You know that feeling that you get when you’re completely immersed in something you deeply enjoy, and you realize that both time and space have completely disappeared?
YEAH.
Maybe it doesn’t happen as often as you’d like. And still, isn’t it delicious?
Full disclosure: Shoveling horse poop gives me that delicious feeling.
Alone in the peacefulness of an empty horse stall with a window above me, a wheelbarrow beside me and both a rake and a shovel ready for action, I’m actually in my version of heaven.
(In case you’re thinking EEEEWWWWW—horse poop doesn’t stink! Unlike humans, dogs, cats and other carnivores, herbivore horse poop has an earthy, grassy smell that some of us deeply appreciate.)
Join me for a moment:
Wired headphones pipe in a warm cloud of soul-nourishment in the form of auditory butterscotch (my favorites are my Deva Premal playlist or my “BTS Barn” playlist, with their tender, uplifting voices.) My whole body is in play in this calming soothing dance I’m doing. Lifting. Loading. Wheeling. Dumping. Returning. Repeating.
There’s no hurry—and yeah, although It’s true that several of my team-mates can muck out four stalls to my one, I’ve only been at it for 30 days and they all tell me I will get faster (and there are already things I’m more skilled at and can do more efficiently.)
The Sorcery??
So what does mucking out a horse stall (the technical term for shoveling horse poop) have to do with Everyday Communication Sorcery? Quite a lot actually.
You know how the Sorcery is about choosing your feelings—in any moment, or any conversation, or any presentation?
Well, it turns out that it can challenging to choose feelings that you’ve haven’t felt yet.
So many of us have gotten into the habit of avoiding our feelings—although we say we’re delaying them, that delay can become indefinite. (And don’t think I’m immune to this delaying strategy. Holy beans, I only know this much about it because I have used it for years…)
So what thrills me the most about my 2 days a week of horse-poop shoveling is that I have the time and the space to feel—without the distraction or pressure of my everyday social-media-connected, goal-&-action-oriented life.
And I’m astonished at how much this simple practice is opening me up to simply being present to myself in new ways that deepen my Everyday Communication Sorcery in other areas of my life.
Try This Yourself
Whether horse poop is your thing or not, there are three things that are true anytime you’re immersed in the solitary practice of doing something you love:
- Being alone with yourself gets you close to your feelings.
- Doing something physical allows your mind to wander.
- When your mind is wandering—without the pressure of producing results—you can explore your feelings as if they were magazines laid out for you on a coffee table. That often leads to sorting through your circumstances in a more detached, objective manner. And that can lead you to insights that might never surface any other way.
Play of The Week: Check in with yourself: what is your BLISS activity? Find a way to schedule it into your week this week—then simply jump in and experience it. What’s it like? How does it feel? What did you discover? It might be tiny or it might be big—any way you do it, I promise you it will be PERFECT when you allow yourself to PLAY.
Important Note: All you’re doing this week
is playing around.
is playing around.
There’s no way to screw this up.