The containers
So. Interesting chat about accepting the most upsetting possibilities to get back to positive feelings and inspired living?
Now let’s lighten things up and do an exercise.
In the sister show to this one, I mentioned that I’ve been able to access self-love-y (self love, but it’s a foreign language) in very recent weeks.
And we kindof skated through that, without discussing it too much.
But I want to characterize it a little. At least the way I experience it.
Self-love is when you move through your day, filled or able to elicit, the sensations of love, without necessitating outside ego support. It’s not a response to reward. It’s not dependent on the love or admiration of others.
It’s a condition that can be brought up from the guts. Into the chest. Warming and settling the owner. Giving a sensation of “everything is okay.” Contentment. Peace.
And appreciation. A sense of fondness for the conditions that exist around the individual. Not mentally, but lodged in the chest cavity. An embodied, felt, expansive, warm, acknowledgement that those conditions exist BECAUSE of the individual. Sensory and mental – combined - self-gratitude for that fact.
Self-love, as a verb, for fulfilling the individual’s own needs. For enacting genuine, deep, soulful (not just physical) self-care. Which is a delightful cycle.
The more you take care of yourself, genuinely, the more self-love you feel; the more you’re inspired to care for yourself, the more effort you put into self-care. The two have a symbiotic relationship.
It’s a guiding force that leads you through the minutes, determining each task without strain or pressure, and makes those minutes feel satisfying. Warm. Fuzzy. Comfortable. Inspired.
It makes activities emotional.
It allows you to stay “open” – flowing with inner awareness and Big S Self energy that cascades outward. Through actions. Through relationships. Through the very pace and style with which you move through the world.
It’s a romance, with yourself. Making you the object of your own affection. Creating a hobby and a central bookshelf of behaviors to always return to.
Especially when in doubt about anything else – a foundational rock in your existence.
But… as wonderful as that all sounds… putting real attention and commitment into making oneself feel good… like a permanent vacation from the “life” that most of us have had to accept… it is so hard.
Because.
Self love-y is really life-love-y.
And there are a lot of components of life that we didn’t cause and can’t control.
So what’s standing in the way of feeling that way? Of feeling proud, secure, held and cared for, by you?
How is life driving a wedge between self and contentment?
And what can you do about it, effectively? How can you create the most change, for the most good, to improve “life” to increase self-positivity?
In writing that show, obviously, I was thinking about my relationship with time – it RULES me. It is an inescapable prison and I obey it’s orders. – and started doing this little visual process that I thought might help others.
Because there’s a reason why time becomes tenuous. Grating. Stressful in its very existence.
Maybe multiple reasons.
But they can be hard to pinpoint.
So this little visualization exercise helped me to notice, feel for, resize, and reframe difficulties I’ve been facing that have been obstructions to self-love. To life-appreciation and real engagement. To have more c-word for myself. Not cunt. Compassion. To recalibrate how I’m behaving. And to understand my relationship with suffering.
With time.
With (to say the same thing again) life.
It’s a processing and clarifying exercise. It helps if you can sit in a quiet place and get a feel for your life before we begin and as we go through it. And I recommend, if you can, get a pen and paper.
Here’s a few seconds of pause to sort yourself and prepare…
Calm the environment.
Get some space.
Make sure you’re not being rushed.
Try to drop your energy from your head into your chest and guts.
Breathe.
Think about a typical week in your life.
Feel into your chest and guts again.
Breathe.
Do the exercise now, or just listen and come back to it later with your own guidance.
Let’s start.
Get a blank piece of paper and take a good look at it.
The void of everything. The clean freshness. The opening and possibility. ANYTHING could happen here. It’s boundless.
Draw out a square or rectangle or circle or other shape of preference, pretty big on your paper or mental sketch pad. It’s large. It’s taking up most of the space. Look at that thing. It’s filling the available space – constraining what else can be created in this void.
This is society.
The human-created world of work and buildings and social norms. The economy. Access to need fulfillment. How does society feel? Don’t run from the tension that I presume has gripped your body. But characterize it. And if you can, do it visually. With color, texture, image, symbol.
We’ll come back to this later. So take quick note and keep listening… or pause and sit with the questions to do the activity in real time.
Now, within that, draw another shape. Same or different. Your choice. I did concentric rectangles, but please get expressive. Make the shape take up a good portion of the last shape. Give yourself room to work within it.
This is your local world. Where you go every day. What your regular, in-direct-eyesight experience entails. What you see, personally.
It fits within society but it is unique to you. Your little corner of… everything that exists in the human world. This cake exists and you bit off what chunk of it? What is your niche? Feel into that. Pause or take note and keep moving, sit with it longer later.
Within that, draw another shape. Same rules. Your shape preference. Take up a good portion of the area of the previous shape, but leave room.
This is your career, purpose, thing you work on dedicatedly over time. Maybe it’s your job. Maybe it’s your volunteering at the animal shelter. It’s what you value doing, across expanses.
If you labeled it career or purpose… sit with that. How does THAT feel? Hang with the emotions or return later.
The next shape? Will be community. This is your relational life. Your social network.
If your community and your personal relationships feel separate, make a separate shape inside.
Feel into both of those aspects of your life.
Within that, make a shape for each of your important relationships or relationship types. Depending on which one feeling intuitively correct to you. For example, “romance,” “workplace,” “family,” “friends.” OR “Ben,” “Jerry,” “Leslie,” and “Donna.” Take a minute, decide which feels better for you, draw your shapes, feel the vibes, or keep listening.
These shapes can be stacked within each other or spread through the personal life shape like holes in swiss cheese. But leave room in an area of the Community or Relationship shape to keep with the concentric tetris we’ve been playing.
Next add another shape inside. This is your home.
Where you sleep at night and the surrounding blocks. How have you made your home? How’s the placement? The energy? The outfitting versus your needs? What are the senses and sensations in your dwelling?
Maybe there’s a person that fills your home and you’d prefer to put them here. How does that characterize your home-sensation?
Feel into that or let’s keep going.
Add another shape inside. We’ve finally gotten down to you. This is your being. Your self with a small s. Your identity, mentally and physically. The boundary between you and others. How does it feel inside that space?
You might consider who you are and how you are. But try to stay out of your words and in your feelings. Don’t shame spiral or get chatty. Just feel in the orb that is you.
Another shape goes within.
This is your body. Your meat. The confines and workings of your physical being. Your bones, blood, joints, and cushion.
How does it feel being in there? Pains or dysfunctions? What are the feelings in each part, and as a whole? What’s the prevailing judgement or assigned emotion?
Feel it or continue.
One last shape goes within. It should be prettyyyyy small by now. A dense little shape.
This is the nucleus of what you’ve drawn. The center of it all and the hardest to see. But that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in contents. Rather, those contents defy space, unlike the rest of the shapes we’ve drawn.
This is your soul-thing. Your core being. Your spirit. The sum of your emotions, if you prefer to keep it psychological.
This is the nugget that expands to the size of the universe which powers your body and self. It’s the source of your authentic actions. When it motivates you to do something, you don’t question it. You’re already moving. It’s a flame that’s aways alit, but sometimes dimmed by inner darknesses getting in the way, making it hard to find inside you.
Feel it now.
Spend as much time as you can, feeling into this space.
You know, everyday. Please come back to this core of your atom, as often as you can.
But for today… if you’re listening straight through, let’s keep moving.
Okay. Hopefully you had feelings during each of these shape drawings or shape imaginings.
A way that your sensations tilted: positive or negative.
Maybe you’ve had more visceral or complex feelings.
Or even tastes, sounds, smells, that came to you.
Maybe visuals. Images behind the eyeballs.
Or ghostly feelings. Like someone tugging at your ear or squeezing your arm while you considered a shape.
Great. Evidence and data.
Gather those little brain wisps and body sparkles up in the context of each label we described here. Get a prevailing sense of each item.
If you’re just imagining, those shapes were:
Society
Your world
Career
Community
Personal Life
Individual or grouped relationships within, orbiting around:
Home
Self
Body
Soul-thing at the very center
Consider each of these shapes, each of these frameworks of your life, one at a time… and decide how to characterize it with color, texture, weight.
If each was a stand-alone object that could be constructed of anything, filled with anything, what would it be made of? What hue would it sport?
You might want to consider “if this was a box, filled with other boxes, each holding some items as a form of organization… what would be in each box?”
And for the art project or deep imagining portion of this… Please represent, visually, how you feel about it each one using color and/or texture. Emojis, if that works better for you. Whatever comes up for you. And fill the shapes in.
For instance, I realized that when I thought of the role of “society,” I felt sick to my stomach and imagined the color of a fart. Green-brown-yellow. Disgusting.
So that’s the color of the Society box.
The largest container in my life.
The contents? The gaseous stank wafting off pre-pooped turds.
And… seeing how much space this takes up… how it engulfs the rest of my shapes.. Doesn’t that say something about my experience?
And that’s… the first point of this exercise.
To first notice and then qualify the frameworks that surround you.
The containers. The environments. The cages. Of your life.
From your soul-thing or emotions, to the way your body vessel feels and operates, to the way you, yourself, combine those two things to fend in the world, to the physical habitat – the home - you’ve created to live that life in, to the neighborhood built by your closest relationships, to the community you’re a part of, to the career and industry you belong to professionally, to the world that is yours when combining all of the aforementioned variables… to the society that encases you, surrounds and shapes so much of it.
The shape that started it all.
The shape that broke the void – the endless possibility of the blank paper.
The shape that largely determined the shape and volume of all the other cages to come.
Society.
You see what we did here?
Forming who you were allowed to become and the life you were allowed to live and your experience within that life, in so many areas.
So this whole paper… this is your existence.
It was once undefined. Completely undetermined. Omnipotent. Until those first lines were drawn. Thus determining the qualities of every other development to come.
Your life, as a fetus? The blank paper.
Your life, as soon as you entered the structures of society? Already limited. Your life, in many ways, already influenced.
Draw a thick line around the entire thing. The largest shape you drew – society.
This line? Is your time.
Linear, but bending around all the events within. Confining and making form.
These shapes and colors and textures contained inside? Are the nature of your time.
The are your experience. The filling of your time. The reasons that it can be fun and fulfilling and connective. The reasons that it often hurts. And becomes a fearful enemy.
Something you disassociate from or try to kill.
So… breathe into that thought. Take a look at your paper. Or your mental image.
Of your experience in time. In life.
You can take a look at mine right now for example. I included the final version, but trust that I scribbled this in a mess of black and white the first time around.
And let’s consider....
If your shapes are filled with, say, tones of piss. A fartful society. Or red and black, fire and brimstone. Or the texture of broken shards of glass and gravel…
THESE are the contents of your experience. Of the boxes inside of boxes that are your existence.
Well that’s how time is feeling to you. That’s your daily sensation. The “tone or vibe” at which you operate, every week, month, year, maybe.
And figure, this is how well reality is correlating with your preferences and needs.
Bright and sunshiney? You’re satiated. Dark and painful? Probably not so much.
And if even one single container – cough, society – is a shitriver… well look at how that takes up so much of your experience. How it matches or overpowers the other containers. And think about how much it’s probably tainting the containers within. Trickling down.
The shape of society determined the shape of the rest of the aspects of your life. The color will do the same.
You might be able to determine connections and directionalities between the containers. How one is overflowing its contents into the next. Maybe it’s too full. Maybe it’s too rotten. Maybe it’s full of maggots that are crawling over the barriers.
For me, the effects of flatulence society didn’t stop until… I reached my person. My self container. It has affected my world, career, community, relationships, home…
And it’s only very recent that my body, soul, and self-image weren’t also filled by turds. They, too, were being tainted by the largest container.
My self-judgments about the contents of the aforementioned containers – between society and self – were waterfalling noxious molecules into the container of my self-assessment.
Which broke my relationship with my body.
And disconnected me from my inner core soul thing.
As I scrambled to try to fix every other container, and they continued pouring toxicities into the most central point of my life – my mind’s narrative. My ongoing monologue. My description of being me, alive, over time.
And there was no self-lovey to be found.
And… I don’t know, if you’re like me, maybe that can help to describe what’s going on in YOUR subconscious experience that’s making time full of suffering, misery, and fear. Self-doubt and resentment. Why time has become brutal. And being alive became so “exasperated moan” at some point.
The clarity is helpful, on its own. To pinpoint the influences your poor mind is trying to hold itself up against each day. To stave off the overflow from the other containers.
And, secondly…
Maybe it’ll inspire you to make changes to the colors and textures of any containers – kicker - that are reasonably within your power.
Figure, if you need to reorganize this box of boxes. Maybe it’s a closet or a chest or a purse that you visualize… if you try to start with the largest container, you’re starting with the largest problem first. And you won’t have the tools you need – space in other containers – to succeed at the goal. And the container won’t change shape because all the containers within were built to match that original framework. They still correlate and support and are limited by what you’re trying to change, as they have been since the day you were born.
Let’s talk this through.
Observe the containers around you. These are limits to your life joy.
Which is incredibly unfair.
Because we’re not responsible for all life conditions. We’re not responsible for an incredible number – I would say – the majority. Even our successes were formed by and within those larger constraints.
Our existences are largely happenstantial. And so, so are our feelings about ourselves.
Determine which containers are in your control….
Let go of the ones outside of it for now.
Put your effort towards the ones within it.
Sometimes you can’t change things at work. In every relationship. Majorly in your home. And beyond.
The company is going under, AI is taking over, your partners are struggling themselves, you don’t have the capital for a big move or renovation…
If that’s the case for any of your frames, denote it. Maybe with diagonal lines or a certain symbol.
And if you’re realizing that your colors and textures take a dump at a certain container… AND you don’t have control over them from there on out…
Go ahead and draw a new thick line around those shapes. No, your life, time, and experience don’t end here, of course. You still need to be tuned in and responsive to these containers.
… But if you can consider these the barrier around your effectiveness… the perimeter that defines your locus of control. You have a clear marker of what you can viably work on, for great result. And what is not as worthy of persistent thought or behavior, in this moment.
Not to say there won’t be changes that give you more control or efficacy in the future.
But the containers and contents you can’t change or can’t change right now? Accept them for how they are. Going through your fears about them. Getting to the bottom of the well. And asking “now what?” and accept them as a sortof foundation to your experience.
Yes, these things are happening. And from there, what are you going to do?
You’re going to refocus.
Pay attention to the shapes you CAN affect. And then care for them. Starting from the smallest container.
Re-organize from the smallest shape.
Your nucleus. The universe-marble that lives in your stomach.
You want to start from the center and work your way outward, amplifying the energy at your core so THAT defines the shapes of the containers around you… all the way up to the new society that we have to toolbox, together… rather than the other way around.
It’s the way to effect real change.
I’ll be the example. I couldn’t get back to podding the way I wanted to (career / purpose) because my relationships, home, self, body, and soul-thing were all fucked. Starting at “career” and trying to force it to change didn’t work. Starting at relationships and home, same. Even my self and body were unable to be affected.
Because there’s no form or support for those things. You can’t change the shape of the containers in the middle. And they’re still being overflowed into by the containers around them.
So instead, I started, eventually, at the smallest unit – soul thing. Got that “right”. Which positively affected body, self, home, relationships… And that has cascaded into positive implications for purpose.
Thank god it works this way, because we HAVE CONTROL in this direction of reorganizing. We have autonomy and our actions matter most.
It’s sortof this simple (not to say it’s easy):
Figure, you can always make you feel slightly better, deep in your core. Or, at least not worse. Even when you feel awful and nothing is going to bar that emotion, you can give yourself the grace and comforts that soften the experience. You can fulfill your needs. You can do the best for you, despite not reaching ecstatic joy from the effort.
You can improve your core container through listening and responding to the experience within.
Cleaning it. Organizing it. Making it beautiful.
And if you keep putting effort to that, day after day, you’ll change everything about the way you live. Getting rid of what doesn’t work for you and expanding what does – all the way into the other containers.
Through that simple measure of improving your experience from the very, very, inside of your being… if you wake up excited for or “comforted enough with” the day that you have before you, every day… knowing that at least you have your back and the experience closest to your heart is going to be cared for…
You’re about 500% more likely to have fondness for self.
Because if you appreciate how you feel and what you’re engaging with in the rest of the life containers, you appreciate how you got yourself there.
And that means you appreciate you, past, for taking each of those steps.
As you appreciate you, now, for continuing to take them.
These are the keys to liking yourself.
We’ve all heard it ten million times. It starts from within, not without.
Now, take a look at this visual to make sense of that statement and put it into action.
When you’re changing your life experience from the core of your being (the nucleus of your life experience) – from the most inner container, out - rather than trying to work your way from the largest containers, inward - you’ll begin to feel and amplify self-love in a (opposite of vicious) circle that changes, quickly.
When you decide to change this picture, in your mind or your hand… start with trying to improve the experience contained within your chest. Cater to your feelings. Baby them.
And then, from there, your body.
The two will feed each other, so your actions can support both, quickly.
Then they’ll carry over into redrawing and refilling the shape of your self.
Then, into your home environment, when you’re feeling good enough to take action in that environment.
Then, into your relationships, as you find comfort and safety and opportunities for communing within your dwelling.
Then, into your purpose, as you have more energy for work and more social support for the days that suck.
Then into your world, as everything from the bottom-up has radically shifted and changed tone.
You’ll have a whole new life, as far as what you see, smell, feel, and do each day.
Each action you take on this mission will refill you, by refilling the frameworks of your existence, with peace, contentment, appreciation. And reduce frustration, defeat, and hopelessness… a tenuous sense of existence… because every behavior will count.
Because the container is so small. And so within reach. You can read it and respond to it. You don’t require, say, the media, to tell you what’s happening, in an ever-propagandized version of telephone.
It is directly observable and impactable, while so many other things feel indirect, unchangeable, and defeating.
No one can observe, report on, or care for the center of your world like you can. No one can re-draw that container or refill it. As far as the containers within the “self” go, you are in control.
You just have to get started.
Baby the sensations inside of you with beneficial actions. Responding to them, second by second. (that’s why all psychological advice is “be present.” It’s this.)
And you’ll be rewarded.
The container closest to you – inseparable from you – will respond.
And self-lovey can recolor and texturize your life experience, from that tiny box, all the way up.
Even changing the container of society. Because, like Marie Kondo, once you know the process, you can help others reorganize, too.
Use this page as a reminder of where you’re starting from. And redo this exercise in a few months to see what’s changed.
I hope this exercise has helped. Or given you an excuse to color.
Both.
Ps – you don’t need an excuse. Fuck capitalism. Live your life.
Imagine you can start with a blank page, connect with the nucleus of your being, make it feel as good as you can, fill it with beauty, and create the rest of your life framework from there.
If you begin, it will be a self-propelling process.
Where the goodness you feel inside your smallest container… your chest… overflows into every area of life around you.
And redraws your existence.
Cheers.