Shivanautical realizations + epiphanies: take 1
Oh, odds and ends from my Dance of Shiva practice journal.
Or, more accurately, a bunch of post-it notes.
But yes. Things I realized this week after Shiva-ing it up here and there.
Oooh. Interesting observation that completely surprised me.
So. My fear of conflict is … not the fear of conflict itself.
Which is weird.
I thought (and I have always thought this) that my fear is of other people being angry with me or saying harsh things.
But my fear is actually of myself — that I will blow my top. That I will say the really mean things that only live in my head. In the heat of anger, I will tell someone that I think they’re a fraud or a jerk or a horrible excuse for a human being.
And that will make me co-conspirator in a world of cruelty.
When the people I’m avoiding confronting are awake in the middle of the night, their agonizing self-doubt will be reinforced by the opinion I couldn’t keep to myself because I got mad and started saying what I think. Ugh.
This is a relief to know, because I’ve spent my whole life trying to get over the thing that makes me avoid conflict.
But it’s really about having clean, clear ways (hi, NVC) to express myself. Because the thing that scares me is not the thing that scares me.
The thing that scares me is internal, not external. Which means I can work with it. Phew.
Found a pattern. Moved the pattern.
I have serious workaholism issues, yes.
And it’s no big secret that a huge part of that is fear of depression. That if I stop working myself to the bone, it will be agony to get out of bed, and I’ll spend the whole day just trying to get my act together to the point where I can do laundry and come up with something to eat.
That’s the stuff I’ve been working on in various forms for however many years.
Boom. Five minutes of Shiva Nata today and I realized that that each of those roles (the workaholic and the depressive not-able-to-do-things person) are really the two life roles that were consistently modeled for me while I was growing up.
It’s the kind of thing you’d come up with in therapy, over the course of a few months. And it was just there. Right in front of me. Completely obvious.
Along with the reassuring piece of information that I don’t have to live the lives of other people just because that’s what I got from watching them.
I don’t have to work myself to death.
And I don’t have to fear the not-doing, because my [insert non-cheesy word for "path" here] is different than theirs. Sigh of relief.
That’s mostly it.
There were a few other things about movement.
And I got a couple of completely genius business ideas.
If you have Shivanautical realizations and epiphanies of your own to share (even tiny ones), you can totally leave them in the comments.
Or — if they’re super personal and you’d like me to post them without using your name — send them to Marissa with first name only.
Unless you have a super-unusual first name like me and then just make one up.
Talk soon. I’m off to sunny Sacramento tomorrow — will be teaching Shiva Nata all weekend there.
p.s. my big Destuckification Retreat in January (where we’ll be doing Dance of Shiva every single day for a week, along with Old Turkish Lady Yoga) is more than half full.
If you haven’t applied, do it!
Twitter: williehewes
Aw, man. I totally wanna learn Old Turkish Lady Yoga. That sounds like the best thing.
Interesting to hear about your fear of conflict related epiphany. I have fear of conflict issues. Like, just a little. Don’t think what’s going on with you is what’s going on with me, but it is nonetheless interesting.
My Shivanautical epiphanies tend to be very… on topic. Recently discovered that if I work more on executing the moves precisely rather than trying to roughly hit the right spot, it has a deeper effect on my back and feels nice.
Not very shocking, I know. Ha!
Willie Hewes´s last blog ..Looking for a Butt-kicking Partner
Twitter: elizabethhalt
Oh.
A jolt of recognition.
That is what my fear of conflict is too – and I thought it was the other thing. And since I also live on the other side – where someone in your life says every cruel thing that comes into their head when they are angry – and I know what it feels like to lie awake riddled with loathing and self-doubt after those things are said to you, it makes me even more fearful of not being able to control my own words and doing the same thing.
Will have to finish reading later .. my eyes are, ummmm, watery.
elizabeth´s last blog ..the story of a pup and a pillow and a pillow fight
Same topic came up in my palpation & perception class yesterday! My teacher, Sheila Murphy (amazing bodyworker and all around human being, btw), doesn’t actually believe you can take on anyone else’s stuff. It is however absolutely possible to have your own stuff triggered when you encounter someone else’s similar stuff. You practice grounding and work on your stuff and then one day, maybe very far down on the road, you find that there is no wind strong enough to rip you from the earth. While you’re still a sapling though, be nice to yourself.
My question of the day (and many days) to Dance of Shiva:
What do I need to know to dissolve the block I have around receiving money?
My answer (which I think I’ve heard before but never really listened to):
Look at your relationship with money.
Yes, I have heard this, but I realized that my relationship consists of feeling restricted (I’m poor and tired of it!) and guilty (my credit card statement says WHAT?!). I spend no quality time with money. My next question will be about how to do this.
Gooooo Shivanauts!
In my post-Shiva Nata meditation the other night, I developed a lump in my throat. Not an actual lump (like you need to clear your throat) but a lumpy feeling that was just there. I couldn’t make it go away.
Then I wondered about the throat chakra. Could there be something I need to clear up there?
First I needed to find out more about the chakra since I’m not that knowledgeable about any of them frankly.
Looked it up and found this:
“The negative archetype of the Throat Chakra is the Silent Child. This archetype holds onto its feelings and does not reveal its hurt, pain or anger openly. The Silent Child stays closed in order not to reveal its intense pain and sorrow, or its abuse.”
Oh boy…yes, there’s something about this that feels like I need to investigate. I did some further meditation to clear the chakra – imagining clear blue light energy going through my throat. This actually made the lump disappear. And while not a ‘direct’ epiphany, I now understand that I’ve been resisting letting my young self come through. There is sadness and anger and now I will make it my intention to talk to this child and see what comes up.
I had two noticeable post-Shiva Nata epiphanies this week. I guess I might get more if I did it more often, huh?
One epiphany involved moving a wall in our house, which will solve some problems that have felt unsolvable, and the other was about why people adopt recognizable labels (like, for instance, depressive) to define themselves. I finally got that maybe the connection/community that comes with doing so can be comforting. I’d heard people say it before but never understood it myself. I still don’t *really* understand it, but it suddenly made more sense.
I also had some big thoughts about how the same way money is units for a limitless thing (call it abundance for lack of another less-overused word), time is also infinite but has units of measure that we all agree to trade (hours we sell for $, appointments we make, etc.), and maybe making friends with one small-unit-of-something-big could impact one’s relationship with the other. But that’s all still too fuzzy to put in the epiphany box.
I’ve been struggling at school and trying to puzzle it out, so my intention today was asking what I need in order to be ready to move forward. And then there was flailing, in which my feet kept going in the wrong directions (yes!).
When I sat afterward, I got an image of something resembling a curly-furred hedgehog and a feeling of sadness. I was surprised, because it’s the first time I’ve had such a strong visualization. Anyway, after I sat with the feeling for a minute and shed a tear or two, the hedgehog told me it didn’t want to be smart anymore because being smart keeps people away and it’s lonely – like playing alone at recess. Yeah, that might make it tough for me to put in a lot of effort at school. So I got to cuddle the hedgehog and agree that loneliness stinks, and remind it that we get to hang out with all those cool, smart(!) people we know who show every evidence of liking us even though we enjoy reading. At that point, I think the hedgehog fell asleep.
Twitter: artistkatanab
path could maybe be… bus route?
because everyone takes a different one, although many of them are shared, and sometimes they are inconvenient, but sometimes we want to get off, but eventually we will get to where we’re going, and the more anxious I am about going there, the less enjoyable my own personal bus ride is. or something.
for me, anyways.
katana´s last blog ..How to Become a Full-time Artist