Shelley Robinson Alchemy

I'm getting sucked into an abyss
of screens that have no real meaning
except toxic takes on past mistakes.

My friend said:
'These screens are how we seek connection'
so I fear my most intimate relationship
is with a device that only wants to numb me
from expressive human feelings.
And scarier?
I'm totally on board with that.

- turn it off to turn me on

Also I've counted there are over 25 books in progress in my Google Drive from my students (plus four of my own) and hundreds of poems (plus thousands of mine - yup, I write poems each day 😱). Here's to completing them!

(A poem a day in five minutes or less)

On the days when I try to fly away
I wear his jersey and shirt
to stop my body splitting into fragments
of what was past and what is present
(because that is what writing will do to you).
He is an anchor
that whispers
it's time to come back now.

(A poem a day written in five minutes or less)

Day 2: In the days when there is more monkey in my mind
than peace of mind
I dress the monkey in silks
and
fancy glass beads
that pour to my knees.
Somewhere in the spaces in between
I will rememberI am still a Red Queen.

(A poem most days written in five minutes or less)

Day 1: As I teach them to uncast their hearts
I fret I teach them too much art
made of angst and spite
instead of fairytale rhymes.

But it turns out the dark is where you can reside
and so they need the spells
to understand this inner divide.

'I obsess less because I get it out here'
'I overcame my fear of being judged'
'The right mixture of silly and serious'
'You slay and are an aesthetic (that's a good thing)'

Phew.
I haven't broken them.
Thanks to the goddess for these young people
who are like beacons of sunlight
in the cold frost of winter.

- writing class end of term surveys

(Writing a poem a day or so, in five minutes or less, to cast the demons away)

Reminder: You can understand why someone does something. This doesn't mean you have to excuse and put up with their bad behaviour. I'm 42. I've only learned this over the past two years and understanding this meant taking a walk through the shadowy, boggy past of why I allowed it to happen: desperate for love and 'protection'; loneliness; 'never gonna be kissed' syndrome; 'I've got to have friends so I'll put up with s**tty behaviour'.

My boundaries became refined as a result. Some people will not like your new boundaries. That is for them to process -- in the same way if they set boundaries and you get miffed, it is for you to process. Owneth your s**t, my loves. You will also likely set boundaries that become more like concrete, spiky walls at first. You will learn to bring these into a better equilibrium.

Herbs and warrants,
a signature scrawled.
Witches pardoned,
witches condemned.
Which pile will I land in?

What parts of me will you weigh
and by whose scale?
My breasts too small, or too big?
My voice too loud, or refusing to blend in?
Who decides —
is it you?
Because you seem to think it is
the way you twitter and tale
over your mead and ale.

And there it is:
judgement falling lasciviously from your lips
like a plague of locusts.
Did you know envy has the same grotesqueness?
So, my darling, have you signed my witch’s warrant
or your own?

I've written a lot of poems lately about gossip. Turns out I'm angry as f*** about it. This seems to be a bit of a theme at the moment: my body has sent me signs I'm starting perimenopause (second puberty) and with it has come a fair bit of anger (and a lot of deliciousness). I'm weeding out my garden, apparently, to invite in a heightened level of zero f**** given. But first, those weeds have gotta be nuked. Thank goodness for writing.
I have observed people who say they have compassion, 'light and love', and tolerance, but will slowly grate someone down through the combined lashing of their tongues.
Do I gossip? Yes. When I am trying to shift blame from myself; when I want to poison someone else's mind to see things my way; when I don't have another way to connect to that person. I often halt myself mid-conversation and say: 'Hang on, I need to check in whether I am gossiping and what the intention is behind why I'm talking about this'. I walk away from conversations where people are. I'm f***ing trying. Are you?
Stop connecting by talking about other people. Leave the witch trials in the 17th century.
(Also is there good gossip? I think there must be because there is light and darkness in everything. I researched the word gossip and its origins: it started as 'god sipp', which means godparent. Then it became linked to idle talk about others, apparently in the 16th century by Shakespeare -- but I can't verify that in other reputable historical research so it may not be true).

Do not commend her for looking young. Do not advise her of things to cover up her aging. Stop buying into the concept that to age is ‘bad’. You are simply pounding the pavement for companies who wish to create 'aging anxiety' to sell more of their ridiculous creams with even more ridiculous names.

There should be no shame attached to growing old. There will be fear of change, yes, because it is a different cycle. But stop gripping onto the curated image that we must strive to remain ‘pretty’ as though we should be locked in the cryostasis of our 20s.

Let me tell you about the 40s so far. It’s bloody epic. I ain’t yanking your chain — it feels amazing. I didn’t think I could give even fewer f***s about fitting in, people pleasing, or following the ‘rules’, but the 40 have injected me with a super hit of it. It is powerful. It is liberating. It is a damn good time (those of you that have already done your 40 know what I’m talking about). Of course, it is not bunnies and daffodils all the time (but neither were my 20s or 30s ): I have had to learn the new language of my hormones and body. But heck, that in itself is fascinating.

So go have a good time. Break some 'rules'. Learn about stuff. Travel. Make some bad life choices. Make some good ones. Talk to people. Experiment. But devote less time to trying to stop the physical signs of aging.

Amen.
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Darlings, when your friends say don't date them, marry them, engage in coitus with them, or go back to them, bloody listen. Mwah!
(On the other hand, if I hadn't dallied with the 'devil', I wouldn't have found Frenchie....I think. Or not. Perhaps. Dunno. Fark. That's a dumb thing to say: we shouldn't have to endure tw*twaffles to find the deliciousness. Hmmmmmmm [currently experiencing processing overload])

Of a random 21-degree day after too many negatives. I hope this day is lifting you out of any pre-winter doom that may have been trouncing on your toes.

Lawns mowed, barefoot toes dancing on soft fake Spring grass, bread rising, tree trimmed, cars out in droves, barbecue sausages wafting (someone is a bit keen for it is only 11am), doors wide open, scents of lavender could fill the air (if it was not June), pretend reading of William Blake poetry on the verandah (it never made much sense to me), and he and I jump around the lawn giggling.

P.S I have capitalised Spring because though it is a common noun, it has had an uncommon appearance today and made me feel proper once more.

I tell the librarian: ‘You are the coolest person I’ve met. I’ve seen what happens when people don’t have an identity: M**h, homes on pavements, and hollowed bones from too much cone.'

She looks embarrassed then a slow smile spreads. I could've talked to her for hours.

My grandmother taps me on the shoulder gesturing to the librarian with scooting hands, but somehow I still feel unworthy to hold all the beauty of my bones from these lands. I grip the pounamu in my jacket pocket and whisper: 'One day. Now shush.' Grandmother swears in a language I should know, but don't, before fading away into the stacks.

I ask the writing class: ‘Who here feels like they don’t fit in?’ I tell them to look around. Every hand is up. Realisation dawns.

Then I ask: ‘Who feels like they don’t fit into their family?’ All hands go up.

‘Guess what? Your siblings also feel they don’t fit in. At some stage, your parents/caregivers felt they didn’t fit in with their families and probably still feel that way sometimes.'

‘Are we meant to fit in? Do we learn about ourselves if we do? Do we stay the same if we do?’ I learn a lot from their answers.

For me, being a chameleon was an act of safety. But when I accepted I wouldn't fit in, it meant I was open to exploring what made me unique and growing as an individual…. does that make sense?

Not fitting in is an important part of discovering who we are. But it can be uncomfortable as all heck. We are built to be in tribes. You will find a tribe and then feel you don’t fit it anymore. So, you’ll find another one. Sometimes it is a long time between tribes because you have trust stuff to work through from the previous tribe. Sometimes you’ll get scared of not fitting into a new tribe so you'll cling to people longer than you should. Sometimes you’ll discard them quicker than you should because of a fear of being hurt. It's okay — you will do it all. We all do. Between those stages, you will feel you don’t fit in anywhere — it's a transition period. It will be uncomfortable and sometimes lonely. But then you’ll hit the love of discovering the new things about you — you’ll feel rebellious, centred and free. New tribe found. Repeat.

This post doesn't really fit the poem anymore — it grew.

Talk about stuff like this. Make people (and yourself) feel less lonely and weird.

Shelley xx

I didn’t love him, did I?!? There was no being swept away in the tides of his eyes as he used his erotic powers of compulsion. No sense of thrill and …. fear. There was no fear. Huh. Perplexing, perplexing. This man was safe, empowering, and hilarious — being with him was so easy. But I was too used to danger: the perverse thrill of pain and pleasure, and begging for love — of being treated well one day and then tip-toeing around for the next 30.

So I yanked out that gr***de pin with my teeth and got ready to launch it at our new lovership. My body was used to a certain type of relationship and it told me that if that sensation wasn’t present, this was not the man for me.

He wouldn’t let me throw the gr***de. He gently took my arm and danced with me instead — we’ve not stopped since that day.

Have you felt this in relationships, friendships or even in your job? Your body, psyche and energy form a pattern of what each should feel like in your body — even if it is not what you want. I was attracted to jobs with a certain level of danger in them and where I had to micromanage the mood and behaviour of my boss. This was a reflection of a relationship I had been in. When I had a job that felt good and safe, and the boss treated me with actual care and concern for my well-being (and tried to stop me from covering stories where potential danger was involved), I self-sabotaged it because it didn’t feel right.

So what do you do? How do you stop inviting in s**tty relationships and friendships, or self-sabotaging good ones? By looking at why you do it. Look at what you ‘expect’ to happen and what you are ‘used to’ happening. I know, I know — I wish you could just clap your hands together three times and twirl around with your arms manically waving about and it all be resolved. But you’ve got to understand why you do something before you can change the actions around it. Then just let people love you in an authentic, caring way while you love people the same.

Shelley xx

Ah, isn’t it lovely to blame others? To not have to look at the warts on your own bum but just sit there pointing at others?

Blame is intoxicating. It makes you want to suckle at its teat and say: ‘Yes, yes! Validate my hurt. Yes, go on, sling that mud at them! Ah, lovely.’

Blame means you never have to look under the microscope at yourself. You never have to face the truth of your shadow self. But also… it means you never deal with your s**t. You see, blame avoids feeling the emotions that have been triggered and if you don’t deal with the feeling? Yup, it is gonna keep on coming back and visiting you. It’s gonna tap on your window in every relationship, in every job, and in every friendship. Day off? Roll over in bed and there it is grinning back at you, morning breath and all: ‘Hello! I'm still here!’

Yes, I can feel envy towards a friend. Yes, I can feel furious vengeance at a former lover. Those feelings are my responsibility — the medicine is for me. I cannot push those feelings onto those people and say, ‘You made me feel this way, so you hold it!’ When you do this, you disempower your ability to be a grown arse person.

But first, you need to develop the ability to hold emotions and feelings in your body and not numb them with alcohol, food, and frantic activity. To not turn it into a pity party of ‘poor you’ (though a small pity party for an hour or so is a banging good idea though — feel it, baby — you’ll likely realise how ridiculous you are being). You will fail many times as I have: sitting sprawled on the couch picking salt and vinegar crisp crumbs from my hair thinking: ‘Ah well, I tried to feel it.’ Life is not a pass/fail. It is experiential. But blaming others will keep you stuck in the same repeating patterns.

** A note on blame: be vigilant that you are not excusing someone's behaviour. Looking at yourself with honesty does not mean you excuse crappy behaviour from others but own your part in it. And you can’t force others to own their part. Read that last sentence again: you can't force others to own their part. Got it? Cool. Righto, love you xx

They want you to feel as though you won't fit in. They want you to feel anxious about your appearance. They want you to feel as though you will not be loved or fit in without looking a certain way. Because then they get money.

This poem is my imagined glimpse into the marketing world. I started consuming their messages at a young age. It was reinforced by people and media around me. Then my friends became the inadvertent disseminators of appearance anxiety. How are you an inadvertent disseminator of appearance anxiety to the young people, and the people around you?

I remember working at a place who called their content 'aspirational'. I now have translated this to mean: 'We want them to feel not good enough so they will purchase our product to feel slightly closer to being 'good enough'. But we'll keep feeding them 'aspirational' content so they'll never feel they can get there.'

I contributed to it. It was at a time in my life when I didn't feel good enough. I love that person I was because she led me here playing in the playground of zero faffs given (and then some days I give a lot of faffs, but I now have the tools to understand what the faffs are bringing up).

So grow your hair down there. Embrace the gorgeous grey. Shun the shame diets and 'punishment' workouts in exchange for self-belief, health, and vibrancy.

It is a goddam honour to grow old. Some people don't get the opportunity.

These words came out of my hip this morning as I was manipulating it to ease back pain I've had for two months.

Moving on will bring up grief. And guilt. Even if it is from years ago.
Moving on from a physical property. Moving on from a relationship. A career you poured yourself into. Moving on from a friendship. Just… moving on.

One of the biggest fears humans have is feeling emotions. We lock up our bodies: numb, scroll, binge-watch, use food, and blame other people. Emotions have no choice but to be stuck in time in your body — in your bones, organs, skin, and energy. You create a cryostasis of that story and emotion in your body: if you were eight when it happened, the emotion would be that of an eight-year-old.

But I believe the body releases the ‘grief’ we can handle at that moment in time. This is why grief from an old relationship will pop up 12 years later and why the grief of a parent leaving the family home suddenly strikes 20 years later.

When we can allow the sensation of grief to move powerfully through the body, we can process it. If you tense your body, numb, it and generally try to fob it off, it will be harder to process. For example, I drank heavily for years and had bulimia as a way to not feel emotions. All of the things I did not process then, slowly came up over the years when I no longer relied on them as a coping mechanism. The intensity of feeling emotions and no longer using my coping mechanisms, sometimes led back to using them. It's okay, this happens. It is human.

So why feel grief? Freedom. To free up that part in your heart, your womb, and your loins so you can experience the ‘next’.

This is the scary part. Because if you let an emotion process, new things will be introduced. Humans don’t like change. This is why we hang onto those old emotions and stories.

I hope this serves you.
Shelley xx
P.S If you need help moving through grief and moving on, I have a package of 3 sessions for $599 aimed at this. DM me

'At times my mind wanders back to the concrete jungle
of graphs and targets,
and tightly wound bodies
bound together by coffee
and anxiety.

It is a dalliance
to remind me
I was not created for such clanging loudness,
but the smooth gentle crescendos and overtures
of a creative heart invoking its mysteries,
and a gentle spirit moving with its heart.'

I had to be a ‘success’. To be 'less' meant I wouldn't fit in — that all my fears would be realised. But I didn’t ask what ‘success’ meant for me — I just followed the crowd wishing for ‘more’ not knowing what more was.

More kept me in a state of toxic productivity as my bones creaked with the need of the industrialised society to work, produce, work, produce. Clock in, clock out. Tick off the list of visible ‘success’: a specific type of house, a specific level of income, a specific level of chattels, a specific job. No wonder I was dead inside.

I had to write down recently what my greatest ‘success’ was. I wrote: ‘Making jam and chutney that was fu***ng delicious and playing faeries with my friend’s children’. That’s what success is to me: the time and pleasure to explore life simply. To revel in that sensation of his lips, to explore abandoned places and find fruit trees primping prettily. To create what my heart desires and the courage to follow that.
It’s been fraught with the push and pull of the fear of scarcity. Of being the weirdo. Of failing (so much failure!). But all of that is diffused by the sustained feelings and experiences of freedom, joy, and laughter. I have ‘less’ than what I did in the concrete jungle: I don’t have a car, I don’t have anywhere to clock in, I don’t have bags filled with clothes each week, or booze flowing out of my pores every Friday. But I discovered I don’t need any of it. It was never me. It was something I did to fit someone else’s dream.

I work with people who yearn for ‘freedom’ but can’t understand what that means. They are ‘free’ but why don’t they feel it? Because they are living a life prescribed, without asking what they truly want to do — from their heart; not from their fears.

Are you ready to explore? I have space for two more clients. Five sessions looking at how to detangle from toxic productivity and start on the road to what your heart longs for: $777 (pay per session available). DM me. In-person or online.

In the comments is a link to an audio episode where I challenged what 'success' meant and how I broke free of the pressure of it.

Yup. First time ever having an argument with a stanger. And it ended up being the medicine I needed.

Click here to read the blog post: https://shelleyrobinsonalchemy.com/the-man-in-the-supermarket-carpark/ (IGers: Link in bio)

My loves, it does infer to body unsafety. Please check in if you can receive this today.

Also, I feel I will be increasingly sharing more of my content via my newsletters and blog. A box to sign up will appear on my website for you to do this after about 5 seconds on the site.

These healing sessions have been causing an absolutely delicious stir!

For the moment, I am calling them Pleasured 1-1 sessions. They were created for people to start opening their magnetism, sensuality, and expression in order to feel more alive, confident, and sated in life and love .

Women are rising into their right to be magnetic -- that gorgeous flow of pleasure that comes naturally with the feminine energy. When we allow this to flow, life flows with trust, ease, and pleasure.

In these sessions, I work on your back with gorgeous oils. The feminine energy is located on the back (masculine runs through the front) and there are some luscious energy centres that I work with to start activating all those gorgeous things associated with the feminine: lovership, receiving, abundance, flow, pleasure, trust.

By all reports, it is a very relaxing, pleasurable healing session! People get comments like they look 'all sparkly'! There have been some very, very beautiful lovership outcomes, as well as people finally feeling at home in their body after years of detachment.

Two Options:
- an hour session, where you receive a luscious 40 minute body opening healing (I work on your back with oils; that’s where the feminine openings are — masculine is in the front), with a 20 minute discussion about what I opened: $155

- a two hour session. An hour of a deeply pleasurable and luscious body opening, followed by an hour talking session, where we work on energetic and emotional patterns that prevent you from opening wide to be penetrated by life and lovers $222

To book, just DM me. I haven't loaded it onto my website yet. I'm open on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. 9am and 11am sessions only. I do a maximum of four sessions a week, so please book if you are thinking about it.

(Or you get can get sparkly in the comfort of your own home with an audio healing ($22): The Pleasurable Body https://shelleyrobinsonalchemy.com/product/the-pleasurable-body-from-disconnection-and-self-hatred-to-magnetism-and-self-pleasure/)

Amen.