Shivanautical realizations + epiphanies: take 3

Oh, odds and ends from my Dance of Shiva practice journal.

More Shivapiphanies. Oh boy! (or gee whiz, if you’re my nephew-in-law.)

Oooh. Interesting observation that completely surprised me.

These were mostly work-related this week.

About why I have trouble taking time off.

About why I get sucked into things that I don’t want to get sucked into.

Got some more information on something that scares me. Useful.

Posts aplenty!

Shivanautically relevant ones, that is.

A useful piece in Psychology Today on the neuroscience of mindfulness.

“When you focus your attention on incoming data, such as the feeling of the water on your hands while you wash up, it reduces activation of the narrative circuitry.

This explains why, for example, if your narrative circuitry is going crazy worrying about an upcoming stressful event, it helps to take a deep breath and focus on the present moment. All your senses ‘come alive’ at that moment.”

The trouble, of course, as we all know from meditation and yoga is that — while it’s awesome when we can focus on the present moment — sometimes it’s ridiculously hard to just do it.

That’s what’s so genius about Shiva Nata. It neatly circumvents the thinking parts and gets you into that quiet here I am headspace.

So being all present moment-ey is just something that happens, instead of something you have to remember to make happen.

And then Pearl started a blog called Shiva Nata Callings & Pearl is NOT having a mid-life crisis. You should read it.

I’m really looking forward to following her practice. Brilliant!

Other people’s cool stuff.

Some super interesting results from some of the people who got to do Shiva Nata with me at the Sacramento Biggification workshop last week.

One of the themes we were working with was finding out what our internal resistance has to say.

I’m just going to put some of it out here because it’s so beautiful. And so familiar.

When the stuck stops talking and starts watching.

“One of the things I noticed about my resistance is that in the beginning of the day, it was muttering ‘hippie shit’ into my ear and in the early afternoon, it was “worried” about the car.

But halfway though the Shiva Nata session, it shut up entirely and was just watching me to see what I was doing.

It went from a child having a tantrum to a curious child learning.”

Uh huh. I know that moment too.

Or how about this …

When you find out what the resistance is really afraid of.

“It seems like most of the time, my loudest resistance or critic is about not being good enough — what if people don’t like my thing, what if I have nothing to offer, blah, blah, blah.

So it kind of feels like standard old news.

But after Shiva Nata I also became really aware of the part of my resistance that’s really scared of being too good… that if I’m too good at something (or maybe too successful or whatever), then people won’t like me and it looks like a very lonely place.

This other quieter part felt more emotionally charged, much older and sadder.

Discovering where your resistance lives and what it needs.

“I learned that my resistance needs to feel safe, and to feel like safety is as important to me as it is to it – and that maybe it would do well with a job, a way to protect me that is acceptable to the both of us.

Not sure what that is though.

Also discovered that it lives in a dark place in the back of my head behind logic and intuition – but it wants light and openness so it can dissolve, because it’s not really happy in there. This makes me happy somehow.”

Discovering why your resistance is unhappy.

“My resistance was craving safety, too!

I also discovered that it was living in a smelly hovel with no space.

And possibly not much to eat. No wonder it was pissed off.

Now wondering if I can work towards creating a safer, more comfortable environment for my resistance and where to start!”

Chills.

That’s mostly it.

In the land of the Shivanauts, that is.

Nu?

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!