Dancing Geek

I’ve a couple of ideas hanging around at the moment that I want to do.  The thing is, they involve putting myself out there.  They do it in different ways, but they’re both very much outside my comfort zone in terms of biggification.  And I’m totally stalling.

Am I really stalling?

I have “perfectly valid” questions cropping up about each of them, things like “What am I looking to get out of this?” and “Is this the right one to go for?” but the thing is that these are both just long winded ways of asking myself ‘Why?’:  “Why do I want to do this?”, “Why should I go for this one?”.

I believe that the empowering question is ‘Why not?’.

“What have I got to lose by doing this?” – Nothing

“What’s the worse that can happen if I go for this one?” – I get it

So those “perfectly valid” questions?  Yeah, they’re real questions, but they’re stalling questions.  It seems I can add ‘needing a very good reason’ to my list of stalling tactics:

• Staying up late and sleeping through the day
• Telling myself that I’m not ready, I’m not prepared enough
• Needing a ‘very good’ reason

Visualising my fear

This came from another extended (2 hour) meditation today – thanks to Joely for “giving me permission” by example.

After clearing my head, like I wrote about yesterday, I started to think about what was holding me back from following through on these two ideas, bringing my attention to how I feel when I think about them.

I noticed a tension at the base of my sternum, where the two rib cages separate.  So I gave it form in my mind and it showed up as this black, sticky, dense rubber ball.  It immediately started pumping out this noxious toxin so I put it in a bubble and ran a tube out of my body to drain the liquid away.

Thing is, I wanted to talk to it, so I tried to make a gap in this transparent plastic cover but every time I did the toxin would get sprayed through the hole (it wasn’t till later that I realised why).  However, I was pretty determined so I put a second ball around the first, put a drainage tube on that and then opened up a gap in the lower half of the first ball and the upper half of the second.  That way sound could travel (if a little muted) but the toxin was safely being drained off.

At this point, I got a strong feeling that the toxin wasn’t wanted by the black ball. So I asked if I could lance it to take away the toxins and it agreed.  A quick prick with a pin and a gush of toxins ran out and down the drainage tube.  The ball began to shrivel and dry out and it suddenly became clear that it was hollow as it split open down one side, being unzipped from the inside.

Out stepped a funny little creature – purple, bloated, but with two definite arms and legs.  It had been stuck in the ball and desperately wanted to take a shower.  So I made it one and it had a wash.  As it washed, the creature lost the purple colouring and bloated look.

It turned out to be a tiny little version of me (which totally threw me at the time).

I was naked, so I gave myself some underwear and we sat with each other for a bit.

I noticed that there was a sense of vacuum where the ball had been so I cleaned out the area with some warm scented water and then let it fill up with this.  As I did, the area expanded into a spacious, spherical swimming pool, fresh water ran in from above (my heart) and drained out below as there was still some ick left behind to be dissolved, and no one likes a stagnant pool.

So yeah, the fact it was right in my third chakra didn’t escape me.  Eventually, I noticed that my tiny little me had erected this protective barrier, complete with defense system, but that it had somehow kept going long after it was needed (namely at school) and had caused my little me to become trapped, deformed and unhappy.  Gee, metaphor much?!

So let’s add to the stalling tactics:

• Staying up late and sleeping through the day
• Telling myself that I’m not ready, I’m not prepared enough
• Needing a ‘very good’ reason
• Keeping everyone away by being toxic
• Hiding behind an unnecessary protective shield
• Trapping myself into a tiny space to be safe, even though it ends up totally disfiguring me

The bit that was missing

There still felt like something was missing after all of this so I decided to do some Shiva Nata to see if I could get anything more to come up.  I went through a few rounds then settled down to see what came up, just asking myself the question “What am I missing about this?” over and over again.  Suddenly I realised that a little story had played itself out in my head.

Rather than type it all out I’ll go with this: think a global version of Cloverfield, but with odd little pixies (blame Alex for those) and everyone running scared.  Suddenly it turns out that they’re terrified of me, my image is splattered across the globe and I’m an instant world hero.  The pixies all run away.  Then the world goes back to normal, except that everyone knows the pixies are scared of me but they don’t know why.  People start avoiding me, they start shouting at me in the street.  No one dare come near me.  I’m completely and utterly alone, I walk into a full dance studio and it empties and I’m left just dancing alone.

So yeah, again with the not very closely veiled metaphors – what can I say, I guess my subconscious understands that I don’t tend to get the subtle cues.

It turns out that I’m scared that if I let myself shine fully again that I’ll end up completely ostracised again.  Oh school, what wonderful things you taught me.  Let’s just pull that out so it’s easy for me to find again.

I’m scared that if I shine fully I will be ostracised (again).

Finding another way to feel safe

I am going to do these things, I happen to be fortunate enough to have a damn stubborn streak for things like this, so I could do with finding to help me feel safe even though I’m putting myself out there.

The most obvious thought is that I need to find people who are like me, find my tribe.  I have some great friends and groups already, but I’m also looking for other Dancing Geeks.  I’m looking for a way to feel like my own little brand of crazy is not so crazy.  I’m not sure how, but I’m sending this intention out into the world and we’ll see what comes back.

I wound up thinking about time yesterday (or rather this morning, but then with timezones and everything all those labels are arbitrary anyway).

So as I went to bed I made the intention that when I got up I would do nothing until I had done nothing.  That is, I would refrain from doing tasks and busywork until I had spent some time being still, whether in full meditation or journaling or whatever.

When I got up I managed to somehow remember this, grabbed a glass of orange juice to warm up the body functions, and found a quiet place to just be for a while.  I started by bouncing on my fitball, because it’s an excellent way to wake up the bodymind at any time of day, and after a few minutes of that (it is absolutely glorious to allow yourself that amount of time) I put on some calming music (3 hours worth roughly – I was giving myself plenty of time here) sat down, got comfy, made sure I’d be warm, and closed my eyes.

The noise that came up first of all needed to be dealt with, so I used my favourite technique of writing out the key phrases that needed to be acknowledged (stuff like worries about paying in USD via paypal to someone in the UK, an idea for my 12seconds video of the day, what I should do about a situation that’s been bugging me).

The bit I now get about meditation

A lot of what I had picked up about meditation (you know, the same way you learn about things like the stock market, the country of Iraq, and the idea that pig and pork are different words because of the Norman conquest – i.e. by hearsay) involved the idea that one aimed for a blank mind, letting go of thoughts that came through.  However, in my personal opinion, a much better approach is to bring awareness to the thoughts that are going through your mind.

A blank mind is like the uber-advanced level, but for anyone without years of experience and/or training then bringing your awareness to the thoughts you think will get you to a calm and quiet place eventually.  Which is where the writing it out part helps.

So whilst I had an intention to think about my relationship with time, I would only consciously think about this when there were no other thoughts whizzing through my brain.  During the beginning (I’m not sure how long) I would suddenly realise that I had gone off on a tangent and just try and bring my awareness to the thoughts I was having.  Noticing them, and seeing if they had anything interesting or helpful to tell me.  If they did, I would note this down and then go back to sitting.

The act of breaking away to note down the helpful part may actually be helping me reset to a calm state again, though I don’t know for sure, but usually this process means that that particular thought has moved on, and even seeing if it wants to come back will not result in the tangent getting picked up again – it has played out.  Rinse and repeat and quite quickly (there were only 6 off topic distractions) I’m free to explore the topic I want to meditate on without fighting myself over it.

Exploring what time is

As I thought about how I relate to time I had a few realisations, some of them personal, some of them perhaps useful to you.  So I’ll share them here for you to see if any are helpful:

• If I’m up late I can simply bring awareness to the situation.  Is it something I need right now, or is it just falling into a habit?
• I am often in denial about time passing.  I often resist its flow forwards.  I often seek to control it.
• I curl up time in on itself, into a dense tangled knot that stays in a small transparent sphere.
• I think I do this to avoid having to choose.
• I may have to mourn time I have lost in order to untangle this knot and accept reality as it is.
• By keeping time tangled up in a dense knot I can believe that my time (the time in the sphere) is infinite.
• Infinite time means that there is no urgency and so no motivation to go towards my fear.
• Infinite time is the same as no time at all, in that whatever discrete actions we take can be seen as happening all at the same time (given the appropriate scale). <–This one is a toughy to get your head around.
• If there is no sense of one thing happening before another then there is not value in paying attention to priorities.  E.g. in infinite time it will all happen at some point.
• Finite time fixes the scale at which we operate, giving a sense of urgency and a value to the order of actions.
• If I embrace my finite time (i.e. accept reality) I must embrace the fact that I will die.
• To not be distracted by my death I would need to make peace with it.
• In the meantime, which may last my whole life, I can give myself permission to be distracted and bring awareness to it whenever I remember.
• I may panic about not having enough time when I acknowledge what I want to achieve and the priority order of actions.
• I can sooth this panic by reminding myself that something is better than nothing; unfinished is better than not started; incomplete, cut short or put away is better than ignored.

Which leads me to my next question

If I decide to be mindful of time, using my thoughts above to help me remain so, then what do I want to do with my time?

Oh yes, we’re back to ‘what do you want?’ folks.

My stock answer (thanks to Charlie’s awesome comment) is: To flourish or to self actualise (pick whichever one doesn’t make you gag).

[Aside: It strikes me that I'm giving a lot of blog love to Charlie at the moment - I hope no one else feels left out - I love you all!]

Another way of phrasing it (because some words make people go ‘ack!’ and because a different word can offer a powerfully different perspective) is to fulfil my potential.

However, it may very well be impossible to fulfil all of my potential in a finite amount of time.  The same goes for anyone else, but this blog is about me.

Which some people never forget, but others of us do.  (It’s the oddest thing I’ve started to notice.  If we could remember all the stuff we knew we’d live in a utopia. Which makes me think that if we could exist outside of time, and therefore live all times at once, and so not be able to forget something that we knew at one point in our lives, then we’d basically be like perfect, boring beings.  Which can be a way of rationalising the motives behind the belief that we are spritual beings that put a part of ourselves into mortal bodies in order to travel through time in a linear fashion – almost like a test: how much can we remember? But I digress completely, if somewhat interestingly.)

This question starts to get circular here, is what I was trying to say.  What do I want? I want to flourish? What do I want to flourish at? Well, what do I want? Repeat ad nauseum.

The answer to what I want is not to be found in my thinking.  It is to be found in my heart (metaphorically speaking).

On a related note, but optional for skim readers, is the idea that I might want to serve others.  Which I do.  However, I’m starting to understand/believe (depending on your point of view) that I am not able to know ahead of time what value others will derive from what I do.  Therefore I am not able to wisely choose based on my perceived value of my actions.  I am left again looking at the question ‘What do I want to do?’ to be my guide.

So what now?

Oh hurrah, we’re nearly at the end of the post when this one shows up.

Two things:

• Mindfulness of time
• Mindfulness of heart

With regards the first I’m going to start recording how I spend my time and see if that doesn’t a) make an automatic difference because I instantly pay more attention and b) show up any patterns that are helping or getting in the way.

The second involves things like meditation, journaling and talking about what I love.  In the end it’s pretty much just mindfulness full stop.

P.S. It was 8 hours between me almost finishing this post and writing the last few sentences. Hmmm, there’s a few too many hours of blog reading and twitter in there.

*I’ve totally had that song playing in my head for 2 days now!

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?