Adventures of a Shivanaut

Shiva Nata has become a practice that I dip into when I think there’s something it can help with, rather than something I do everyday or so as a general practice.  This might change in the future when I get to looking at Levels 6+.

For now, though, I’ve started to use it with an intention to look for more information in a particular area.  And I seem to have found the way it’s going to work for me.

It’s all about the meditation afterwards

For me, the practice is about stirring up the brain – and once I get it warmed up and going round full pelt I’ll stop, lie down, and see what settles out of the muck.

Previously I had been aiming for stillness and quiet during meditation, but my recent realistion that there is a better way for me to learn from my meditation has given me my route to epiphany central with shiva nata.

Off to la la land

Basically, after lying down I repeated my intention a few times (which had morphed a bit through repetition during the practice, to get more to the heart of what I wanted to know) and then let my mind wander without looking.  As my attention would suddenly pop back to what I was thinking I would find myself at the end of a daydream.  By replaying the storyline through my mind I would be able to see the theme of what was being played out in my mind – usually causing a pop as a realisation occurs.

I don’t know if that’ll work for you, but if this specific recipe is not to your taste then take it simply as an indicator that it may take a while for you to find your own practice with it, and that in the meantime you’ll still reap benefits.

Intentions

For the first time since starting Shiva Nata, I had been able to think of an intention that I was emotionally invested in.  I have struggled with this before, though I’m still not sure exactly why that is, so it was great to finally find myself with a question that I felt I could use Shiva Nata with.  The intention was to understand what I got out of the hours I was spending online before going to bed.  I’d realised that my constructive part of the day tended to end around dinner time and I would then spend hours online which often resulted in me feeling frustrated with myself, yet I had a real sense of getting something out of this time that I couldn’t quite identify.

Visions

During shavasana I had a little vision/thought about feeding the rabbits grain, rather than vegetables.  I was annoyed at Glyn for not just ditching the grain and feeding a mix of veg instead.  As my awareness came back to my thoughts I started to think “oops I’ve gone off on one” but for some reason, rather than let go that thought and come back to blankness, I was drawn to go back and look at the story that had played out.  I noticed that there was a message to the story: that change, even when easy and with obvious benefits, can be resisted simply because of inertia.  I thought about my intention: I am resisting the change to my sleep patterns.  Now this statement was being touted by one part of my brain as obvious, it was simply a restatement of the question ‘Why don’t I want to go to bed?’ but I know that a rewording can bring powerful insight and understanding so I paid attention and realised that the key phrase was ‘I am resisting the change’.  So I sat up, grabbed my large journaling pad and wrote “I notice that I am resisting the change to my sleep cycle.”  What followed blew me away.

Epiphanies!

I had nine, count them – nine, epiphanies in the 3 A4 pages of writing that followed.  It was one per paragraph at one point!

Going forward

This is what I’ve been looking for in my practice.  A way to access understanding around an area.  It’s taken me a long time to be able to get the different pieces in place:

• a real intention that I’m focussed on with emotion
• a strong practice that challenges me (I did Levels 3, 4 and half of 5)
• an understanding of when I’ve reached the point to stop (brain fog just starting to really kick in – before I’ve pushed through this and totally flatlined my brain for no extra benefits)
• being able to listen to my thoughts in meditation afterwards
• following my intuition within the meditation practice, not just going for silence but hearing the message
• knowing when to follow that message into my journaling
• feeling comfortable in how to journal and record the thoughts that come to me in a safe way, knowing which routes are dead ends and which are the path to follow

I feel like I’ve reached the next level up after plateauing for so long.  I was truly skeptical I could go any further – I’m so grateful that I’ve gave it one more try!

The question of fatigue

I recently made public a post from back in December about feeling tired after practicing Shiva Nata.  I even wrote to Havi a while back asking about whether this was normal.

Well, it seems to have percolated away in the back of my mind for a while and has now re-appeared, along with a structure (cause I *love* building those) to help me explain it to myself.

I’ve written about it over at my other blog, but the applicable bit for here is that I’ve maxed out my current energy and I need to improve that before I’ll be able to do more regular and intensive Shiva Nata practice.

Why do I want to do a more regular and intensive Shiva Nata practice?  I’m so glad you asked…

Another ongoing issue

I like Shiva Nata.  I like it because it has noticably made a difference to my awareness of my thoughts since I started it, but I also like it because I’m naturally good at it – ego love!

Of course, anyone who’s spent some time reading Havi’s writings on the subject knows that the latter isn’t necessarily such a good thing.  It’s been a great way to get into a practice with the intention of going wrong, and thus work on my perfectionist streak, but I haven’t had any epiphanies really since cracking Level 3.

The very clever Duff sparked thoughts about this a while back (thank you!) and it has also been percolating in my brain as I start to realise what it is I’m getting out of the practice, or not as the case may be.

Now, I don’t intend to stop, not yet anyway, but it ties in to what I wrote above in that I think the practice would require much more energy from me to make it complex enough to get the magic flowing.  At the moment, I don’t think I have what it takes to make epiphanies this way.

So what now

As I said, I’m not giving up.  I’ve got the instructions for Levels 4 and 5 from Havi and I’m going to go through a similar process as I did with Level 3 for those, which should pass some time.  Whilst I’m doing that, and going at a pace slower than I would like, I will work on the stuff that I need to help me push further: my diet, my sleep and my friends.

Wish me luck.

So I went quiet for a while…again.  While I did get one message telling me to post again from Joely, who’s just started Shiva-ing and is loving it, it took me a few days to get the energy back up again to do some Shiva Nata.

Good news: I got a reply about Level 4.

Bad news: It wasn’t anything Sari hadn’t already told me (thanks, Sari).

Good news: It included info about legs.

Bad news: It just said they go higher or I can make stuff up.

Good news: I can proceed with Level 4 without worrying that I’m missing something.

Bad news: It’s not that hard.

Good news: I think I’m ready for Level 5 now.

Bad news: I don’t have any info on that.

Good news: I can email Havi again.

Bad news: That involves guilt, but only if I’m in Havi’s stuff rather than my own.

Good news: If I stay in my stuff I can just ask and see what she says.

Bad news: Now I have to wait for an answer again.

Other news

In other news, we finally put the floor down in the front room (aka my room) so that I have a space for yoga/pilates/Shiva Nata where I won’t get splinters and can hide away when feeling bashful.  To celebrate, I inflated the fitball I’d bought recently (think big bouncy inflated rubber ball, like a space hopper but spherical) and bounced away without fearing I would burst it in minutes.

Having played with one at the pilates studio, I knew how to get up to kneeling on the ball so I did Level 1 arms whilst kneeling on a fitball!  Great fun and I was most pleased to make it all the way through whilst wobbling horribly (i.e. lots of challenge) but without falling off and hurting myself or the furniture (the piano’s in here too, so I need to be a little careful).

I’ve thrown the plan out of the window

It wasn’t working.  I really needed an epiphany and I was getting nowhere fast.  So it was time to really up the ante.  This evening I did a monster practice as follows:

1. The entire series for Level 3, using 8 different words for the 4 horizontal and 4 vertical positions (H: Clarity, Awareness, Intuition, Heart; V: Blissful, Energised, Peaceful, Synchronised – these were targeted as I was after some answers around what made me happy).  With my eyes closed.  And my feet off the floor.  (Yep, I was falling about all over the place).
2. Followed immediately by a super quick run through of all of Level 2 with eyes open and feet off the floor.
3. Followed immediately by a super quick run through of Level 1, saying the positions at speed, with my eyes closed and feet off the floor.

I really wanted an answer, ok.

The result

I had originally just decided to do the first part, but even though I slowed right down at times and was constantly falling over, I still wasn’t getting that brain stuck moment.  [Ok, I finally caved.  I've emailed Havi (or rather marissa, I hope someone gets it anyway) and have asked for the info for the higher levels.]  So I decided to keep pushing and quickly made up parts 2 and then 3.

Same result.  The odd stumble.  The occasional realisation that the sequence was a little off and start that section again, but no complete brain-freeze stuckness.

[Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this seems like bragging, or rubbing it in to anyone reading who might be struggling with Level 1, but I'm trusting you to understand that my motivation here is simply to express where I'm at with the practice, and not to try and make me feel big with it, or you feel small.]

What next?

Well, I have a couple of ideas:

• Let it be known that I want to take it further and see what info comes my way – DONE
• Make up something completely freaking crazy, like a pattern that never comes back to where it starts, or does so only after 64 moves or something like that – TO DO

I figure I’ll give plan A bit of time to kick in before launching plan B.  Either way, could be interesting.