Day 40! We did it!

The full moon (as of 6:36am Portland time) ushered in the final day of this Expedition.

The full moon falling on our final day feels very auspicious to me.

It’s as if the entire cosmos is celebrating the conclusion of this Expedition. How awesome is that?!

This Expedition, for me, was about much more than just trying to do Shiva Nata daily for 40 days.

It was about spending 40 days consciously interacting with what comes up when I commit to deepening and strengthening my relationship with myself – through my Shiva Nata practice, in this case.

At the beginning of this Expedition, I made the following commitments:

• A minimum of 5 minutes per day every day for 40 days. And yes, thinking about Shiva Nata – especially thinking through a pattern – totally counts.
• To write for 5+ minutes after 4-5 practice sessions per week AND to document my process, here, at least twice a week.

How did that go?

I flailed for a minimum of 5 minutes (sometimes it was mental-nata; other times I wrote out patterns; most of the time I actually flailed) for 36 out of the 40 days. The days that I didn’t flail, I made the choice not to flail and practiced meeting all the stuff that came up.

Regarding the writing aspect, while my writing was very consistent throughout the 40 days, a lot of it was separate from the flailing. I’m ok with this and am really happy with some of the realizations and insights that surfaced through my writing.

My brain has just felt a lot clearer and things have been clicking into place much, much quicker than usual. I’m able to see the larger pattern of things much easier and to not get stuck so much in the details.

My focus:

My focus (once again) for the 40 days was to play with my relationship with Commitment.  I had intended to write a bit about commitment every time I wrote in my journal. This didn’t happen.

However, viewing this entire Expedition from the standpoint of how I am when I’ve committed to something has been super interesting and enlightening.

There was the whole piece about how Committing = Being Trapped and another piece about how I resist ease, spaciousness and flow through refusing to commit to something until the very last possible moment.

And, there’s the big picture of noticing that once I am committed to something, I feel very strongly that I *must* see it through. Having the permissions at my fingertip (to not flail; to put my body first, etc), was really, really helpful at certain parts of the Expedition.

Finally, I was really curious to see what would happen during the final week of the Expedition.

Would I just coast along until the end? Would I try to pack in as much as possible so I could get as much as possible out of the final week?

What actually happened was that the Expedition continued to meander along – much like it had throughout the previous 30 days. Some days I did more; others less.

I’m actually thrilled to see that this was how I approached the last week of the Expedition because this approach feels sustainable for me. I will (hopefully) be able to easily continue my practice post-expedition… as I desire.

For, I’ve discovered that like Kalyani, I often do Shiva Nata in spurts.

It will be my go-to practice for insight, to calm me down, to challenge myself… for a while. Then, at some point, the call of some other equally awesome practice becomes too strong to ignore.

There is this rather natural ebb and flow that keeps the practice, for me, alive and engaging.

I do have a point here:

We just did 40 days of Shiva Nata – even if you didn’t dance for the 40 days, you were, I’m guessing, interacting with the *idea* of dancing and why you were or weren’t doing it.

These 40 days gives us a container, a structure, to see what happens when we commit to something for a set amount of time. In this case, it was to flailing for 40 days.

The bigger picture, for me, is one of committing to doing the things that nourish and support us daily – 360 days a year. The 40 days gives us the opportunity to practice caring for ourselves within a framework and with the support of others also joining the Expedition.

I guess I have 2 points:

The first: this Expedition is practice for living life – a life where we do commit to caring for ourself and doing the things that nourish and support us daily.

And, it’s practice for accepting ourselves and giving ourselves permission to *not* do the thing as necessary.

The second: it’s important to have more than one thing that brings insight, adventure, permission, calmness, etc into your life.

Because, it’s likely you will go through times when the call of Shiva Nata isn’t as strong – when you need a break.

It’s important to know that that is ok. That there are other things also holding you – other practices* that also have value and worth and that can bring insight and greater self-understanding and love into your life.

*like yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, being in nature, bodywork, whatever *your* other things are…

In short, what I want to make clear is that we just did a 40-day Shiva Nata Expedition.

You may be tired. You may need to hang up your metaphorical Shiva Nata boots for a while. That’s perfectly ok. You will return.

I was hoping that these 40 days would catapolt me into a daily (for the entire year) practice. They might. They might not.

What I know for certain is that I’m super, super, super happy that I said YES to these 40 days.

That I did commit.

And, that you were here with me.

So YAY! And, welcome to the end of the Expedition.

So much love to you and wherever your path takes you from here.

And, of course, if you’d like to share a bit about how your expedition wrapped up or the things you learned, I’d love to here about it!