A little raw. A little messy. I spent the weekend running the Shiva Nata teacher training, doing insane amounts of brain training and pattern rewriting, and everything is jumbled. In a really good way.
All the snow globes have been shaken, and everything is sifting and settling in new and remarkable ways.
But processing it? Still a little incoherent. And useful. So here is some of what has come up in my journal, as I prepare for Rally (Rally!).
What I want from this Rally
A giant permission slip to not work on the thing I was going to work on. At least, not to work on it directly, but instead to fractal flower it.
I want to go back to the piling and the depiling, and reconfigure my relationship to the piles, something deeper, more powerful, not really sure what it is.
Oh, but my fuzzball monsters do not like this plan. They say there is no money in this and also waste of time waste of time.
So. Back to what’s also true.
I know that the essence of this old pattern of piling and hating the piles and fearing the piles and meeting the piles is about safety and spaciousness.
And if everything is connected, this new depiling could be a way of creating the spaciousness necessary to build the right frame for the thing I was originally going to work on.
The frame holds everything, remember?
The monsters are considering this. They are gnawing on their hands. But not in a menacing way. Just deep in thought.
They say yes but yes but yes but. The stuttering loop of yes-but.
What is it, guys? What do you need to happen so that you will feel safe and supported again?
Here’s the yes-but.
YES BUT YOU’LL JUST CREATE MORE PILES SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME TO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T USE YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS?!
Aw. You guys think I have creative genius? I knew it!
So listen, I have to tell you something, monsterlets.
On the second day of the last Rally, we investigated the online piles. We tracked why things pile and how they pile and where the iguanas go.
Then we deleted 865 Direct Messages. And you said that within a month we’d be back where we started.
So?
So here we are, three weeks later. And how many DMs are in there? None. Zero. Still.
That’s because our creative investigative depiling team was able to identify all the ways (seventeen!) in which I was creating piles, so I could stop doing that.
And we also came up with our chart of the Thirteen Most Common Iguana Species, which we use all the time.
It gave me a system for handing things off. And for not creating. And for deleting when I’m done.
So that particular form of piling is done. Same with the Frolicsome Bar. So things can change, even when you say they can’t.
Sure, there is value in regular maintenance. And yes, maybe doing casual decluttering doesn’t shift the bigger pattern (though I think everything shifts the bigger pattern in some way, really).
But this is different. This is about conscious, mindful, loving, investigative de-piling, which helps me learn how I function in the world and what I need and how not to be in the patterns that keep me in pain.
Spaciousness, again.
Here’s the good part.
This new experience of not constantly being in direct interaction with piles, iguanas, flying shoes and other things that are not supportive?
It creates spaciousness.
AND.
All this spaciousness gives me peace of mind. When I have peace of mind, I am able to be both restful and active.
Creatively active, and physically active. And I generate gwishes, and I make stuff happen. All because of the space to do it in.
I am convinced that this next layer of depiling will change the way I interact with all of my space.
It will lead to a much-improved relationship with both the Wish Room (my home office) and the Pirate Queen Quarters (my office at the Playground).
Inside the thing that is inside.
Okay, monster council and scared, sad, lonely parts of me…
Here is what I know:
I know that these piles are stand-ins. They are proxies for things I am not facing.
This includes pieces of my past, and pieces of pain, and my aversion to confrontation.
And since I’m in the process of rewriting that pattern, using basic destuckification techniques and Dance of Shiva, this is the time.
Guess what we are going to do?
We are going to re-invent this thing that I know of as “confronting”.
We will metaphor mouse it. We will find out what is inside.
Because even though I have spent my entire life thinking that I am terrible at confrontation, this is not true.
Not true at all.
Every time I talk to a wall or negotiate with a monster or respond to shoe-throwing with sovereignty…
That’s a form of confrontation.
And I’m actually really good at that. But only when I think of it as acknowledging pain.
I can acknowledge pain.
So what if all the things I am currently seeing as confrontations, impasses, impossible situations… what if they aren’t that at all?
What if I just need to acknowledge some pain? I can do that.
See? That is the power of spaciousness. Bing! Shivanautical genius. I get it.
Anyway, back to the piles and the piling. I don’t need to “confront” the piles: just to acknowledge their pain and my pain, so the pain can dissolve and the new pattern can appear.
To be continued…
In the meantime, play with me? If you want to think about piling and spaciousness and patterns and all of these things, you are more than welcome to.
I would love the company.
As always, basic comment zen applies: we all have our stuff, and we let everyone have their stuff. We don’t tell each other what to do, unless someone specifically asks for advice. And we give everyone room to have their own experience.
Love to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads. Rally!
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Piles as a fortress against pain (and, in my case, fear of loss / fear of Not Mattering)? That is ringing a bell. As is recasting “confrontation” as “acknowledging pain.”
Not sure what I’m going to do about it yet, other than to dwell some on it as I cook. But there is a part of me already a bit lighter from considering the recasting rather than continuing to mope about the piles and stuck, so, toda raba.
Acknowledging Pain – that resonates.
Perhaps that’s a key to the seemingly random things happening just now, Hmmmm…..
Thanks for the brave and thoughtful peek into your journal 🙂
It occurs to me that my somewhat fuzzy belief that I don’t make piles is a form of avoiding them. This came to me when I realized I was coming back to read this post for the second time in the last hour while avoiding a to-do list that’s been bugging me. Ahem. Telling!
I think there must be a purpose to the Lingering Items that follow my to-do lists around, but what is it? Connection to the part of me that believed they were worthy, i.e. unwillingness to make a firm “I’m done with this idea” decision?
The other part of this: most of the time the Lingering Items don’t cause much distress, because I am so busy taking care of fun things and urgent things and easy things. And yet I can’t quite let go of them, when I do think about them. This is my pile. There never was a non-piling Jesse.
Not sure I have a lot of clarity in this, but that’s where I am with it today. Thanks for the chance to think and play around with this whole Iguana realm!
I just recently realized that I’ve been piling up stories to protect myself from a pretty basic truth… It hurt to realize (OMG, I KNEW IT ALL ALONG, why wasn’t I listening!), but then I got to see the beauty in it too (Wow. I KNEW it, all along. I can trust myself. I’m not sure I ever realized that was an option).
And then I got to rewrite the story 🙂 And that was fun.
thank you, havi, for being brave enough to look at this whole “pile” issue while having compassion for yourself.
this is a huge lesson for me.
i’ve noticed that during very stressful periods of my life — post-baby, post-divorce, post taking yet another legal job instead of following my passion — and, most recently, post- mom’s diagnosis with advanced ovarian cancer, i tend to get so wrapped up in my head and just trying to make it through another freakin’ day that i forget to do things like, oh, get my mail. when i do finally get my mail, i sort it into piles, and there it sits.
i’ve got some Very Important Issues lingering in my pile right now and i KNOW i would feel better if those things were addressed, resolved, put away, but i haven’t been able to make myself face them yet.
i guess it is high time to figure out why. with compassion. yay!
kim
Really interesting. Thank you for this. I’ve been going through something of a metamorphasis over the past month. Or at least it reached its pinnacle a month ago but it’s been building for quite a while. I thought at first that it was something that had to be dealt with but it seems that it’s something for me to be with, to acknowledge and, most of all, to allow. Such a new feeling but unbelievably powerful.
I’m coming out of my cocoon, shiatsu and particularly qigong are really making a difference. Interesting how difficult it is to stand still for more than about 2 minutes without tensing …. Onwards and upwards, getting stronger all the time!
I do notice that I keep rebuilding the piles that surround me on the sofa, and I know that it is my way of building a wall and creating a safe space for me to be with the family but still not let them get too close.
Inbox piles are fear. Fear of missing out on something. Fear of responding to something. I am wanting to know why my initial response to receiving recognition for my work is “oh sh*t, they’ve found me!”
Piles mean I have to get these things cleaned up before I can even consider being successful, showing up more in the world, etc….
Physical piles of things around me make me feel claustrophobic, not safe at all. I breathe easier when I have “homes” for everything, and one of those “homes” is the trashcan. Two minutes of sending everything home gives me so much space to breathe and think and do.
Emotional piles even have homes in little compartments in my brain, like Scarlett O’Hara saying she’d think about that tomorrow. Well, I often give myself permission to do just that. I will file this away and take it out tomorrow, or next week, or whenever it feels “right” to do it.
I DO NOT HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT. I also don’t know how to change that line under my name.
Wow! So much Bing! Here. This will require multiple readings and massive amounts of mulling over. A very timely topic, thank you!
Thank you for sharing this, Havi. Gwishing for all the epiphanies you need. <3
Your chart of the Thirteen Most Common Iguana Species sounds hilariously awesome. I might have to try and make one for my own iguanas.
The bit that's talking to me here today is the bit about confrontation. Because I had an epiphany while walking to work today (AFTER I read the entire content of the new Shivanaut website while walking to work – it’s a long way.) Anyway, my epiphany went like this:
Confused Me: Why do I keep avoiding God?
Epiphany-Having Me: You’ll only stop avoiding God if you stop avoiding yourself.
So then I had to chew on that for a while! Would closeness to God really be worth that price? If I had to live in constant awareness of my body, with all the gender-dysphoria and eating-disorder buttons it pushes – my breasts, my belly, my vagina, the rolls of fat at my sides, the width of my hips, the wobble of my thighs – and in constant awareness of all the real and imagined uglinesses on the inside – my cowardice, my weakness, my disloyalty, my cruelty, my failure – would I do that, to live in awareness of God?
I decided yes, in the end, but it was a really close thing. And then I got a rush of oh sweetie no wonder you’re afraid of confronting all these scary things about yourself.
And now I’m reading your thing about confronting, I’m thinking maybe all I need to do is acknowledge some pain. Maybe all I need to do is acknowledge: here I am feeling disgusted and angry with my body. Here I am feeling disgusted and angry with myself. Hello monster, I think you are my monster. Which of course is exactly what you’ve been saying all along and argh why is it so simple when you finally get it. And I know it won’t be half so simple to put into practice!
Thanks for the insight… <3
I’ve spent the last twenty or so minutes reading your posts on De-Piling, posts I avoided the first time around, despite my reading your blog on a daily basis. My eyes quickly scanned it before something said, “Nope, don’t need this. Move on. It makes no sense.”
THIS was a giant Avoidance Monster!! The Monster Crew in my head doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that all of those to-do piles, while inspiring, are also kind of killing me too. I’m the Junk Lady from Labyrinth; I hoard all of these thoughts and dreams and plans because I don’t want to feel like I’m going to miss out on ANYTHING. Because I want to utilize all of my skills. Because I want to be rich.
I don’t want to not do these things. I really do want everything, I just don’t know how to go about them. I’m a ball of anxiety over doing something and failing. I really don’t know how to navigate this room in my mind house. There’s guilt and shame and somehow hope, all rolled into one.
I don’t know exactly how to move forward, but I guess opening my eyes and seeing it is a start.
@Kaleena *hugs and empathy*
I am in a small room with all my monsters, my eyes are clenched shut so I don’t have to see them and I am running around spazzmodically bonking into walls and getting increasingly more panicked and soon I will knock myself unconscious on an open cupboard and hopefully wake up with a different perspective. Panic, blindness, deja vu. sigh…
@Eve: That helped. It really did. Helped me put a big ole Iguana to bed.
@Sami: I wish relief for you.
Ooh, I want to see the Thirteen Kinds of Iguanas! Maybe I just really need to make my own chart…
Hugs to everybody and love to all of our piles.
hugs to all. piles…piles!
i have a pile of self-fulfilling prophecies. this particular one goes like this:
-you get “your act together” you make a choice.
-declutter, organize, get your to do list, do it, have time and space to do the things you love.
-and then cheerleader monster says the words: “today will be a good day” in black eyed peas rythm and wham! something bad happens. every-single-time! and now i am sacered to do stuff, of working on my patterns, of doing the dishes, of walking my dog, of enjoying a calm tasty breakfast, because tha black eyed pea monster may talk and wham! something goes wrong
i will shivanautically shake this pattern, but always a little help from the virtual friends would be of great help.
love and happy iguana taming. maybe it is just the camouflage thing that confuses us.
“And we give everyone room to have their own experience.”
I f’n love this concept!!! THIS is one of the ultimate patterns of thinking that I believe would be helpful for everyone to cultivate.
It’s a quest to keep at the forefront of the mind though in the midst of drama. But I believe it was Gregory Bateson that said, that understanding another person’s world can only happen when we leave behind the need to change that other person.
Thank you for reminding me how important this is!