Shiva Nata Practice Day: The Gap
Intention: There is something I need to finish. It won’t take much to finish, but gosh if I haven’t been avoiding by doing nothing other than staring out windows and walls.
Working on: Level two fast arms and legs sequence 1.
Things that came up for me during this practice: This was very hard, my form has really gotten sloppy the last few months. I noticed myself looking at the time, as if the whole experience was a means to an end, like “I’m just doing this because I think it will mean I can do this other thing later.” Random thoughts about whatever I was recently reading. Did a pretty good job of doing the arms correctly, the legs were kind of haywire.
Things that came up for me after this practice (meditation, shavasana): Was reviewing how my practice went. Wiggled around a little on the floor and stretched.
Things that came up for me after this practice (48 hours):
Hmmm. Seeing that the thing I am avoiding is too wrapped up in my head with the thing that I must do after it. Need to find a way to work just on it as it is, and not worry about the next phase which I am dreading. Of course, the longer I put off this phase, the less likely I am to get to the part of the process I am so afraid of. I know this has stuff to do with perfectionism written all over it again. Hmm. I don’t know, I just feel kind of as lost and confused about this as before I did it. Wanting an answer is a pattern. Wanting to take a shortcut to that answer is a pattern. Not moving forward until that answer comes? Also a pattern. Still unclear about how to interrupt this pattern. Still want to stay in avoidance and stare at the wall. Boo. Why do I want some answer so badly when its just me sitting at my computer at the end of the day? When no fairy will come in and magically do this, it is just me and me, sitting here, one trying to cajole the other to move forward, the other just sitting there, in resistance. No one will even care whether the two of us ever come to a conclusion and move forward. Its just me. It only matters to me, and yet I don’t matter enough to do this? What is that supposed to mean?
Okay I get really disappointed about The Gap. The Gap between what is in my head and what comes out.
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
I have no tolerance for this Gap. I keep thinking my work will be more, better than it turns out. Even when no one sees it. Like I made a few postcards with crayons the other day of the Loteria. I don’t plan to show them to anyone, it was just play, for fun, to try to do some art that I enjoy instead of something agonizing.
And I hate them. I hate an experiment that no one will ever see that I have no intention of showing to anyone. But its that Gap that makes me angry. They didn’t look as good as they did in my head and I’m angry about it. I wonder how I can move through this.
