retinal perspectives

people!

I have discovered the best benefit of my Shiva Nata practice. I can now pick up one of Atlas' toys between my feet, jump up while holding onto the toy with my feet, and fling the toy into the toy basket - all without falling onto my face.

Doesn't that make you want to try it?

(I suppose I could have just said that my balance and coordination has improved, but that's not nearly as good a visual.)

(missing) a feeling of safety

I don't quite know what's going on but I have epiphanies rolling in left and right these days. I have noticed that my Reiki treatments (for myself) seem more intense, and I have been practicing Shiva Nata regularly, so I suppose it's to be expected. It's just that it's a bit overwhelming. They're all huge. They're all important. And they're all getting at deeper reasons for why I do the things I do (or don't do).

I decided that my focus for the month would be trust. I have a lot of issues with trust. It's important and useful. It's probably worth some focus.

The one message I keep getting consistently is that I need rest. I need rest in general. I need rest to process and integrate the epiphanies. I need rest to discover what's next. And yet, I resist. I don't trust the message. Plus, I don't know how to rest. Whenever I think I'm resting, I'm really doing things in my head or I'm worrying about all the things I think I should be doing instead of resting.

I was talking to a friend and she mentioned something about resting being connected to safety. Something about that thought rang true.

And then that night, while I was trying to sleep, it hit me.

I don't feel safe. Ever. Because once upon a time, in a moment when I felt safe (and was naked and vulnerable, no less), someone I trusted poured boiling water on me.

The me of now knows that it was an accident. But the me of then is small and scared and sees everything through a filter of fear. She thinks that something bad could happen to me at any moment. She believes that safety and vulnerability and trust lead to pain. And she knows that since she cannot control everything, I am never safe.

No wonder I can't rest.

No wonder trust keeps coming up as an issue.

No wonder money and weight keep coming up as issues (both of which represent safety to me, in varying forms).

I must confess that I found this very fascinating. I also didn't really know what to do with it, so I took it to my BodyTalk session later that week and told the practitioner about it. Along with doing the session itself, she suggested that I look for moments when I feel safe and take note of them so that it becomes easier to remember what safety actually feels like.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm looking for safety.

giving away my power

I have been trying to write this post all day. Well, off and on. Even when it makes sense in my head, the sense does not translate well to paper. As the very wise Briana says, sometimes epiphanies resist our attempts to translate them into something clear and concise.

As a matter of fact, I've sort of been working on this post for months. I have a draft version of it somewhere; it never felt fully formed enough to publish. But for some reason, it is a post that must be written. Even if not as fully or as clearly and concisely as I would wish.

So.

When I was growing up, I gave away most of my power. I don't know if the who or what is particularly important. Really, it was to pretty much everyone but me, though church and family were the primary ones. (I suspect this is true for many people.)

When I say that I gave away my power, I mean that things were vetted against whether they were acceptable to someone else. It didn't really matter what I felt or thought or wanted to do, except as it fit under the prevailing order.

After I graduated from college, I moved far away. And then I got my Atlas pup. The epiphany I had the other day was that I happily gave control of my life over to Atlas because the pattern was familiar and comfortable and felt safe.

(In hindsight, this was actually rather clever because he so wonderfully models the importance of listening to your self and knowing that you are worth listening to.)

The funny thing about this is that when I started writing this post months ago, I thought I had had my epiphany. I totally missed the Atlas piece of it.

Now, I know that the next step is to continue to learn how to slow down and listen to what feels right to me. I am learning to do this in some areas. I need to learn to do this everywhere.

This feels horribly scary. It feels like my own version of "the buck stops here". There are so many fears. The fear of visibility. The fear of rejection. The fear of isolation. All of these fears trying to keep me safe.

At the same time, I can see that I will become more fully myself in the process. So there is that.

slow is good

The message I keep getting, in oh-so-many forms, is that things are moving at the perfect pace for me. That slow consistent progress is good. That I need to learn the value of periods of activity and periods of rest.

Part of me really believes this. Part of me doesn't. But even the part of me that believes it finds it really hard to trust that it is so.

The message that faster is better is everywhere. It is hard to miss. Faster is better. Do more in less time. Do more things at once. Get "there" more quickly.

To make matters worse, I just realized that I am coming out of ten years in high-tech, where that message is even more prevalent. Faster is always better. Always. (Ok, so I do occasionally wince at the slowness of my seven year old computer, but still.)

This makes sense now. It is no wonder that I have trouble trusting that my current pace really is good. And by good, I mean right for me.

By the way, I am definitely not saying that slow is inherently good or that fast is inherently good, just that fast isn't necessarily always better. At least for me.

This also explains why I do not like practicing Shiva Nata slowly. So, I think I will start to do the occasional slow practice, and see what happens.

Want to hear something funny? Before I wrote this post, I practiced Shiva Nata with the intention that I receive love and clarity around a blog post. I meant around the blog post that I was going to publish today but decided it needed one last quick edit. Instead, this post came into my mind. Like I said, the message keeps coming up.

money, money, money

Apparently I have lots of thoughts about money. The latest one happens to be that it is not possible to make enough money to live on while doing the things I love. (I suppose it's a good thing I didn't know I had this belief until *after* I left the day job. Oy.)

I'm a little fuzzy on where this thought came from but I suspect it has something to do with knowing that I am supposed to have a job with benefits. And that since I am supposed to have a job with benefits, there must be a reason for that - like maybe it's the only way to make enough money to live on. Who knows. I am not interested enough to find out.

I am more interested in playing with this. After I practiced Shiva Nata, I wrote, "What do I need to do to shift this pattern or to play with it a little?" into my journal. My suggestion (to myself) was to watch for people who are doing what they love and making a living and make mental notes each time I find one.

This seems a little tricky because how do you really know for sure unless you know the person. Regardless, I am going to try it. I do not think this is a particularly useful belief for me to have and I suspect that it is one that has the potential to actually derail my efforts to make a living doing the things I love. Besides, I will think my mental notes are correct - and that's what matters, right?

just do one thing

I had a Shiva Nata epiphany - a Shivapiphany? - last week that I found rather interesting.

My project for the summer is to start an etsy shop for photos and photo cards. It is a lovely project but it seemed oddly slow going. I'd start the day with all these thoughts running around in my head of things to do. And yet I'd end the day without doing any of them.

When I journal after Shiva Nata practice, the thing that comes up quite often is, "Take one step at a time". This is such an obvious statement that I tend to go, "Whatever. What else would I do." and ignore it.

Well .. the epiphany behind this finally hit me.

When my head is full of all of the things I need to do for a project, the number of things to do overwhelms me. I can't decide which things to do when. I can't decide which things are most important. I can't be sure that I'm not missing something. And so I do nothing. Well, I guess I'm not doing nothing - I'm doing a lot of thinking - but no action is being taken.

Hence my advice to myself. The thing I need to do is just pick one thing and do it.

I've been trying this out and I have to say, I am remarkably productive. (To be fair, the bar was extremely low.) Who knew.

saying goodbye is sad, even when it's happy

Today, I said goodbye to my career of ten years. I knew this day was coming, so I was trying to work on my Reiki services page. For months, mind you. I wanted to post the page before I left my job. It was one of those things that seemed like something you should do. You know, "You should probably hang your shingle out before you say goodbye to your primary source of income."

What did I get done during all those months? Nothing. Well, that's not entirely true. One day, I wrote a few sentences. A few months later, I wrote another few sentences. So yeah, pretty much nothing.

Last week, this started to stress me out. I wanted to know why the words wouldn't come. One day, I set an intention for my Shiva Nata practice - for clarity around the page. After I practiced, I did a bit of journaling.

The question: Why can't I finish my services page?

The answer: you'll really be putting yourself out there; it's hard to take that final step; the other steps were easier.

Ok, that was sort of helpful. I went about my day and forgot about it. But later, when I was taking the pup for his after-dinner walk, I started to cry. Poor pup; his walk was cut short. By the time I got home, I was really crying, and I had no idea why.

I decided to try this thing that I had heard about where you write a question with one hand and answer it with the other - supposedly it accesses a different part of your brain.

The question: Why am I so sad?

The answer: Oh, sweetie. You're grieving a loss. The loss of the life you had. Even if it wasn't right, it was familiar and comfortable. Putting up the services page is like stepping over the threshold. You need to grieve that loss. {By the way, I would like to point out two things here. First, it took forever to write this with my left hand. Second, I called myself sweetie! This makes me so happy. I can see how far I've come.}

Oh.

Ohhhh.

I let the sadness run its course. I said goodbye. A few days later, I wrote a draft of the page. It's still not posted, but I realized that I'm not really in a hurry, and I don't want to post it just because I feel like I "should" do so.

All in all, this was a good reminder to me that a change involves both a goodbye and a hello, and that even if I think I'm happy to make the change, there are probably still elements of the goodbye that are sad.

a year of experiments

Inspired by Shannon's gift to herself of a year of meditation, I had a brilliant idea for a birthday gift. I am calling it the year of experiments.

See, there are all these practices that ideally, I would include in my (every) day. Things like Shiva Nata, meditation, yoga, drinking 4+ glasses of water, eating leafy green vegetables, eating dessert .. I know that when I do them, my day goes better. I am better. Life is better. It may not always look better on the outside, but it always feels better on the inside. And yet, I include them sporadically at best.

Enter the year of experiments.

They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. Every month, I'll start something new, and do it for the next 30 days. My hope is that by the end of that 30 days, it'll have become a habit, something I just do, like brushing or flossing. (I wish I could remember how long it took before flossing became a habit.) If it's not yet a habit, I figure I'll at least be more likely to do it more often than not, and I can always start again some other month.

This idea also avoids my tendency to try to do everything at once. And that, I can tell you from experience, means that nothing at all sticks.

This month, I am practicing Shiva Nata every day. Yay.

The thing I have noticed so far is that I am more comfortable with the idea of shorter practices if I know I'm going to be practicing every day. And sometimes, the only reason I didn't practice prior to this was because I could only practice for five or ten minutes and it felt like I needed to practice longer to make it worthwhile. (Which is funny because I also know that even a few minutes of Shiva Nata practice can work wonders. The mind is an odd thing.)

We'll see how this goes, but so far, I am liking my present. (Ok, I also gave myself Michael Jackson's This is It album from iTunes, but I am using it for Shiva Nata practice so it doesn't really count.)

Is there something you'd like to incorporate in your life? Feel free to join in! My month is starting on the 16th, but yours could start whenever you want.

why hello, my need for perfection

I practice this thing called Dance of Shiva, also known as Shiva Nata. I love it. Actually, I am rather addicted to it. That is, if you can be addicted to something that you don't practice daily.

I was a very sporadic (and I do mean sporadic) practicer until I went to a retreat in January where we practiced daily. At the end of the week, I saw the effect that regular practice had on my body and mind. After that, I was committed.

Dance of Shiva has levels. The DVD includes practices for the first three levels, and I know what the fourth and fifth levels are so can attempt to work them out on my own. The idea is that once a level is no longer difficult for you, you move up.

{This will probably not make sense unless you practice it, so I will keep it short.} I tend to skip around a lot. I spent some time on level 1 but never mastered it, played with level 2 for a shorter period of time, and now bounce around between level 3 and 4 and 1. Basically, I spend most of my time flailing.

During all of this, I was waiting for the perfection monster to strike. The voice that says, "You're not getting it so you may as well give up. Other people have gotten this by now. You're behind. You should have gotten this already. You need to be perfect."

It never did. I was so excited. I thought that maybe it was because the Dance offers you the freedom to get it wrong. But the thing that I did wonder about was why I felt the need to spend so much time on the higher levels, when I hadn't mastered level 1, and wasn't really spending the time trying to master it. Then, I listened to a Dust off the DVD teleclass and Havi reminded us to check our patterns. In that instant, I knew that the monster was there all along; I just didn't recognize it.

Back when I got the DVD, I wrote a blog post that explained why I was intrigued by it. To quote part of it, "I am a recovering perfectionist. Confession: the idea of something being hard forever and ever sounds horrible. Just horrible. If I can't figure something out quickly, I get extremely frustrated and tend to give up (occasionally I even cry or whine, just ask my sister)."

There it was - the reason I was jumping around so much and not taking the time to really master level 1. I knew it was going to take time, and it was going to be frustrating, and I was going to feel like I was the slowest person ever, and sometimes it would even feel like I had taken two steps forward and three steps backwards. As a result, I was avoiding it altogether.

So, I am playing with that pattern. I am still spending time playing with the higher levels, because it's fun and I enjoy it, but I am also taking the time to practice level 1 over and over and over again. It is taking time to really learn it. And sometimes it is frustrating. And sometimes I do feel like I am the slowest person ever. But it is also deeply satisfying, because when I am practicing level 1 now, it feels like I am really practicing self-kindness.

I saw energy again - hurrah!

I had another experience with seeing people's energy. I was at a seminar and we were doing Shiva Nata. After moving for a while, we stood still, closed our eyes, and put one hand on our heart and one hand on our belly. As I closed my eyes, I saw everyone's silhouette in my mind's eye - all warm and golden and glowing. As with the first time, it was amazing. I wanted to clap with glee.

We were doing Shiva Nata as a way of working with our resistance. The second time we stopped and closed our eyes, I saw a warm golden glowing silhouette again. This time, it was me. But, behind the silhouette was a gigantic hulking black shadow that was towering over the golden silhouette. The shadow was my resistance. That was not quite so amazing. (Truth be told, I cried when I saw how large it was.) But it's there. And eventually it/we will learn that it is only a small part of me.

It is interesting that the two times I have seen people's energy were both during yoga/meditation practice. It makes me wonder why that is, and how I can use those lessons to learn to see it during other moments as well.