A peek into notebook from Rally (Rally!). This is from yesterday.
Let’s talk
Q: Systems! I’m stuck! Let’s talk. So. What is the essence of what I want when I think about systems?
A: Order. New patterns.
Q: Why do I want this? Why do I want order?
A: Because it creates ease. And ease leads to flow.
Q: Give me an example.
A: Okay. Today you got all kinds of good shit from the stone skippings. But it’s in this random yellow legal pad, which is going to move from place to place and be depiled a million times and there will be iguanas and eventually you’ll have to type it up…
Tightness.
Q: I’m feeling all tight and anxious listening to you right now. Is that part of this too?
A: Yes. You feel tightness when there aren’t ways for things to flow. And you feel resentful when you have all this useful information and you can’t use it. And you feel frustrated when you don’t know where things are.
Q: So flow is the opposite of tightness and that is where the new systems come in?
A: Flow means change. And here’s the thing. You’re upset with yourself for making more work instead of less work but you don’t think you have the right to be upset because you don’t think this can change.
I don’t know what to do.
Q: I don’t know what to do. What do I do?
A: You think creatively. You do the types of things for yourself that you do for the Rallions and for your coaching clients.
Q: For example?
A: Like if you make a Rally Revue Anthology… and a folder with worksheets for all the capers and exercises you do at Rally, including the stone skippings. Then when you finish stone skipping, you place those pages in the anthology under Rally #10. They’ll be there for you when you need them, and you can highlight things of importance. Structure is beautiful!
Q: Structure is beautiful? Tell me more about this.
A: It just is.
Explain?
Q: But I don’t get it. Explain?
A: Like the Victorian garden. It calms you because it is ordered. There are patterns. It shows you where to go. Don’t you want to be shown where to go? I mean, you do Shiva Nata and you skip the stones to find out where to go, but then you don’t keep this information in places where you can track it. Is it because you love chaos?
Q: I do love chaos and chaos is also beautiful. So what do I do? How does this work? How do I have order and chaos at the same time?
A: You already know how to do this. You know it from Shiva Nata. Chaos and order are not in contradiction.
Q: That sounds familiar.
A: Right. It’s how Shiva Nata works. You use the chaos to take apart the old patterns, and then the new patterns, structures and forms show up. Chaos and order are both part of the process. You can’t do just one side of it or it stops working.
Q: But how do I apply this?
A: Listen. Everything you do already has elements of chaos and order. The stone skipping questions are order: they have a form and a shape that guide your thoughts and your words. But they are also chaos: once the stone is dropped, you don’t know where it’s going to go.
Q: Keep going with this.
A: The stone establishes a world. A world! A sovereign world for you to play in. And then within that world you are completely free to follow your explorations wherever they lead you. They don’t have to make sense. They just are.
But what do I do?
Q: But what do I do?
A: You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to figure anything out. You’re already doing it. You already live with both chaos and order. All you’re doing is bringing in a new pattern to replace the one that isn’t working.
Q: So what does this new pattern look like, aside from making a folder?
A: It’s about commitment.
Q: What do you mean?
A: It’s about committing to processing your stuff in a way that you can use. It’s saying yes to form and order, to living without piles, to being able to look up information.
Q: I still don’t really understand. I mean, yes. I make a folder and then my life is easier. But I’m still really resisting some element of this. What am I supposed to DO?
A: You keep asking this question even though you know it’s not the right question. So I’m going to answer it and not answer it. I will tell you what the next step is.
What’s the next step?
Q: What’s the next step?
A: Talk to the you who has done this.
Q: Done what?
A: I’m calling silent retreat on this one and let you figure it out. I’ll talk to you later.
Postscript!
I did end up talking to the me who has done this.
And I’ll post that part tomorrow…
And comment zen for today.
We share our stories and process if and when we want to. We can call SILENT RETREAT whenever we feel like it. We don’t give each other unsolicited advice. We make room for our stuff. We take responsibility for our experience. We play.
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
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“It’s about committing to processing your stuff in a way that you can use.” BINGO, for me.
My Book of Me is only A Bunch of Stuff Scattered in Different Places. I know where to go to get to all the bits & pieces, but it is very much a snapshot of chaos.
But…when I think of organizing it all into one place, I get antsy because I don’t want someone finding it and reading it. I think I feel “safer” with my stuff scattered so that no one would be able to find it all or know what any of it is if they did find it. Need to chew on that, because really, who would ever care to read my stuff?! Hrm. Need to think about this more.
Oh ! Excited about tomorrow’s reading !
Today I am struggling with my data set and left the professor’s office crying this morning after getting yelled at and
*sad mouse*
and
i did totally leave the office with responding !
and
very happy to read something wonderful about bringing order!
The question of the day
– what did the me who did this do ?
And i am wondering if she totally went and had a nap about it. and whether she totally walked away from this situation. and if she is happy about it.
Questions !
after the napping.
love all around
loving this. thank you for modeling some more interviewing for us.
Silent Retreat. 🙂
Looking forward to tomorrow…
You are my BEST imaginary friend. I am so happy to have you flailing, whistling, skipping along with me.
In my own practice, I’ve been discovering the alchemy of repetition. And maybe the brilliance I write down so avidly isn’t actually all that critical. When I go back time after time (not in a driven way, but a calm, reaffirming ritual way) and revisit the question and look to what the question has to tell me now, there is a slow evolution, a deepening, a ripening and the insights grow in me, in my muscle and bone. And then I just move better because I KNOW what to do, even when I don’t know where I wrote it down.
And also I aim to build some really lovely tool to help capture and hone the building of these insights into usable stuff. I just haven’t done it yet. And for the time being “MacJournal” has been very helpful to me in organizing little bits in findable, theme-able ways. In case that sort of thing tickles your fancy. But ugh. I do spend a lot of time transcribing.
I love that you called silent retreat on yourself. I need to keep that tool in mind for when the monsters are endlessly querying–but why? Why? Why?
Me: I call silent retreat on this. I’m going to go and do, and you can watch if you want to. We’ll talk about this later, but right now then endless why is getting in the way.
Well. Your conversation struck a chord. My life stuff is in disarray, the result of a long ordeal. And I am really tired, and have prioritized to basic self care. But I would be so much happier and calmer if I got everything organized and had a system. In the meanwhile, I have decided that kindness to myself and positive encouragement is the way to go.
When I add up all I have had on my plate, I amaze myself. And so non-judgement is in order. Affirmation of my worthiness, in spite of being disorganized.
As always, Havi, thank you for this.
Silent retreat is a good thing.