I am in my 8^th week of shiva nata. This journal has played an important role in launching my practice. I feel blessed with my new shiva nata community of friends — a group of wonderful supportive people. I did a lot of thinking this past week and I came to one very important decision.

 It is time to retire this blog.

What? You just got started! 8 weeks is nothing. What are you doing? Havi mentioned you on her blog several times. You can’t just stop now?!!!

I know! I have said this to myself many times in the past week. And still I know this is right. For a few reasons:

1. I am touching places in my post shiva nata reflections that are intensely personal and well… private. They are important for me to journal about and not so important to share. TMI…you know?
2. Crafting daily blog posts has been a labor of love and still– a labor. All these breathtaking epiphanies have also been working their magic for my real life’s work: my coaching practice with leaders in non-profit organizations, teams and private couples. That is where my time is needed most right now. I have tons of ideas for my monthly newsletter and I now write a column for Simple Marriage as well. (check for my post this Thursday!)
3. There is a wonderful Shiva Nata Group Blog that Amy started not long after I started this one. I have contributed to it as well and I hope to continue to contribute. We are a great bunch of shivanauts and would love for you to join us with your comments and experiences.   
4. Havi- to whom I owe a debt of gratitude on so many levels– has her awesome shivanata blog, and to all of you who have purchased her starter kit, etc. you know how many other incredible resources she offers.  

THANK YOU

Thanks to all of you who have been incredibly generous with your comments and from whom I have learned so much. This is me signing off as I rub some hot buttered epiphanies on my sunburn. (Not! Actually I stayed in the shade like a good girl so no burns- just kidding!)

I am not sure it will be possible to do wild and crazy shiva dancing without the DVD. However, the crashing waves were an incredible companion.

This week is likely to be about quiet contemplation and settling.

Starting to read: The Unfolding of Now by A.H. Almaas.

Stay tuned…

And…the tire guy isn’t letting me go. And that bit about needing an ally that I concluded yesterday’s post with is still very much on my mind.

In my dream-like musings the tire guy actually seems somewhat maternal. I am struck by the fact that he is large and soft. To embrace him would be to be enveloped by him in a safe and secure hug. And his message…

“You are trying to be something you are not.”

I was so quick to defend against it. So sure that he represented my nemesis. That he wanted to bring me down. Of course, I assumed he was behind my bad habits and was keeping me from healthy peaceful and intimate living.

And now I think the very knee-jerk, defensive reaction is actually a pattern of mine and not at all a reflection of who this tire guy is or represents for me. What if he is in fact already an ally?

Today I read the book, Circle of Stones: Woman’s Journey to Herself by Judith Duerk. I began to wonder if I am trying to be something that is harsher, more doing-oriented than being-oriented, more external striving than internal accepting. More male than female. More escaping of self than returning to self. And that is when the tire-guy’s words came back to me:

“You are trying to be something you are not.”

Maybe I am. Maybe he means well. Who am I trying to be anyway?

Am I trying to be something? Who am I?

BIG STUFF- I know. Tomorrow I leave with my family for a one week vacation on the beach. I am looking forward to days of ocean breeze, shiva nata on the sand, reading & relaxing with my family. I am not sure how often I will post.

Shiva Nata will continue as will my exploration of tire-guy’s offering. Check back Shivanauts!

Practice

I posted on the Shiva Nata Group blog yesterday that I was going to flail to fail. I was committing myself to challenge and getting it wrong. So my practice was to run through the fast combined horizontal arms and legs 3 times and the combined vertical arms and legs 3 times. Phew. I definitely flailed and failed. But interestingly there were actually some points where I was tracking Andrey pretty well. I just kept saying out loud- failing is my aim. And it calmed me down. It shut down the voice of judgment.

Epiphanies

Part 1

I have continued to struggle with some bad habits and patterns. It is too tiresome to me to tell you what they are. I start rolling my eyes, and think, ‘there she goes again’. So… I won’t. Instead I will tell you about the voice I started hearing in my head as I lay in the dark recovering my breath. 

“You are trying to be something you are not.”

What?

“You actually heard me. You are trying to be something you are not. But I won’t let you fool yourself. You can’t sustain it. That is why I have to intervene and set you straight.”

Wait a minute. You are behind these tiresome patterns that are driving my self esteem into the ground?

“You have that wrong. When you try to be something you are not, you eventually are shown up to be a fake and this causes your self-esteem to plummet.”

Excuse me, I am not at all happy with your intrusion into my life and your insistence that you know better. When I take care of my body and my energy, I am exactly who I need to be & I connect with others more fully. If you know so much you would know that I crave that. Who are you?

And out of the darkness, he emerged. He was none other than………… the Michelin Tire Guy.

Part 2.

So the tire guy…

Tires are made of rubber; rubber is smelly and not very pleasant to be around. Tires don’t last forever. Their tread wears thin. They get punched out and fall flat. They are full of air. They pick up all kinds of gunk on the road as they travel and they leave their marks everywhere. And yet, if you are going to drive somewhere, you need them.

I assure you none of these associations were conscious when he showed up in my post-Shiva Nata sitting. And it  occurs to me that in some form, this is the self-image that is trying to assert itself and that propels me into some of the tiresome patterns I have been battling.

I have this sense that this tire guy has been around for a very long time. He is almost cute, right? He kind of grows on you. And I am resisting the urge to be mean and destructive and just get rid of him. I would much rather transform him into an ally. I could use an ally.

Here is what I am coming to know in my bones:

If I don’t challenge myself in shiva nata I not only get none of the bennies I backslide. Today Amy posted a tweet about her diminished desire for coffee. She wanted to know if other shivanauts had the same reaction.

Well, I did! Really I did. I also had a diminished need to snack and a real sense of slowing down the time between whatever impulse I had and my acting on that impulse. That was so incredible and now it seems to be in the distant past.

My only explanation is that I am not challenging myself enough.
I need to go back to Havi’s incredible essays that came with the starter kit.

A practice note:

I think I am becoming partial to verticals. Somehow they flow easier for me. I find that when I combine them with the legs, there is a higher likelihood that I can keep the arm movements going (most of the time) even when the coordination with the legs are totally off. On the horizontals, there are some sequences that are becoming second nature and others that I just seem to be blocked on. So when it comes to combining them with the legs- all hell breaks loose.

And joyful excitement: Havi just scheduled a Dance of Shiva DVD tele-class. I am really looking forward to learning more and having questions answered. If you haven’t already bought the starter kit: BUY IT NOW. This is a great time to get started AND be on a call with other shivanauts, yes?

Epiphanies:

Did you notice I am not qualifying that word anymore? Amazing huh?

In my post shiva sitting I think I had a waking dream. This has never happened to me before. I can conjure up all kinds of unreal scenarios but this really felt like a dream only I wasn’t sleeping! [Note: this is not like when my husband is snoring loudly next to me and then startles awake and asks, “I wasn’t sleeping was I?”]

Anyway, I saw a father and young son sitting side by side. It was as though they were talking to a coach. And the little boy was saying that his wish is that his dad would take care of him and there would always be enough underwear. (I know; you can’t make this stuff up, right. Underwear??)

I am not so sure I can jump into an interpretation yet. I need to sit with this some more. The first that comes to me is my own need to take care of me better. But it doesn’t carry the power it should. So… stay tuned.

• I had barely 10 minutes of shiva nata in the ladies room yesterday.
• I have had 4 hours of sleep.
• This morning, I got 15 minutes of working the vertical arms with the leg sequence on my own without the DVD.

I noticed that yesterday was the first time in 6 weeks that I felt resistance to practicing. I pushed past it and did my 10 minutes but it couldn’t possibly have had the same impact.

I am also upset with myself for wishing this week to end. (On Sunday,  our family goes off for a week-long vacation!) Why upset? Because ever since I started the Shiva Nata I have been so much better at saying this, now. Loving what I am doing, finding things to appreciate.

I think exhaustion is probably the biggest culprit and honestly there are things to appreciate. I just don’t want to do that today.  So, snit- here I am.

zone of proximal development

The practice 

Here is an amazing thing about time and our experience of it: 

When I started flailing with the combined arms and legs together at fast speed, I felt like Andrey Lappa was moving so fast it would never be possible to move at that pace. Now, only a week later, he seems to have slowed down! (Don’t get me wrong. I am still flailing madly and my heart is still beating like mad when I am done. But still… did he slow down his fast movements?) 

In the education world that I came out of we talk about the zone of proximal development. Cognitive psychologist Lev Vygotsky coined this term which has come to mean the level at which learning is pitched to a learner such that s/he can advance with just the right ratio of challenge to support. And eerily, as I advance in my shiva nata skills, I have the illusion of Andrey adjusting his speed to meet my skill! 

And BTW, I think it is critical to include practice without the DVD. That is where I really start challenging myself and fully engaging my mind and body. 

Epiphanies 

Two nights ago my dream opened up a path for me to confront my fear of intimacy. Today in my post-shiva nata sitting (which I actually did laying down in the dark with the window open-but let’s not quibble over details) it occurred to me that when I am running from my fear I can’t confront it. I need to stop. I need to stay put. And just then a splash of cold rain hit my face. As if I was being told, what is the worst that could happen? You get wet?  

I am left with some thoughts about the connection between the sensation of the slowing down of the DVD and the need to slow down as I confront my fear. Being hit in the face by rain is not the same as being hit. What I fear in mortal danger intimacy may simply be a way to come alive and awake to my surroundings.

I have my handy-dandy sheets with me. This feels like a test of my committment. I am determined to pass it.

If you have stories of practicing shiva nata in odd circumstances-it would cheer me on to hear them.

Hope to make an encouraging report tomorrow! Sparkles, little piphs, hey I’ll take sore arms!

And I read Briana’s post about her powerful dream (waiting with bated breath for her part 2) and thought, huh- haven’t had powerful dreams lately, what’s up with that. And then, and then…

I dreamed this totally Freudian or Jungian something (Soul Sleuther help me with the difference!):

I was being framed by a really gorgeous, totally put-together woman in some kind of a spy movie type set-up and the dominant feeling was fear. Cut to a scene in a dark room where I am calling her on the phone after having escaped to safety. And I can’t hear everything I am saying but it is clear I am having my say- total honesty and brave words. Then I am on the phone with my cousin in Israel and she tells me, “BTW, after you talked to that woman, she committed suicide!”

And this is important because:

Yesterday I wrote a letter to intimacy and the dominant feeling was fear. I think I may be foreshadowing my ability to get myself to a safe place, let fear know exactly what impact she is having on me and why this can’t go on. And then, fear will take off. On her own accord.  [And of course fear is gorgeous and seductive and entices me into all manner of stupid and unhealthy habits]

The realist in me says things don’t happen this simply and fear never disappears forever. Like in the Batman & Robin movies (don’t ask me why they are on my mind lately!) the antagonist comes back in a new form. Even so, even so…

I feel encouraged. And I feel powerful somehow. I haven’t faced fear down yet, but I sense it is possible. And that is a great step forward.