical reward), secure (security system activation), and comfortable (combination of both). That means, in order to make changes a reality, we have to be aware and override some really big and important survival systems in ways we don’t usually think about.

Homeostasis, the state your body is continually trying to reach and maintain, feels threatened when we introduce new ideas and habits. Homeostasis has many jobs, like maintaining body temperature, how fast or slow your metabolism is, and other survival functions. Doing new things is going to disrupt your micro-molecular neurophysiological thermostat, aka homeostasis. You’re going to get strong impulses to just sit down and return to “normal.”

Doing your new habit at the same time every day will help your brain start to expect the change and be more open to it, keeping the activation energy needed to incorporate a new habit to a minimum. Keeping the time down to 10 minutes or less will “trick” your brain into believing it’s possible and not too big of a disruption.

30 Days of Anything Rules:

Choose one new thing that fits in your life without (too much) disruption

Make a plan to do it, and try to do it at the same time every day for max ten minutes

Choose a reward for after you succeed

Know anyone who might want to join us? Thanks for sharing! Everyone is welcome.
—Previously posted on Substack

Here goes nothing/everything

Hello friends,

Welcome to Edgy, Wholesome, a substack newsletter series by me, your favorite edgy yet wholesome Mentor slash Pro Dom. A substack newsletter, which at this very moment, is a newborn babe with the scent of warm, yeasty bread, fresh from the oven. Delicious! Thank you for being here.

There are two workshops coming up in March: It Starts With You: Repair After Shattering, and Get Your Kinks Out: Planning Kink Scenes: A cheat sheet. I’d love to have you join me. (Sneak peek at what’s coming up later this year right here.)

I’ve been mentoring for fourteen years and a Pro Dom for six. In that time I’ve tried a lot of things with a lot of clients to help them break self-care into bite-sized pieces, making our work much more likely to have a long-lasting impact on their lives (and the lives of those around them). Over the years, there’s been one concept that has stuck out as a clear winner in creating forward movement in someone’s life.

Let me introduce you to 30 Days of Anything, which we’ll be starting on March 1, 2024. The concept is simple – do something, anything, for 30 days in a row. The trick is making that thing accessible and sustainable, both super important ingredients to the recipe we’re crafting. I’ve seen this concept change so many people’s lives for the better!

Watch out for making it too complicated or big. We’re in a marathon, not a sprint. Sure, you can prove to yourself that you can do something for 30 days in a row, but if that thing has displaced other important things like sleep or time for yourself and you’re “just making it work to get to the end,” then you’re maybe going to succeed at doing that thing for 30 days, but it isn’t likely to stick with you long-term. What you did was an endurance test and proved that you can do something hard, which, hey – I’m not knocking that in and of itself. Building strength that way can be beneficial. But, that’s not what I’m talking about here.

The goal of 30 Days of Anything is to add in one helpful thing that you’re missing – one habit that could be helpful to your daily flow or your mental health or how you treat your body and then commit to doing it for the entire month. Drink a glass of water when you first wake up. Stretch for ten minutes before you get in bed. Put your dirty clothes in the hamper at the end of every day. Set a ten minute timer when you begin to scroll social media. Take a photo every day of something in a theme, like the color red or flowers or patterns. Take your vitamins at lunch. Go through the mail and throw out the junk immediately into the recycling. Spend ten minutes learning a new language. Make eye contact with yourself in the mirror and say, I love you! Try a new crafty thing or a sport and be joyously bad at it when you start.

The last piece of the challenge is to pick a reward. Rewards need to be something you’re truly looking forward to that are also sustainable. Taking a cruise isn’t something that most people can do often. But taking a weekend afternoon to yourself to people watch or pick up a hobby for a day that you’ve been missing or going to a restaurant you’ve been wanting to try or basically anything you look forward to that isn’t too expensive and doesn’t take too much effort or time to accomplish, is perfect. Remember, we’re going for sustainability right now and we want some nearly-instant gratification. (We’ll get to bigger challenges and rewards in a few months!)

30 Days of Anything Rules:

• Choose one new thing that fits in your life without (too much) disruption
• Make a plan to do it, and try to do it at the same time every day for max ten minutes
• Choose a reward for after you succeed

That’s it! Make it easy, make is simple. The magic that happens will surprise you. Our brains love rituals, routines, learning new things, and establishing new habits. We also love rewards, especially after doing a challenge. You will be promoting neuroplasticity in your brain, making it possible for you to be more open to other new ideas in your life, giving you a wider perspective on life in general, and also improving your memory and mood.

As for me, I’m going to choose body movement for the month of March. Ten minutes of moving my body on purpose, even if it’s just stretching on the floor. My reward is going to be a dinner out with one of my favorite people during the first week of April.

Want to join me? Sign up for the Edgy, Wholesome newsletter and (about) every week you’ll get some words of encouragement to cheer you on your way. Everyone is welcome. I’d love to hear what you’re choosing. Please leave a comment with the new habit you’re embracing for March and what your reward will be!

Upgrade to the paid version if you’d like some accountability opportunities, more support, and to hear details from my own process.

Here are some ideas that I’ve used with clients in the past: 

1. Drink a glass of water
2. Stretch for ten minutes
3. Clothes in the hamper
4. Ten minute timer for social media
5. Take a photo in a theme
6. Take your vitamins
7. Throw out junk mail
8. Learn a new language
9. New craft
10. New sport
11. Gratitude log
12. Make your bed
13. Deep breathing
14. Morning/Bedtime routine
15. Brush/floss teeth
16. Read from a paper book
17. Eat a veggie
18. Push up/planks
19. Go outside
20. Plan your day
21. Express love to someone
22. Clean an area

Thanks for reading! Hope to see you. xoLeoh

—Previously posted on Substack