Shiva Nata: the Dance of Shiva
What if you don’t like it?
Someone recently asked me …
Am I still one of your Right People if I don’t like Shiva Nata?
My response:
Oh, bless your heart. Of course, sweetpea.
No one likes Shiva Nata. Well, that’s not true. Lots of people do. I have no idea what’s wrong with them though.*
* It’s probably the students who have done it with me in person when we get all silly. I’ll bet they like it. Ridiculous.
But really? Not liking it? So completely normal.
Here’s why.
In no particular order.
- Dance of Shiva brings a ton of awareness to patterns in your life that you didn’t necessarily want to know about.
- It’s hard.
- There is no room for perfectionism: you’re going to be bad at it.
- You’re always supposed to be making it harder — you never get to enjoy being good at it.
- If you’re doing it right, you’re doing it wrong.
- Coordination is annoying because most of us don’t have any (not that we need to in order to be Shivanauts).
- Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
Fine. It’s not likable!
But then … why would you do it? Why would you keep doing it anyway when you don’t like it?
I wrote that post a couple weeks ago.
But if you don’t like Shiva Nata, I get it. Most of the time I don’t like it either. You have full permission to not like.
You can totally not like it and still be one of my Right People.
You can not like it and keep on not liking it.
We’re still going to keep doing it, though. We’ll keep doing it and we’ll keep finding ways to deconstruct the challenge, so that the emphasis is less on the hard and more on what we’re learning.
And sometimes we’ll scream and cry and throw things.
That counts too.
Twitter: pdxlilly
Hello Havi,
I have only had the Shiva Nata video for less than a week. It’s funny, I tried it the night I got it, I stayed up till midnight giving it a try. The next day I was flooded with insight, and I was blown away at the immediacy of this. Like, it works? What?
I’m a few days in, and am right there with you at the – “patterns in your life that you didn’t necessarily want to know about” phase. Also I am working and working at the first part to get it perfect, but I see that I am not supposed to go for perfection, so that’s a relief.
Whoa! I just had another realization, that I don’t have to be perfect in life either! Woo hoo!
Thank you Havi, Lilly
Hi all
I haven’t yet bought the starter kit. But intend to. In due course. Whilst I am looking forward to more insight and the opportunity to open up to even more positive changes in my life I do have some concerns around this form of Yoga and hoped y’all could help.
I am hoping that the changes, the epiphanies if they do indeed arise, are somehow gentle or received gently into my body and integrated gently into my daily life.
My concerns are: That I’ll be left spinning and all uncontained with stuff coming up so quickly in my body/mind/awareness.
I don’t want painful overwhelming body memories coming up from my past. I work deeply on my stuff, but as yet I see little point in going into that kind of pain, reliving memories. Nope not for me.
I’m a very strong feeling person and in the past I have done some body work in which lots of stuff came up in my body that i could barely name except to say that it was painful and hugely uncomfortable. That said I know enough about myuself to know where some of those uncomfortable feelings and sensations come from. But I feel that I need to tread very carefully with any mind-body work. Very powerful stuff and potentially dangerous for me.
That’s the best way I can think of putting it.
So I aim to be gentle with myself and make sure that any physical practise I do is gentle enough for me and not too cathartic. I know release of patterns usually implies some form of cathart.
Any advice, pearls of wisdom anyone from someone who knows what I’m talking about ie a hyper sensitive or people with experience of trauma held in the body or indeed experience so strongly in the body? Havi do you feel able to respond? It would be so good if you could comment or email me perhaps?
I’d love to here from you.
Hugs all round to everyone doing their wonderful Yogi and duckified thing!
Leila
Twitter: havi
Hi Lilly! That’s awesome. Sounds like you’re getting your share of Shiva Nata moments. I love it.
Wheee!
@Leila – I totally get it.
And I’ve written about this somewhere and I cannot for the life of me remember if it’s on the blog or in a noozletter or in the Starter Kit ebooks. So sorry if this is a bit all over the place.
The short version, in points, off the top of my head:
1. you do have to be careful to stay grounded and to put a lot of emphasis on grounding before and during your practice. Because it’s a LOT of energy.
2. however, I will also say that the Dance almost always gives you whatever it is you need. And my own experience and that of my students is that these realizations come in a gentle way.
It’s more of an aha lightbulb than an ohmygooooooood ohnooooo way.
3. I always recommend that people do shavasana after the practice and take time to journal, which also grounds the practice.
4. I’m also highly highly sensitive and much much trauma stored in body, I haven’t had horrible experiences. I have had *knowledge* of repressed memories come up, but not the pain of the memories/experiences themselves. It’s always given me the next piece of what I need to untangle. And then I move on to the next challenge.
Hope that helps …
xox
havi
Havi
Thank you. Sweetie. Good woman. Thank you.
After care and before care required with deep work. Yep. Tick.Understood. Great recommendation.
Point four though reassures. Even though I’m still scared. Yes of course.
But you know I can totally dip in and out and develop the trust like any new practise.
Knowledge of repressed memories coming up. As opposed to re-living. Fine. Hard of course, but good too. Yeyyy.
Thank you Havi. Honest. Wow.
Brave soul.
Hugs
Leila
Also. Your post today. Inspiring.
L x