Categories
All Around You and Me (Relationships)

Understand and appreciate your shit and the shit of other people

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

“Guys don’t feel vulnerable.”

“Oh, yes, we do.”

“I want her to accept my ‘shit’.”

“What ‘shit’?”

“Under stress I get angry, etc.”

These two conversations triggered my thinking process on the subject of ‘shit’.

I believe that, deep inside, each of us needs to be in intimate relationships -romantic or not doesn’t matter – relationships that give us the deepest sense of belonging, understanding, safety, connection, love.  It’s congenital.  We all need it, though not all of us want it anymore, because of some painful experiences in the past.   Because of those painful experiences not many of us are willing to go deep, to let our guard down, to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is our willingness to be completely open and honest as to who we are in front of an other person; or like Townsend and Cloud like to say – to be naked and unashamed.  So what seems to be the problem in being open? The problem is in our ‘shit’ – habitual behaviors and the patterns we exhibit under stress.

Usually, we are willing to show our nice side – here I am, nice and caring, smart and funny, predictable and unthreatening.  This self-presentation creates initial attraction, but shallow relationships.  To go deeper, you need to let another person experience all that you are, your most authentic self.

When we become aware of our unwanted patterns and behaviors, we say: “Holy shit, this is shit!  I don’t like this shit!”    And the more we are aware of our “shit”,  the more risky it is to let another person in.  It’s too risky, because we judge our “shit” and we are ashamed of having it and cannot imagine that another person, that ostensibly wonderful, whole and pristine human being could possibly accept that we are that “shitty”. And we try to hide our “shit” and it is not that easy because everybody else can see it, or at least smell it; and the longer we hide it, the worse it becomes.

Here I was thinking about a challenge Tony Robbins gives in one of his programs to people who want to get rid of fat – to go and buy a slice of animal fat from a butcher in a size that weights exactly that of your own unwanted fat, tie it to yourself and carry it around.  So I was thinking how it would be to carry with you a packet of actual shit for a day or two – or better, for a week or two – trying to hide it from everybody, especially from people you are in relationships with. 😉

So what is the “shit” anyway, and where does it come from?  “Shit” is nothing but a by-product of our growth.  Once it served us pretty well.  Some of that shit was even quite nutritious at the time; some of it not necessarily, since  we picked up some crappy food from our parents table.  But altogether it indeed served us very well at the time, otherwise we wouldn’t have used it long enough for it to become a pattern.  When we see our “shit” in a new light, we have  choices:

-We can still hold onto it (secondary gain game), because it still serves us – shitty serving, but still serving:  by holding onto our “shit” we’ll contaminate ourselves, become ill; and it either wakes us up and motivates us to grow, or we will die.  Law of life: everything is either growing or dying – and “shit” will serves us in our choice;

– Or we can let it go in at least two ways I see:

*first, colonic – go to self improvement seminars, or therapist for a fix – feel great after all, change nothing in your diet and lifestyle, go for another, and another, and another, and another – so life feels great, …. or go for one, then wait until you are constipated again – go for another, etc.  It could be an approach, but it is an addiction, it is a dependency;

*another one (and colonic could be the first step for this one – I honestly have nothing against colonics – unless you depend of them – they serve) is to change your lifestyle and your diet so you eliminate your “shit” regularly and effortlessly.

How to do it? Make a decision that there is nothing to be ashamed of in your “shit”, that it is a byproduct of your growth, that it contributed in the wonderful person who you are today and as long as you evolve and grow it always will be some “shit” – it is a way of life by design, because we are humans, not Gods.  Go to the seminars, trainings, to gurus, mentors, read books, watch movies – use it as a jump start – but after that implement what you’ve learned, do your work, train your self habitually eliminate what is not serving you and go for nutritions that support your growth.

Also surround yourself with people who are on the same growth spiral and who are dealing with the same “shit”, or people who’ve been there and done it – surround and be vulnerable.  This will be your safety net – they will recognize the smell of your “shit” and will call you on it  – and visa verse – so you will grow together. You’ll grow together to a higher levels because you’ll share what works and what doesn’t – synergy creates greater result then individual efforts.

I promised to my partner and a couple of other people to write my thoughts on “shit” a month ago.  And in a way I done it above it was ready a month ago – it was raw, but it the thoughts were there.  It was done, I needed only to put it in more readable order, but I didn’t have any willing to sit down and complete it. I didn’t know why but I didn’t force myself to do it.

I didn’t have any willing to sit down and complete it until yesterday. Yesterday another piece found its place.

Yesterday I had an acupressure massage and the lady, who was doing it, told me to breath deep.  I started to breath deep and when she was working on some painful points I started to use “pain-eliminating” technique I learned long time before.  The technique is simple: when you breath in – imagine that the healing energy goes into the place that in pain, when you breath out – imagine that the energy of your pain goes away.  When I learned this technique I had a moral difficulty with breathing out the pain – where will it go, what if somebody will pick it up?  So I changed it a little bit: when I breath out I imagine that my pain becomes a firework – solid pain energy disintegrates into milliard of different colors and streams.

Yesterday, as I was lying on a massage table I was thinking about pain – what is it?   Why when the lady presses some points on my body it hurts?  Answer is simple – because of “shit” – it either some shitty physiological choices I made along the way (food choices, bad posture, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, etc. ) or choices my unconscious mind made when I was unable to deal with some emotions and situations – it hided those unresolved emotions into my body (people develop cancer after having some significant emotional events; or people who have anger issues prone to liver diseases, etc.).  I was lying on a table thinking about this pain energy and that no wonder I haven’t wanted to breath it out – it is like spoiling everything around with my “shit”.  In a while I realized that I may call my “shit” a firework, but it still be my “shit”.  And here came the last piece (as of today) of my thinking – my A-ha! moment:  “Shit” is not only byproduct of our growth, it is also a fertilizer for another growth. If I let go of my anger that was stuck in this painful point of my body – somebody in this Universe is looking for this anger right now – somebody needs it in order to break out of addiction, or to stand up for his rights, etc.  Holding on that energy doesn’t serve me, it doesn’t serve others.

To conclude: my point is share yourself – it will help you eliminate your “shit” faster, it will assist others with growth as well and you’ll have a “shit-less” relationships the ones we all dream about – deep, fulfilling, stimulating, naked-and-unashamed ones.

With love,

N.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *