Entering my Goo Era

It's about to get sticky 🐛

Hello friends, 

I hope this message finds you in a blanket fort, curled up in a sunbeam, or on the way to a little treat.  

Spring is unfurling in Brooklyn and I’ve been feeling very gooey. Gooey as in sticky, as in soft and deeply sensitive, like my heart is an overflowing honey jar. The flowers are blooming and I want to give each one a golden star sticker for being so stunning and brave. I’ve been asking the birds by my window for encores. This week my favorite tree, an unassuming Callery Pear, announced its return from winter dormancy by adorning its branches with puffy white galaxies of petals. I feel enamored by Spring’s parade and on the precipice of big changes. I feel like I’m entering my goo era, a moment of in-between, the liminal sticky space involved in transformation. If you too are feeling gooey and like metamorphosis is arriving, I’d like to introduce you to a gooey guide: The Goo Era Manifesto.

My favorite tree in bloom.

🐛 The Goo Era Manifesto 🐛

1. Goopification 101
   When a butterfly metamorphoses, they literally turn into goo. Now I’m not an entomologist, so I won’t get into the details. But essentially the process to becoming a butterfly involves a larva liquifying in its cocoon. It becomes butterfly sciencemagic smoothie. Goopificiation, if you will. A few weeks later, out emerges a butterfly, wings and all. 

   

2. Metamorphosis Awareness
   To enter a goo era is to choose to change. It’s recognizing that stagnancy, frustration, or misalignment I’m experiencing may be a sign it’s time to grow new wings and try something new. A goo era is a period where I hold deep presence with my desires. It’s writing my boldest dreams down without shrouding them in doubt or fear. The goo era is harmonization with my desire to expand.

   

3. Meeting at the Chrysalis
   Entering a goo era means making my heart a safe cocoon for all versions of myself: past, present and future. Desire for change does not mean who I am now in not enough, desire for change is abundance reclamation. Desire for change is a clearing of new paths to explore. Sometimes naming my dreams feels disheartening because I create a deep divide between my present and changed self. In this binary my current self feels small and not enough. When I enter a goo era, I hold close that I am the other side of the bridge. I don’t withhold softness from myself till I’ve reached a certain level. On the goo timeline, softness is abundantly shared at all points of the journey. 
   

4. Embrace Mystery
   Those entering goo eras choose to embrace the mystery and stickiness that inevitably comes with change. New ways of being require new habits that may feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable at first. New ways of being ask us for moments where we walk by faith over sight. When I enter a goo era, I resource myself with what I need to move through uncertainty with intentionality and care.
   

   

5. Perceive Me, I Dare You
   When I enter a goo era I don’t allow outside perception and opinion to block my blessings. As I lean into new routines, I do not fear being seen trying. I am willing to experience the discomfort of perception for the gain of peace, expansion, and harmonization with my truth.
   

   

6. Grief Rituals
   New ways of being ask we leave old paradigms behind, and doing so can feel uncomfortable sad, or painful. When I’m gooey, I mourn. I let the tears fall. I write thank you letters to the people, places, and paradigms that I’m letting go. I play breakup playlists. I remember change doesn’t mean I have to be strong, I can be sad, I can fall apart, I can be soft. Goo recognizes mourning as a space to move with, not around.
   

7. Nonlinear Time
   Goo takes its time. Goo believes slow time is beautiful. To enter a goo era is to choose sustainability over burnout. If I meander, I meander. I meet my body where it’s at rather than forcing it to where I want it to go. I give myself grace through my loops, spirals and rewinds.

   

Shoutout to all my fellow goo era baddies. I’m sending much sweetness and fruit snacks your way. May this moment be a period of abundant, vibrant, and soft transformation.

🐛 - Annika

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I created a School of Softness shirt to fundraise for my dear friend’s top surgery. Only three more days till it’s gone for good. Cop one here!