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!

On 11 January I started a 27 day trial at mixing up Level 3 to see if I really had ‘mastered’ it or whether I was conning myself into thinking that so I could have a pity party and generally feel superior and sorry for myself all at once (oh yes, that’s an achievement in itself, right?!)

Well, 12 January I stopped.  It turns out what I needed was some time off from all that, after my last trial which I did on my other blog.  The holiday is over now (in a looking-forward-to-what-comes-next way, since I get to decide it’s over, rather than in a oh-my-god-now-I-have-to-return-to-work way) and after a forum discussion around Shiva Nata and thanks to my tendency to want to finish something that I’ve started (not always a bonus, but if I approach it consciously it can be a good way to self-motivate) I’ve decided to get it going again today.

So, without further ado, here is Day 2 of my 27 day trial (with no promise that the other 25 days will continue consecutively from this one, but that’s the intention).

Today’s session was 10 minutes of my first alternate to Level 3 starting with the right side first.

Did I get stuck?

Nope, not really.  I started off a lot slower than I finished, but I didn’t really have any complete blank moments where I just couldn’t work out where I was or where I was going.  I did end up in the wrong position after one set of 4 repetitions, but a second attempt corrected that, and I did have one point where I wasn’t completely sure of where I was in the routine, but letting my body go with what felt right sorted that out for me (a dancer’s trick when you realise half-way through a routine that you haven’t a clue what you’re doing, but your body seems to be getting on with it anyway – just don’t panic and you’re fine!)

Intention

As usual, I didn’t have one, I just go through the practice with the mild intention that the patterns do their thing and that I start to notice more of what’s going on in my head.  During the relaxation afterwards (a full 20 mintues, no skimping here) I did give myself the intention of trying to figure out where some anger I’d had recently was coming from, and my mind wandered through a few different scenarios in my head (some completely unrelated to this) whilst I was lying there (the best bit of the whole process, IMHO).  I didn’t reprimand myself for that, I just brought my awareness to what was happening rather than letting myself mindlessly daydream.  I’ve decided that seeing what comes up in these wanderings is useful, so it’s not about stopping them but rather paying attention to them.  That way if something presents which is turning into a downward, negative spiral, I can step in and stop that, but if it’s telling me something useful I can see what comes up.  If it’s just silly or distracting I can bring my awareness back to my body, breathing and feelings and restart the process.

Thoughts on the whole thing so far

Well, I don’t suppose tomorrow’s (variation 2 starting on the right) is going to be particularly stickyfying either, but then I’ve spent 20+ years practicing being able to take any movement and repeat it mirror-reflection style in dance classes, so that practice is pretty much embedded in my head already.  Does this mean that Shiva Nata won’t hold as much possibility for growth for me as someone else (as Duff alluded to in a comment on a previous post)?  I don’t know, but given that this is a practice, rather than an achievement, that I actually find accessible, at this point it doesn’t matter.  It may prove to be my perfect thing, it may prove to just be a doorway to another, more challenging, practice that takes me deeper, but the only place I can act is in the here and now, and right now there’s no difference between either of these scenarios, so I might as well just let whatever is going to happen happen, and keep practicing so as I can see how it will all turn out!

I’ve been doing level 1, 2, 3 & 4 (ish-maybe) with legs raised but not really getting that <erk> moment that is the so-called Epiphany Generator!

So what am I doing wrong?

I’m not sure at the moment.  I’ve a couple of inklings, around focus/intention, or about trying other ideas to make things harder (I’ve tried Level 1 with colours, but not the higher ones) so I’m going to look through the notes I got from Havi’s Starter Kit again and see if anything there sparks up some ideas.

I still don’t feel like I’ve shaken the intention to ‘learn’ Shiva Nata, which is the nice way of saying ‘master’ it.  Which since it makes Havi laugh so hard she starts coughing, I know isn’t going to work.

Still, I can do the moves, but it’s feeling a bit hollow – not got the substance in there (plus, yuck, I don’t want to suddenly find myself going back to Level 1 because I did it all wrong!)

Well, whatever happens, I’ll try and write about it a bit more – if nothing else it will help me to remain a bit more mindful with my practice.

Hugs to all my fellow Shivanauts,

James

A conversation in my head

Me: Oh yes! I’m just starting to see the patterns and everything and wow I did that whole round (i.e. from one starting position – wonder off – get back ok – 16 positions in total) without getting stuck.  Yippee!

Voice of Havi (i.e. me when I’m honest): Oh, well done.  Now you get to do something harder!

Me: But…! But I’ve not really finished this one yet, I mean it’s starting to make sense, but I’m not whizzing through it all easily yet.

Voice of Havi: Ah, yes.  But you know that if you keep doing this now it’ll just be training muscles, not the brain.

Me: I don’t know that! It *might* be.

Voice of Havi: Uh, no!  In just the few weeks you’ve been doing it you’ve seen how the results became purely physical (fluidity of movement, muscle memory of the movements, building up speed) when you got past the hurdle and started to understand the process.  Remember, it’s not a piece of choreography you’re trying to learn here.  Change it up when you start to get to that point.

Me: But…! But I want to feel good whizzing my arms around and feeling smug.

Voice of Havi: I know, and that’s ok.  You’re allowed to feel that way.  Just remember that you’re not getting the results you want when you do that.

Me: Awwwww, I don’t want to.  That’s no fun…

Voice of Havi: …

Me: Oh, ok.  So I know that it’s even more fun when I get epiphanies and stuff.  Though sometimes I need a break from new ones.  Then I can focus on the physical side of it and be all “Yey, look at me!”  For a little while.

Me: I still don’t want to though.  But I’m gonna try being ok with that.  Not feeling guilty about it.  Just noticing it.  And then I’m going to do a bit of a practice, maybe just a little bit more of the same, as a pressie to myself for being all notice-y and non-guilt-pushing.  Yay me!

Me: Say.  Was that just an epiphany?!

Having made it through Level 3 arms I’m now working on being able to do it with greater speed and fluidity (rather than with lots of pausing and umming!)

However, the golden rule of Shiva Nata is “it has to be difficult to work”.  So rather than simply work on getting from a 4 out of 10 to an 8 out of 10, I figured that maybe I should try something completely different with a lower level to challenge myself in a completely new way!

Reminding myself it’s a practice

This is a totally new way of doing things for me.  I normally like to obsess until I master something and then celebrate by showing off to my friends and feeling good about myself.  And to be honest I’ll probably do both of these anyway (heck, I did promise a video at some point – I just need to get over the whole perfectionism thing with it – all encouragement welcome!)

Anyway, the idea here is for me to work on always aiming for a goal, by constantly reminding myself that it’s a practice, with infinite variations, that I will never finish but will keep doing anyway.  This ties in big with my current personal development theme.

Masochism FTW!

So, to make things harder for myself (so as to stimulate deconstruction and reconstruction) I decided to try the idea of replacing the numbers with colours and saying them out loud!  I chose Red, Yellow, Green and Blue because they’re separate, bold colours in my mind – making it easier to ‘see’ the patterns with my mind’s eye.

It was totally worth it too.  I could see new patterns emerging from Level 2 that I hadn’t noticed, or at least taken notice of, before.  And there was no way I was doing it with the legs either – so I have another thing to try next time!

I’ve had a lot of practice at masochism…

I’m a dancer – I have various horror stories about pushing through pain barriers and exhaustion in order to perform & rehearse.  It seems that being able to happily take risks and make things harder (in a controlled manner) on a physical plane can translate to doing the same on a mental level.

Of course, no-one is always willing to do it, everyone has times that they want to just lie down and relax – but given that it’s generally considered a good idea to play on your strengths to support your weaknesses (oh my gosh – I’m doing yoga talk! Havi, what have you done to me?!) I figured that I would let my years of dance lessons help support my brain training now!

Going backwards?

I actually did the Level 3 arms as well (or at least as far as I could get with them today) because I don’t want to feel like I’ve ‘slipped back’ into Level 2.  See above about still working on my need to master vs being in the practice.  I don’t see this is a problem, it just meant that I took longer with it all, but at the moment I’m lucky to have time on my side (and know it – when I’m not freaking out).

What do you think?  Is doing a different version of Level 2 a step backwards?  Should I just be pushing myself harder with Level 3 to make it difficult?