So I’ve basically been in bed for three days now.
Except for teaching the Shiva Nata class at the Playground last night, which was crazy and beautiful and impossible to describe.
But mostly bed. Recovery mode from the weekend that may or may not have been eaten by bears.
And since my whole thing is consciously interacting with whatever is going on, I have been using this Time In Bed to ask a bunch of questions.
And here they are.
These are the questions that I scribbled on in my Notebook of Recovery Time in Bed. I used them for stone skipping practice.
In no particular order…
- If I were to rewrite the weekend that resulted in being here now, what would I do differently?
- What are the parts that I would do again?
- What does this remind me of? Any elements that feel familiar?
- Who else has played my opposite role in this situation in the past?
- What’s my pattern here? And am I doing it now? Yes, yes I am.
- What are my options now for consciously and lovingly interrupting this pattern?
- Any scared parts of me from then who need attention and/or safe rooms?
- Talk to the resentment. What does it know?
- Hello, “You’ll Never Get Out Of Bed Again”. You must be one of my fuzzball monsters. What do you need in order to feel safe?
- Would you like to do some coloring?
- What am I sorry about?
- I forgive myself for __________ because ___________.
- Another person I want to forgive is __________ because ____________.
- What’s the most unexpected thing I could do right now that would still feel safe, supportive and congruent?
- If I had stronger, clearer, healthier boundaries, I’d probably…
- The version of me who’s really clear about sovereignty — what would she do?
- Slightly Future Me has already resolved this. What does she wish I knew?
- Without negating the legitimacy of the hard and painful bits, what is useful about this experience?
- What am I learning from this Time in Bed that is going to serve me well with my mission? Note! I don’t have to know what my mission is in order to answer this question.
- What’s next?
- What needs to change in my kingdom?
Your mileage may vary.
These might not be your questions.
Sometimes a question isn’t your question. There’s nothing wrong with you and there’s nothing wrong with the question. It’s just that — at this particular moment in time — it’s not a match. That’s okay.
These questions might remind you of other questions.
Or interacting with one of the questions here might lead you to the question that you need.
The main thing is, we try things.
We operate from the following assumption: in any given situation, we have the right to play. To interact, to experiment, to find out what we need.
Play and questions are friends. What if things were like THIS? What if I tried THAT?
Play with meeeee! And the giant comment zen blanket fort.
If you would like to ask yourself any of these questions about a situation you’re currently in, go for it.
If you’d like to invent new questions and share them (or not), that’s cool too.
If you’d like to donate some imaginary pillows to the Refueling Station, I’d like that too.
As always, we all have our stuff and we’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their own experience and so we don’t tell each other what to do or how to feel. We practice.
Happy (possibly Blustery) Windsday!
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The forgiving ones are the hard ones. How do you forgive yourself? I can’t. I still think about, and feel guilty for, just about every stupid thing I ever did as I am trying to go to sleep at night. They just don’t go away.
I hear the questions!
They coincide with a time in which I WANT to be in bed all the time although I drag myself out. Now I know what I want to do – stay in bed and ask questions š
Thank you – happythankyoumoreplease! (it’s a movie)
Even though my situation is different and my questions are different, you are modeling a way of exploring the situation that digs beneath the superficial answers that never seem to lead to resolution or change.
That encourages me to keep going until I find the Buried Treasure.
These are such good questions! I particularly like the third, which I usually use in this form:
Does this remiiiiiiiiiind me of anything?!
because it makes me laugh. I always know…
And I will also enjoy filling in the blank after “If I had stronger, clearer, healthier boundaries, Iād probably…” Oh, yes.
Thank you! And I wish you a recovery of exactly the right speed.
Yes!
And I like the question “what is the most unexpected thing I could do that still feels safe?”
that opens so many doors of thought!
I am learning that Asking Questions leads to blocks and walls that lead to (frustration) more questions, SIMPLER questions, no not simpler…. more… simplistic? Not necessarily that either…
Walls and blocks ask for questions that break the big wall-inducing question into smaller, more… what-are-the-elements-of-the-block/wall-I-can-interact-with type questions.
Smaller, simpler, like breaking stuff down into molecules, and molecules into atoms and seeing what I can play with and change at the molecular or even atomic level, and how.
Mobii, if I may use your example (because it’s RAAAWTHER familiar to me too!!) the smaller questions around self-forgiveness block for me might read
Curious me: What is it about forgiveness that I’m struggling with right now?
Unforgiving me: It’s weak, my bad habits will just walk all over me, it lets me get away with doing BAD things
CM: So you’re afraid that if I forgive myself for xxxxxx it will mean that I won’t change that pattern?
UM: yes of course it does. And also don’t try and say that you’ll *consciously* change if you have forgiveness because you’ll only be accountable to yourself and you’ll never ACTUALLY do it. Weak weak weak pathetic weak piece of shit.
CM: okay, ouch firstly please don’t call me names it doesn’t help and also I’m hearing that you need some kind of EXTERNAL accountability for making change?
Terrified of judgement me rushes to the front and starts screaming: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! OH GOD NO YOU CAN’T TELL ANYONE HOW PATHETIC YOU ARE!!!! YOU CAN’T LET ANYONE KNOW WHAT A BAD BAD BAD PERSON YOU ARE!!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???????!?!?!!?!?!
….. to which we have another rabbit hole to explore (how can I make some kind of external accountability safe) before we can go back to the questions around judgement/forgiveness.
The layers. The questions UNDERNEATH the questions. I find them frustrating. Progress is so slow. SEEMS so slow.
I don’t know how else to do it though, so I just keep plodding and trying not to compare my stumbly, early toddler steps to all the big kids, or at least to try and be inspired by the big kids rather than intimidated and discouraged. Oooh, now there are some more rabbit hole questions that could be explored….
*sigh*
Having a time of bed-actually emergency vacation myself, wishing you love and answers to questions. You are so good at questions! Thank you for yor questioning skills!
Hugs!
move over, claire, i’m in the rabbit-hole with you…yes, the EXACT SAME ONE(S)… small world š
and
my entire body is screaming at me and refusing to move without pain and only part of it is about the earthquake that i experienced while innocently browsing through a bookstore at the airport in washington dc + all the walking in the wrong shoes.
i need to understand where the rest of it is coming from.
what needs to change in my kingdom?
heavy sigh.
Of your questions, I especially like:
What is my pattern, and am I doing it now?
Are there scared parts of me that need attention?
If I had stronger, clearer, healthier boundaries, I would do___.
What does slightly future me have to say?
Havi, thank you for these helpful questions. I am sorry you are sick–three days in bed sucks.
I am sorry I went off in the comments last evening. Good thing for The Fountain :-). I did set my boundary, after all the stewing about it. It is respected. And amazingly, there are no more shoes. The questions I liked above all very helpful for the assessing after-the-fact, and for getting it better next time. Yet is also a good word.
Kim, nobody I’d rather share a rabbit hole with. Do they offer room service down here?
Also Mary Jane, your ‘kind’ and ‘nice’ definitions had me in serious self-consciousness discomfort, which means it all struck a Very Useful and Interesting chord for me! Haven’t gone back to it to explore, but I will…
Hey Claire,
I have nearly died (metaphorically speaking) of terminal niceness. Of being a doormat. This is my Stuff. So I am working on changing my patterns, because I simply cannot go on this way. It has literally made me ill. My meditation teacher pointed out the Kind v Nice issue, recently, and boy did she strike a cord! I totally cringed. But she got me thinking. As I work on changing my doormat pattern, it kinda shakes things up a bit. It is very hard for me when others are uncomfortable with me. My first reaction is to apologize and make nice. Gosh, another pattern :-). So learning to live with the discomfort of having defined an appropriate boundary, rather than being a doormat. But I feel much better, ultimately. For me, to ever get to where there is no shoe, I think I first have to declare, with kindness and spaciousness: “It is not OK to throw shoes at me. However, you may ask for whatever you need from me with respect, and I will work with you and I will try to accommodate your request, while respecting my own boundaries. And if I say ‘No’, please accept that by saying ‘No’, I am taking care of myself.”.
This. Is. Hard.
And obviously, I don’t state it quite that way in real life. However, that is my Intention.
I have a pillow to share with the Refueling Station. It’s soft and springy, with a pale green pillowcase that’s always comfortingly cool.
This was my pillow when I was in my pre-teen to teenage years. It loved me. And to me, it was my Fantasy Beloved — the partner who would cherish me and always be there for me, who would comfort me and be so very grateful for my own offerings of comfort and tenderness.
I haven’t seen that pillow in years. I don’t know whatever happened to it — so I’m thinking that it must somehow be in the Refueling Station already, ready for companionship. It’s a very good listener. If you see it, please tell it I say hello.
I had experienced asking numerous questions as well. It amazes me of the many questions I can myself and the answers I have for them. One question can lead to another, I become amused by it and it then becomes hard to sleep.