Slowly, but surely.

Today’s post is from Danielle Cornelius: fellow Portlander, Somaphile, one of my wonderful students and all around amazing person.

Super interesting piece. Yay, Danielle! And thank you!
– Havi

I don’t know about you …

… but I have a bit of a tortured past with exercise videos.

It always begins with the best of intentions … but after a handful of viewings I just can’t take the cheesiness or the repetitiveness or how disconnected I feel.

So these videos usually end up collecting dust.

When I stumbled on Havi’s blog last year, Dance of Shiva caught my eye. Intriguing!

I was knee deep in chiropractic school at the time and didn’t feel like I could start anything new, so I just started reading the blog and kept it in the back of my mind.

Now, I can see how starting this practice then would have helped me get through the final year of school with much more confidence and clarity, without taking any additional time but you know what they say about hindsight.

Given my history with videos, I was hesitant.

Not because I didn’t think it was probably total genius, but because of my own stuff.

I was at a point in my life where I wasn’t willing to pay for anything I wasn’t absolutely certain I would actually use. So I waited.

In the meantime, I really developed a trust in Havi and a deep respect for what she endorses and teaches. Even then I still felt like I didn’t have a lot of time to learn something new — especially something that is supposed to be hard.

Supposed to be hard?!

I mean, I just finished grad school and am SO OVER THE HARD.

But then I had some big massive anxiety-producing tests to take. And I have issues with test taking.

And I knew that Dance of Shiva would help me!

Actually, it kind of already was (just from engaging with the practice through reading the blog) so I resolved to give myself permission to take it really, really slowly.

And, that’s what I’ve done.

I can’t say that I’ve had any major hot-buttered epiphanies. But I can say that — and this is astonishing — I have had no sense of should at all at any step of the way during the process.

And I am a repeat offender when it comes to should-ing on myself.

I took it to heart when Havi said “Doing it is the mark of success, not doing it right”– which has made an important difference in the way I approach this practice.

But when I said slow, I meant slow.

At first, I read everything that came in the package but let the actual DVD collect dust for about a month. I did put it in a place where I could see it every single day.

I finally opened it and placed the DVD in the machine (that little bit can be a big step sometimes, am I right?) and watched all of the introductory theory stuff.

Then I followed Andrey through the first portion of level one. Then I put the DVD away and gave myself permission to play with what I learned for as long as I needed to.

I spent just a few minutes each day (or whenever else it would occur to me) trying to make sense of what I learned. Trying to see if I could do those arm movements on my own.

And I commenced studying, meditating and working on my test anxiety issues.

Four weeks later, I put the DVD back in to see how I was doing.

I had half of it all right and somehow totally skipped another part. Now I’m working on the other half.

No, really — slow.

Many weeks later, I’m still at the very beginning of level one. And I like it that way. I mean, I have spent the last seven years trying to shove an insane amount of information into my brain and in that process, I lost sight of the basics.

My intention in doing Dance of Shiva is all about laying a foundation and keeping my focus on the basics — letting the practice build as slowly as it needs to.

Does this count as an epiphany?

I just finished four years of grad school. Before that, I spent four years working and going to school — both full time. My to-do list in school got so insane that it left me completely dumbfounded at times. No matter how hard I worked, The List kept growing.

I’m not in school anymore (Yay!) but now I have a brand spanking new practice I have to plan for and blog writing to worry about — so The List is still in full force.

But there has been a huge shift in the way I interact with it.

You know the movie The Matrix, right? There is this point near the end where Neo realizes his true power and is able to suspend hundreds of flying bullets flying in mid air.

He looks at his nemesis (who is actually the dark side of himself, but that’s a whole other topic entirely) and cocks his head to the side as if thinking “Ah. Now I get it”, and then major badassery commences.

That’s how I feel now about my to do list. It’s like time has slowed down, each task is suspended in mid air and I can grab what I need to do.

The rest of the tasks patiently sit and wait while I commence with the whole changing the world thing.

I have also noticed a better ability to make sense of all of the random information in my brain. in school The Suits used the metaphor “drinking from a firehose” regarding the way they throw information at us and I would say that is a bit of an understatement.

The result has been an insanely foggy brain. Not just a little foggy, but maybe-I-should-see-a-neurologist foggy.

Now, I’m seeing patterns where I didn’t see them before.

I’m seeing connections in everything. And, I’m seeing how I process things and the steps I take broken down into smaller steps. My memory is coming back, clarity is coming back. It’s like my brain is being re-hydrated.

So, I’ve already had a sci-fi moment of clarity (which my inner geek loves) and I’m only still just flubbing up the first part of level one.

Oh, right. There is also the little detail about me totally rocking my exam. I focused more than I’ve ever been able to focus and I owned that exam.

If I was still should-ing on myself I’d be saying I should have started this practice the second I heard about it. But, I don’t do that anymore.

I think this is going to be a long and very interesting practice.

Thanks, Danielle!