Shit.

As I was planning my first ever creative sabbatical I was also having significant upgrades made to the house. The 70-year old gravity furnace needed to be replaced along with the 20-year old water heater. I decided to have a simple plumbing job done instead of waiting which, in turn, revealed the need for the main to be replaced. Luckily, the city is making that particular upgrade meaning that the only impact on me has been having the water off for several days. 

It’s also meant flushing less frequently and depending on timing, becoming intimately familiar with the smell of my own excrement permeating the house.

Really, could I ask for a more potent invitation?

An invitation to build rapport with the parts of me that are responding through sensation and feeling tones, helping this to be either a point of suffering or a portal into the wider, more enlivening and generative, creative process that is available to us all.

It might be tempting to think of backlogs as just a matter of flushing the toilet, creating movement by whatever means necessary, or perhaps sitting with our ordure first. Yes, sometimes it is just a matter of release and other times there isn’t the flow that would allow for any movement at all, much less release. 

Sometimes we take what comes into the mainstream wholesale, as if one-size fits all. Release is only ever a matter of letting go of something deemed bad or unworthy. One release for everyone. Do a cleanse. Get rid of toxins. Ban offending substances, thoughts, feelings, and activities. But rarely does this wholesale approach create the circumstances wherein we might feel our breath flow into our lungs and expand, pressing into and massaging our heartspace and softening our shoulders enough to drop away from our ears.

Then we might hold it against ourselves that these collective meanings, interpretations, and techniques, which have likely come to us without a meaningful context, aren’t working and so we either berate ourselves or we blame the system, tradition, or technique for not making sense or being incomplete. We might get lost in the fog, mistake today’s dream sequence for our forever reality, chase the next solution without ever being able to settle deeply into ourselves, or we might find ourselves creating a harsh reality around an already confusing dreamscape.

I’m just not satisfied with that, for any of us.

As I wrapped up my calls and deadlines on Friday, it began to snow. I was fortunate to have gotten several jugs of water lined up for hand washing, drinking, cooking, and sink bathing. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of trading any of those for toilet-flushing, but I was eager for the smell to leave the back of my nose and throat.

So instead, I’ve been gathering snow in various pitchers and pots and lining them up to thaw in front of a vent (thank goodness for the furnace). Carrying that water upstairs, taking the lid off the toilet tank, peering in and noticing the empty within, then pouring this melted snow into it, I feel the water pouring in as if into my own heart. I can feel the soft and deep inhale, the gentle and slow release of tension in my body as I fill my own toilet-tank-shaped heart-cup. 

I press the handle down and listen as the contents of the toilet flush out. I laugh. Of course, the opening sequence to my creative sabbatical includes getting intimate with my own excrement. Of course, when I soften with a question instead of bracing against fears and unhelpful certainties or stock answers, fresh perspectives can also flow in. I can release what I’m holding onto and allow my personal best to also pour out. There’s room for all of this to flow through.

If I had just taken this symbol, condensed it down, and assigned mainstream shorthand to it—oh, shit means this and a toilet means that—if I hadn’t articulated each of the elements and the sequence for myself and felt into them somatically, I might still be struggling to make those interpretations fit or thrown my hands up and joined my sofa for snacks and an extended Netflix binge. And again, might have been tempted to blame myself for why it doesn’t fit or criticize the source of this ill-fitting interpretation and leave it at that. I might never have arrived at the entrance of my own heart or remembered the scent of my favorite rose.

I found spaciousness to take this in as a symbol. I believe that when we can sit with ourselves and allow what is true and present right now to be and breathe, without moving to fix or have it be any different, it doesn’t need to take up a lot of space in our interiority and we get to have more ease as we navigate our inner and outer realities. Sometimes we can get this simply by being witnessed in the midst of our process and have it and what is already working reflected back to and affirmed for us. Other times, a good question leads us to our own, tailor-made aha moment.

Here I’m not looking for a hard and fast interpretation, but for the feeling tone and sensations that illuminate meaning around not having enough flow for my processes to keep moving, including but not limited to release. The question that arises for me personally isn’t how can I make this go away (though, yes, I am looking forward to when the plumber comes back tomorrow), but what does this mean in relationship to and for my own creative process right now? It’s up, it’s everywhere, it’s even up my nose. I can either hunker down and get through it while numbing to the sensations and feelings that continue to arise around it, or I can relate to myself and the experience—whatever experience is present—building an easier rapport as well as more internal support.

This is why I’m passionate about this work that allows us to settle in and have this nuanced, intimate conversation with ourselves. And as we do, beginning to feel the coherence when all parts are honored. Not their whims, necessarily, but the core needs and values and wisdom these parts have to offer to our wholeness.

This is part of my work with clients. Because there is not just one stock meaning for and answer to your own personal images and stories. In any given moment your individual answers lie within.

Until we step into the role of curious observer with access to our innate wisdom, we lose the chance for this to be a friendly mystery.

Depth Sessions are an opportunity to have a very intimate, nuanced conversation with yourself so that you have that possibility and can develop the capacity to allow what’s ready to move on to actually move on and help what’s ready to develop continue to develop.

You can schedule your introductory session and 30-minutes integration call here.