Well, witches, my Havingness Expansion project officially started a few days ago.
Here’s the report from the frontlines:
It’s been rough. My Havingness Expansion project started out with a bit of a rocky exploration of my intimate relationship havingness level.
It’s like this: my hot wizard partner and I presented an awesome talk on Getting Turned On By Vulnerability at a course we co-taught with some other friends this weekend in our hometown of Pittsburgh. The talk was the result of months of in-depth practice and research that we’ve done as we work on noticing the places in relating where we shut down and get invulnerable and regularly practicing opening up again into expressing out fears and desires vulnerably.
After such an amazing peak of flowing togetherness and sexy sexy brilliance, we then descended into two days of door-slamming, top-of-lung-shouting fights about exactly nothing that just kept escalating for no reason because pretty much the fights were just about us having a hard time with the amount of electricity and joy that there is between us. When we get into fighting we tend to play rough with each other. It’s a little exhausting, and yet (as we learned from some other presenters this weekend) all the discord is actually a predictable part of the flow cycle discovered by Steven Kotler.
I think we’re finally moving out of the “consolidation” phase of the flow cycle (which follows the peak time and can include self-sabotaging or relationship-sabotaging behaviors) and into the “struggle” phase where we’re now consciously working on new ways to relate to each other better.
Report of How I’ve Been Doing with Practices
So just for a refresher for those of you tuning in now, my 90-Day Havingness Expansion Project includes a commitment to do all the things I know for a fact from past experience expand my (historically rather low, but getting better all the time!) havingness level. These things are Orgasmic Meditation, Fear Inventory, Bikram Yoga, gratitude practice, a nutrient-dense diet, and journaling in a public forum about my ups and downs.
With all the loud tearful fights taking up so much time, I haven’t made it to yoga the past few days. I’m a bit bummed about that. But I can see the doorway opening for my relationship havingness level to expand. I’m getting a clearer picture about how my own reactivity operates, and I’ll say more about that in just a bit.
I have, however, been practicing Orgasmic Meditation every day (usually I get in two OMs per day, I have a very happy clitoris), writing and sharing Fear Inventory, and getting my diet gradually into more nutrient-dense shape. I’ve joined the Bulletproof Diet bandwagon for the time being, mostly since they have attractive marketing and a lot to say about energy and that’s my main concern with my dietary choices – that I feel great and have tons of energy. Also! I talked to my community about us starting a shared morning practice of expressing gratitudes with each other while eating breakfast.
Spooky Stuff That’s Being Revealed to Me About My Havingness
As I’ve been fighting with my partner for the past few days and writing Fear Inventory about it and talking to my very genius witchy friend Zil about what’s been going on with me – it’s starting to become clear to me that my core issue with havingness is pretty wild and far out:
It’s that I have been unwilling to experience the humiliating gratitude of recognizing that I’ve already been graced with profound awakeness, joy, nonreactivity, and freedom.
I’ve found that I fear and resent accepting how much awakeness, freedom, and joy I have because I have a belief that I need to fit in and not alarm other people who seem to believe that reacting and getting unhappy and not living in gigantic gratitude at every moment is like, the thing to do.
In other words, ironically, something that keeps me stuck in reactivity is the belief that if I allow myself to be as nonreactive and nonattached as I am truly capable of being, I won’t be loved and accepted.
I want to let go of this belief and allow myself to have the full depth of freedom and joy and gratitude that I actually do have.
Also, in fairness to myself, I think my unconscious has some good reasons for not wanting to appear too awake, too free, too at-one with-the-Source-of-all-that-is. Sometimes people really get freaked out by other people being free.
Prominent case in point: Jesus of Nazareth was one hardcore, bad-ass, free, awake, and party-loving wizard.
Stuff I’m Pretty Sure Jesus Said
“Hey ya’ll, I turned this water into more wine cause I’m feeling the groove and we just can’t stop and we won’t stop! Whoa-ah!”
“Raise the roof? Yeah! And let’s raise Lazarus while we’re at it! TOMB PARTY!”
“Oh, what’s that? No more loaves and fishes for the people? Stand back, hot lips! I’ll just multiply ‘these ones right here!”
“Yeah, the ‘Moon Walk’ is cool. Have you tried the ‘Water Walk’? Check it out, I’ll step off the boat and show you how it’s done.”
For being incredibly awesome, awake, loving, and phenomenally great at keeping the party going, Jesus got crucified. So yeah. I think there’s fair reason for my subconscious to be holding back from letting me enjoy the full grace of the awakeness that the cosmos has given me (and everyone).
In Conclusion
I’ll continue to keep you posted on the status of my 90 Day Havingness Expansion Project, and I can feel a whole essay coming just about this last bit that I mentioned on the difficulty of having the inherent awakeness and joy of my own being.
I invite you to post in the comments section about your own Havingness Expansion efforts!