And upon her head she wore a crown... by fishyfish_arcade

1 – Follow your bliss is the nice side of the coin

“Follow your bliss” is something that I’ve seen bandied about in my meandering of the internet and books that talk about personal development, self-actualisation, happiness and even some spirituality.

Follow your bliss, however, is the easy part.

It has some tricky parts to it, for sure.  Not tripping yourself up by feeling guilty because life is ‘supposed to be difficult’ or feeling like you don’t deserve to be happy.  But this is all just negative mental conditioning, and with an open mind and the question ‘Is it true?’ it doesn’t take long for it all to be seen for the codswallop that it is.

Nope, the hard part is the flip side that doesn’t seem to have managed such aphorismic ubiquity:

When there’s no bliss – do nothing.

This one is the one that requires real faith.  This is the one that challenges what you’ve been taught without giving you anything to go on but the understanding that filling your time with busywork serves only to distract you.

Another annoying aphorism?

Whilst the concept is a simple one once understood, it is not so simple to communicate it clearly.  Indeed, ‘follow your bliss’ has surely been massively miscommunicated in its time, and so it is worth spending a bit of time talking about what I actually mean.  Or rather, to start with, what I don’t mean.

I’m not talking about stopping absolutely everything, if you take it to its conclusion it becomes obviously ridiculous (for one, you have no conscious control over your heartbeat, and even if you did, stopping it is not conducive to longevity).

So “nothing” is an over-simplification.  Rather, we want to be conscious that we are not being strongly drawn to anything at the moment, avoid distracting ourselves with busywork, enjoy what things we are drawn to continue doing, and take this lack of action as part of the cycle of life.

In the middle of winter it can feel like Spring will never arrive, but it does.  (Handy Aphorism of the Moment or HAM: This too shall pass.)

Perhaps other contenders for the flip-side aphorism are:

If your bliss isn’t leading you somewhere else, then you’re right where you should be.

Follow your bliss – even if it leads nowhere.

If you can’t find your bliss, sit still.

Ok, perhaps the first would not qualify as an aphorism, but by the end there I may be getting somewhere.  It’s short, sounds incredibly meaningful, and can only be understood by someone who doesn’t need to be told.

Side rant

This is what annoys me about aphorisms generally.  They’re used in the wrong situations.  They’re basically mnemonics but people throw them about as if they explain the concept they represent.

That’s like handing a flag to someone and expecting them to understand everything (or even anything) about the culture of the country.  (Thought I admit, some flags do have some info in them).

It’s bloody annoying (particularly amongst those who continue to try and espouse wisdom on twitter only to spout bullshit).  Please stop trying to sound clever by randomly shouting out random things used to help people remember stuff.  It’s like tweeting: Richard of York gave battle in vain (colours of the rainbow) or Every good boy deserves food (musical staves) but without the context and with an air of smug self-satisfaction.

2 – There’s another side of the coin to healing too

But that’ll have to wait for another time.

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They’ve taken video of a wonderful contemporary dance piece called ‘One Flat Thing, reproduce’ by William Forsythe and created computer imagery in order to help pull out the themes, movements styles, cueing, counterpoint and various other details that make this piece so exciting.

If you’ve ever watched dance and thought “I don’t get it” go check out the synchronous objects site.

Now this is how you use technology to enliven art and bring it to people who wouldn’t normally find it accessible.  I’m in love!

If you want to know where I found out about it, check out the Great Dance blog.

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My little project has been named and christened with a hashtag.  Let’s all dance hurrah, hurrah!

A little noticing

I realised tonight (this morning) that the only reason I don’t do a vid is because I forget that I can.  Today for some reason I realised that despite having danced all day and then gone out to a concert (classical – Brahms and Beethoven – and meh) and it now being silly o’clock am before another day of dance that I could still (despite a couple of technical hitches that set me back) get a 12 second vid out.  In fact I did two today, I like to think it’s because I’m making up for missing days, but the truth is I couldn’t pick which 12 seconds to show and figured I’d just share both!

Anyway, if you don’t see a 12seconds post from me every single day you have my permission to creatively kick my ass using whatever method you feel best!

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Shiva Nata: all is forgiven

If you follow my other blog then you may have noticed that it’s been a little patchy.  I haven’t really felt inspired to do Shiva Nata and have therefore had little to say about it, or to show by way of video.

On wednesday morning (yup, it was 4.30 am again) that changed.  I’ll write more about how and why over there, but for now I’m just totally thrilled to feel like I’ve found the way forward in a practice that was starting to feel stale and passed it’s usefulness.

Switching identities

I was doing my meditation writing before bed, given it’s success at bringing stuff to my attention, and I realised that I was getting a lot done during the day but that I would still be drawn to various ‘procrastination’ tasks in the evening and well into the night, such as twitter, reading blogs, email, and general link following.  I wanted to know why I was doing this, so I did some Shiva Nata and my meditation and found a tiny shimmering thread which I carefully followed.

A page of journal later and I remember Joely’s comments about identity.  My feeling each night that I hadn’t done what I was supposed to do were tied to an identity of someone who didn’t get the right things done in a day.  I realised that if I identify as someone who gets it all done in one day then I will have no excuse to not get on with it all.  That’s worth repeating.

If I identify as someone who gets it all done in one day then I will have no excuse to not get on with it all.

Now this begs a question: get on with what?  To which the generalised answer is ‘anything that matters to me’.  So let’s get specific.

What have I been up to so far then?

Every day I wake up and do what is most important to me: bodywork, meditation, connecting with people, connecting with food, thinking & writing.

This is a list that I could not have written not so long ago.  It is the connection to each of these important parts of my life that has been my journey for the last 18 months.  Yet this list is not complete.  These are for me ‘hygiene tasks’.  They are about keeping me centred, connected, resourced, supported, in other words: at my best.  I have deeply connected with each of these in my explorations to date and will need to maintain these connections to continue forward in a confident, balanced and powerful way.  But something was still missing…

What was missing?

I had a real sense that there was something that I wasn’t getting done.  Having identified that the tasks I was now getting firmly rooted in were to support me I realised that it was the sense of moving forwards, of doing the great work that this support was to enable me to do, that was now missing. I finally felt ready to start growing into myself, to start coming out of my chrysalis and showing the world my true colours.

Finding a sense of purpose

During my journaling (I’d segued into my larger journal when it stopped being about ‘What am I feeling right now?’) I wrote three different senses of pull that I feel in terms of the direction that I want to go in, and indeed have been feeling for a long time (read: my whole life) and from there I simply asked myself, for each one, what would I need to do in order to take one small step in that direction.

At this point my neurons must have simultaneously played <insert name of piece of triumphant, fanfare-y, climactic classical music here because going duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh, duh, duh! doesn’t quite carry the impact of what’s playing in my head and I don’t know what it’s called – damn my poor training in the classics!> on their iPods because bam! thunderbirds are go!  Each direction provided me with an action I was already taking in a small way.  As each one appeared fireworks played overhead in an explosion of light.

• To speak in my own voice – just like I’ve been practicing on this blog
• To act from a place of greatness – like I do every time I connect with someone from the heart
• To give value in a way I find meaningful – such as all the different ways I help others when I can
  

And they combine in one simple mission statement:

To speak in my own voice, from a place of greatness, so as to give value to others in a way I find meaningful.

The imagery I get from this is massively powerful to me; a warm, radiant sun basking a field of corn.  I feel confident, balanced and powerful.

Starting today

I may not be there now, but I can see myself there without fear or trepidation.  Today I can start walking towards.

The imagery from my statement above is too strong for me to adapt to in one morning.  Instead, I can look at how I have already started living these aspects in my life and just make sure that I continue to walk this path each day, making progress, growing stronger and more confident, and starting today.  Indeed, I started when I was born, but now I walk this path aware of my way, with pride and with determination.

I will not always feel so confident as I do now.  I will sometimes forget the strong sense of purpose and direction that I have finally found.  So I have written myself a question to help me find my way again, to bring me back to my path.  It is an unassuming question, one that asks only the smallest of steps, and yet can lead to the greatest of leaps.

Today, how can I be a candle in the dark for one person in my own quiet, uncertain way?

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There’s an idea floating around in my head (source unknown) that more constraints can lead to greater creativity.  So I decided to sit down and started playing with movement.  After trying a few things along the usual lines it just didn’t work so I started to try playing with the webcam format a bit more and came up with a mini-dance that isn’t necessarily what I’d think of first when I hear the word dance, but decided that as a work in 12 seconds (the brevity being part of the constraints and part of the attraction to my scanner brain) it could stand on its own quite happily.

Tomorrow’s?  I have no idea, I am not planning these.  I’m working on lots of my stuff by doing these.  Putting myself out there as a dancer/choreographer/internet bod/video guy, not worrying about getting it perfect, doing a little bit everyday to build momentum.  There’s probably other stuff too, but that’s all that comes to mind at 1.11 am.

My medi-journaling thing this morning?  It went well thank you (I did it again, which is  cause for celebration in itself, and yes I celebrate it by writing it in my little book of ‘Awesome things I did today becuase I’m awesome’) and was oddly quick (just 11 emotions today).  Not sure if that’s due to lack of sleep (had to get up to meet family after my geek out last night) or because I needed food first thing and then played the piano for a bit before sitting down to do my morning practice thing.  It could just be because I’m pretty calm at the moment, but where’s the drama and hypothesising and blame in that, eh?  Oh wait, are they maybe not such a good thing?

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My own little morning thing

It’s only been the last two days, but I’ve found my own little morning practice that has proven to be pretty darn tooting awesome.  Yes, it’s really that good.

It basically involves me sitting still (so, there’s a meditation-y aspect, but nothing so formal as to make me feel ‘shoulds’) and feeling (note: not thinking!) and then writing down exactly what I feel (so my left-brain gets to do something and keeps busy).

It comes from something that Joely suggested in our fabulous Shiva Party last weekend (that would be the ‘write down what you are feeling’ part).  It works for me because it’s something that I can achieve, with some effort.  It’s a challenge, it makes me work, so I feel that I will be giving various synapses a workout, but it’s not totally alien or out of my reach so that I feel unsure that I’m doing it right or never feel like I can finish (I like finishing things, finishing things makes me happy).

The end result is also pretty spectacular.  Though I fear to jinx it (rational mind steps in to scoff at superstition) the last two mornings I have found that as I go through and write down a list of the emotions that are milling around (In Just a Minute style, so no repetition, deviation or hesitation) that each one (and the count stands at 35 and 83 for each day!) gently melts away and I’m left with a real sense of calm that has lasted a long while, and even returns after a while if I get wound up by anything.

A new thing with no name!

One of the reasons that today saw such an increase in feelings was because I started a new thing last night, and it’s all about putting myself and my dancing out there in 12 second chunks!  Much whirring of emotions, but ultimately a determination to create lots in order to create good stuff.  That’s the way it works, or so I’m told.

Anticipation of food

It really is telling that my sole focus on the gardening is around how much food I can get out of it, but there you go.  Today saw me planting out a load of seeds into trays, but I’m a little worried that I got it all horribly wrong.  Fortunately, I made sure I didn’t use all the seeds in one go, so in a few weeks time, whatever happens, I shall start my second batch – continuous cropping FTW!

Tweetdeck on Ubuntu

Yes folks, I’m a geek, and that includes running Linux on my laptop (though it’s the super user-friendly Ubuntu – even your Granny could use it) so it was a joyous moment when Adobe finally got the Air application system thingy working for Linux users too.  Now I can run Tweetdeck actually hold decent conversations with people and see what’s going on without being overwhelmed.  I’m now on a mission to find as many Dancing Geek’s as possible, and get to know some of the cool people in the UK that also use Twitter (thank you @StephenFry for the big push).

Home Pilates studio

Well, a laminate floor now exists in my little corner of the house (it’s also the spare room and piano room, but ostensibly it’s my corner and is respected as such.  Which is a good thing, because it’s a real pain to have to piss over the door to mark the boundary).  Coupled with my new favourite toy, aka a fitball (think Space hopper without the handles and spherical – or just think big fuck off bouncy rubber ball), a foam roller (thing over-sized and over-priced pipelagging without the middle hollowed out) and a yoga mat I now have enough bits and pieces (not forgetting my dolphin massager and spiky balls) to do a good bodywork session.

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Today I was in the flow.

I’d struggle to tell you any of what I wrote about without checking my writing, but for the first time that I can remember I feel like I really started to get a grip around how this writing lark will work for me.  I’ve spent so long just writing and coming up with various bits of gunk and bleurgh and yuck but today it felt like it flowed.

It made sense, it sprouted more thoughts, it made me go look up interesting facts in books I had read and then read a bit more of the book and understand a bit more of the book.  Insights rolled onto the page, patterns were found and laid out bare for inspection.

I don’t have anything in particular to show for it, not a finished project or piece of work, rather I have a sense of progression, of moving forward.  This, for me, is huge.  Having normally measured my progress according to boxes ticked and to-do items done, it was amazing to spend hours concentrating on something constructive but not necessarily productive.

I feel clear, fresh, like flowing water.  I feel like I managed to let go for a while, to float down the river and move forward in my crazy, haphazard, bouncy journey without needing to have a goal or endpoint set, but rather in the joy of the journey.

I captured lots of useful thoughts and insights to keep me going on my ever-changing path.  (So I guess I do have something to show for it, but they’re the jewels found along the road rather than the ever retreating prizes at the end of the path).

I’m not sure what it all means but I know that I liked it and I’m going to try and do it again.

I’d like to put some stuff together to share, but there’s no promises; as selfish as it may sound, this stuff is for me and until I get to a place where I’m stable enough to work from it has to stay that way.  Once I learn how to swim in this river then it’ll be a whole different game.

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Either way, so long as I keep learning new skills for being with this stuff, and practicing my existing ones, then I should be able to make headway in clearing through some of the layers that I’ve put up to protect myself in the meantime.

My current list of passions

So having had a go at listening, and being honest with myself, and not judging myself, I now have a list of times when I believe I have felt truly happy.  The list to date:

• performing dance (but I’m not a dancer, no no no)
• talking about personal responsibility, healing, truth & love (but I’m not a life coach or healer, no no no)
• thinking about systems & planning (but I’m not an analyst, no no no)
• answering people’s questions (but I’m not a consultant, no no no)
• helping people understand each other (but I’m not a mediator, no no no)
• getting clarity through my writing (but I’m not a writer, no no no)

[The bit in brackets is to stop me freaking out.  I'll have to deal with each of those in turn - maybe I'll share that too.]

What I can see here though (ever with the pattern spotting) is two different threads:

1. Things I do for myself: dance & writing
2. Things I do to be a helper mouse: the rest of them

My heart just said a big ‘YES!’

I’m a helper mouse.  That’s my passion.  If I had one day to live, no money and no end of people asking for my time, I would help as many of them as I could before I died.  (Thanks, Dana for helping me notice this via twitter.)

Another friend said once that I should have an Ask James site.  I can not express the awesomeness of this idea.  And I avoided thinking about it for a long time because, well, see above re: not listening to my heart.  Of course, I have no idea how that would work, but the idea is awesome.

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• Passionate about human connection

If human connection is my passion is it not a passion for some other people?  Do not all people crave connection?

Certainly there exist those who shun it and suffer, but are there those who aren’t hurt without it?

Then again, passions such as music are pretty fundamental too and I wouldn’t question those.  People live with less music in their lives and suffer.  People embrace music and thrive off it, live off it get energy from it.  In that same way I could describe myself as energised by connection.

Examples of living my passion for human connection

• Contact improvisation dance – physical, creative and emotional connections
• Mediation between friends/family – soothing connections
• Advocating social media as a tool to connect (and not just sell – bleurgh)
• Being a generalist/scanner/renaissance soul – wanting to connect to so many different things
• An intense curiosity about other people – being nosey or trying to connect?
• Being outgoing – I want to meet people, I get energy from other people

I can also see that times when I’ve been afraid has been around connecting to others

• Fear of being hurt
• Fear of being betrayed
• Fear of being disliked

These are all common fears, but is there a link, a thread that runs through them?  More importantly, are there passions and fears that do not relate to human connection?  If so, what does this mean?

Is this ‘the one’?

Can an umbrella of ‘human connection’ cover all my passions?  Is it so vague and ubiquitous as to be meaningless?  Right now, I’m not sure, but here it is in black and white for everyone to see.

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• Following a thread as far as I can
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Passion confession

I ended up admitting that mine would be dance, specifically contact improv.  Only I hesitated to say it, and I hesitated to acknowledge it.  Now, I thought I was avoiding it because I had some basic ‘fear of success/fear of failure’ type thing going on with it, only in truth I know that’s a pile of bull.  I know I can do it (it’s one of the things the group I’m in do best) and I know I enjoy it.

So I had a think about why it is that I’ve been avoiding it and I suddenly realised that I was shoulding myself.  The voice in my head was going something like this: “if it’s a passion you should be wanting to do it all the time, you’ll have to do it every day and travel all over to get more of it”.  Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds more like an addiction than passion, and it certainly wasn’t attracting me to the idea.

Today I worked out that it was because of this quiet little voice (you know, the kind you don’t hear out loud until you start doing things like Shiva Nata) that I had been worried, and that actually, when I think about it, all I need to do is look to make sure that I’m getting some contact improv in my life – as much or as little as I want.

So I’m going to chat with my dance buddies and see what happens.  We meet on Mondays, so feel free to call me on it after that

I’m allowed to have more than one

My other passion would be self-growth.  This is the one that more closely fits the “whatever I’m doing I’ve got to get me some of this” type of description.  Though again, it’s less of a craving and more of a drive.

Another should warning

Now, the whole “What is your passion?” question (which should really be ‘What are your passions?’) first got on my radar because I was looking at what my perfect job would be.  And so I’ve got in my head a line of thought that goes: Work out your passions – Practice them to get good at them – Go make money at it.

This would be another should however.  I don’t have to do that at all.  It’s simply a shorthanded way of saying that if I practice what I enjoy so that it becomes a marketable skill then I could paid to do something I love.  That’s too far down the road to know what’s going to happen however, in this crazy, churned up, constantly changing world, so for now I drop my shoulds and simply state an intention: to keep living my passions.

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• Passionate about human connection
• Following a thread as far as I can
• One last word (for today) on passion