Ask A Shivanaut: what’s with the epiphanies?

Really. What’s the deal with waving your arms and legs around?

It’s a reasonable question. People ask. Hell, the first time I did Dance of Shiva, I had no idea what it was going to do to my brain. And I certainly wouldn’t have believed you if you told me.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the question:

OK, I watched your little demo video.

I don’t get it.

How does that bring an epiphany?

Thanks.

Okay. Here’s how it works:

When you use movement and coordination exercises to force the brain to engage both hemispheres (what scientists call “crossing the midline”), the challenge creates breakthroughs.

This is the basis for many of the techniques that are used with people who have various brain dysfunction issues and also for things like autism.

The Shiva Nata work takes this concept way, way deeper.

Because we’re not just doing right-brain-left-brain create-a-challenge stuff. The Dance of Shiva work is based on an entire system of challenges. Which get harder and harder as you go.

You basically are following ridiculously complex, systematic mathematical sequences at ever-increasing rates of speed and dexterity. So you get the same breakthrough effects, but at a much higher level.

Obviously you also get improved coordination, but that’s really just the beginning. Because what you’re doing is creating new neural connections that actually allow you to use and access more of the brain’s capacity for both structural and intuitive thinking. Which is where the epiphanies come from. 

Example?

So a lot of people start spontaneously changing their habits when they start doing yoga. Which is awesome.

Except that a lot of times with yoga these changes happen for us in a pretty slow, steady fashion.

After several months or years as a practitioner you start to realize “Oh, I like myself. I want to take care of myself better. I like how it feels to breathe. I’m going to stop smoking and consume less caffeine and eat better and sleep better, due to what I have learned.” 

Yoga changed my life for the better in a gazillion ways but I still wasn’t able to heal the root of my habits. I could stop smoking, but I couldn’t stop wanting to smoke, you know?

With Shiva Nata, it was more like: “Zing! I get it. I’m smoking because I have a deep fear of being judged if I express my anger. Also, I don’t feel comfortable taking a break when I need one. What can I do to get better at speaking my mind and giving myself space?”

It took about five weeks and I was done forever.

So the realizations are bigger and faster, and so are the results.

That’s just one example, of course. And it’s an example of an understanding that happened on the mental level and then had results on the physical level.

But really, you tend to get what you need. People have physical breakthroughs where they are able to do poses that weren’t available to them before, or energy experiences and emotional understandings that help them do healing work on their issues. Or moments of spiritual understanding and clarity.

So it’s really about what you need from the practice. What you need from your brain-body connection.

Does that help?

I wish I had a better explanation than that. I wish a gaggle of genius scientists were out testing Shivanauts and coming up with even better theories and better ideas for how we can use this technique to make big, crazy changes.

I wish my inner cynic weren’t still baffled by just how amazing and extraordinary this process is.

But that’s where I am right now. A confused, intrigued, happy Shivanaut, using the practice for pretty much anything it can give me. And in awe. Completely in awe.

Anyway, you should give it a try if only because it’s the most insanely cool thing ever.

If you practice every day — and you’re always, constantly, steadily challenging yourself with something that is way too hard for you — and you don’t get any epiphanies after a month, I’ll be astounded. And I’ll totally give you your money back.