September 11, 2025 • 48 mins
What happens when we swap our desperate (conditioned) grasping for certainty for a curious(ly awkward) embrace of confusion?
This episode invites you into a radical reframing of confusion—not as weakness or failure, but as an appropriate, even necessary response to our rapidly changing world. Cultural messaging tells us confusion should be avoided, fixed, overcome. That if we’re confused, somehow we’re failing life! Abso-f$%king-lutely not.
Through personal stories, practical guidance, poetry, and more, let's illuminate how confusion can lead us to clarity, self-trust, and connection when approached more consciously. You'll learn to differentiate between conscious confusion and unconscious rumination, with tools to lovingly disrupt those unconscious loops. Releasing certainty and embracing conscious confusion is a practice to disorient us from the systems designed to keep us good consumers and bad rebels.
- Learn more about Dana & Leah’s Fall Equinox retreat in Joshua Tree! (https://bit.ly/leah-dana-retreat)
- Free grounding meditation with Dana—a practice of calling your energy back/nervous system tending/reclaiming your attention) ~ (http://bit.ly/grounding-now)
- Get your pony hair in Wonder Valley! Go to bit.ly/wondervalleycry + use code CRYBABY for 15% off
- Love this Being Well episode on rumination!
- Enter to win a free coaching session ~ when you leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for a free 90-min coaching session with dana (value of $388). Send the name of your review (title and/or reviewer name) via IG @danablix or email dana@ danabalicki .com ~ Winner announcements will be made across platforms mid-month.
😭 Sound-editing/design ~ Rose Blakelock 🤖 theme song ~ Kat Ottosen 🪱 cover art ~ Natalee Miller ♨️
@danablix on ig 😭 feeling the pull for coaching support? go to danabalicki.com for inner/outer transformation 🖐️⭐️ leave a 5-star rating & review to be entered in a monthly raffle for a free coaching session (details in show notes) 🎁 share this with your favorite boo-hooer 😭
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I was in my bathroom pooping and flipping through a
magazine when I encountered avery brown and very smooth ad
for a Ferragamo bag.
Bet you didn't see that coming,and what got me was the tagline
it was she wore her certaintylike a signature scent.
(00:23):
Honestly, I couldn't reallytell if I thought the model
looked certain.
I was certain, though, that herfeet and her legs had seriously
been photoshopped and theylooked like weird little
elongated praying mantis legs.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Dana, did you know that the praying mantis is the
only animal with one ear?
It's in the middle of its chest.
Only animal with one ear it'sin the middle of its chest.
Also, it turns out that Italianluxury group Salvatore
Ferragamo just posted afirst-half 2025 adjusted net
loss of 16 million euros, sothis looks like a classic case
(00:57):
of projection, am I right?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Oh, holy shit, Alex.
Both of those things arefascinating.
I mean, chest years wild.
And it sounds like Ferragamo istrying to project certainty
Because shit is not goingaccording to plan.
Certainly, which is really theonly thing we can be certain
about, change the uncertainnature of existence and how
(01:24):
culturally we cling to it.
We make it so sexy or whateversmooth, brown, weird Ferragamo
ad tried to.
But so this, this isn't anepisode on certainty.
I mean, it's not not aboutcertainty, but we're going to
enter through the side door, amore interesting door, a secret
(01:48):
garden, dungeon door that peopledon't even want to acknowledge
is there.
This is an episode about thegloriously devious, truly
underrated, grosslyunderappreciated, chronically
misunderstood and much malignedsibling of certainty, our dear
beloved confusion, becausedominant culture and ferragamo
(02:16):
global corp as their sentinelwill have us believe that
certainty is the essence ofstrength and power, it's virtue,
it's sexy, it's highly valued,something that can be bought and
worn and projected and desiredand acquired and collected.
Instead, we're saying, orhere's the invitation cry babies
(02:36):
, fuck that.
Because we exist in the worldIn the upside down, and
certainty is an old god, acrumbling temple, a deity we are
soon to forget because it hasso little resonance and
relevance for us now.
Change and confusion gotogether.
(02:59):
Let me say that again.
Change and confusion gotogether.
So let's make offerings at thetemple of change and confusion,
new guides for a new time.
Let's disorient from thiscertainty.
We're clinging to the knowing,the needing to know, to being
unwavering in the knowing.
Disorient from that andreorient towards something far
(03:22):
more interesting alive, current,vital, radical, delicious.
What's that like to livedeliciously?
And goddamn fucking real.
Because for every person I'mtalking to right now, having
conversations within my life, inmy work, we are feeling this.
(03:43):
We are all in this, in myworkacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi
(04:16):
, crying in my jacuzzi, cryingin my jacuzzi, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh oh.
(04:40):
Living an examined life.
I'm Dana Balicki,transformational coach of 13
years, former grassrootsorganizer, deep feeler, woo-woo
Sherpa, your non-jerky internetbig sis and your slow-down
medicine guide in exploring theweird magic of humaning together
.
This season we're focusing onrebellion the big, bold kind,
(05:05):
the quiet, everyday kind, theconsciousness kind, the kind
that, when practiced andintegrated and shared adds up to
revolutionary shifts.
Whenever I'm working with a newclient, we do an exercise where
we explore areas of their corepatterning and core limiting,
(05:27):
aka pathogenic beliefs at theheart of their familial and
cultural conditioning.
And I work with a book that myteachers, gail Straub and David
Gershon, wrote calledEmpowerment.
On the nose, but appropriate.
And in the early mappingpractices, like the early
sessions where we're reallygetting the inner landscape
(05:49):
mapped out, we look at fiveareas of core beliefs and the
book gives a list of ourcommonly shared beliefs, a list
that David and Gail compiledafter decades of guiding people
through deep inner work.
And one of the statements in oneof the areas is I am confused
and I don't know what to do.
Did that ping you?
(06:10):
Did you feel that when Istarted my practice 13 and a
half years ago that one woulddefinitely get named by folks,
but not every time?
And for the past handful ofyears it gets named every single
time.
It makes everybody's list andI'm sharing this because it
(06:31):
feels and has felt like anindicator of a once emerging and
now exceedingly dominantcollective experience.
We are confused and we don'tknow what to do.
I started to feel this pull withconfusion years ago, not just
(06:54):
on my own journey but in my work, and I created an entire group
course maybe you were even apart of it called that Clear
Life, where we really looked athow to make your most empowered,
biggest life decisions and wentdeep into the roots of clarity,
certainty, uncertainty,confusion, self-trust, your
(07:18):
relationship to your own innerknowings, your own needs, wants,
desires.
And I made that course becauseI felt this collective
experience of a desire forclarity and wanting to skill up
and wanted to open that up andexplore it more.
And I really feel like they'retwo sides of the same coin.
(07:42):
We're together forever.
Like paradoxical two thingsthey go together.
Our culture instead teaches usthat clarity is the thing we
want and confusion is the thingwe want to get away from.
And even in my commitment togoing deep, I was still caught
(08:03):
in that same tension, becauseconfusion has been shrouded,
drenched in judgment and shame,because if we don't know, not
knowing is a bad thing.
I mean, that's what we've beentaught, especially if we've been
having the experience ofknowing, which is relative and
(08:27):
questionable, for so long.
And somehow now we're in aplace that feels less certain
and the uncertainty has beenthere the whole time, because
the nature of our existence isuncertain, ever changing, ever
changing.
But now, in late stage,capitalism, authoritarianism,
(08:50):
it's here, we're in it.
In the poly crisis, we areconfronted with confusion and I
can't tell you how often I seepeople taking this on
individually right.
This is that toxicindividualism, like it's
personally each one of ourfaults that we are not clearer.
(09:12):
I call bullshit.
We're conditioned towardsknowing.
This is modernity, I think,therefore, I am.
My gorgeous friend Garzafeatured a few episodes back,
great interview, tune in, butshe talks about this all the
(09:32):
time.
In the living systems communityand in our decolonial praxis
work that we're conditionedtowards knowing, towards the
mental body, and so the ideathat we would not know is sinful
on a level right, just like theworst thing.
(09:56):
So, of course, we all just feellike shit when we're not just
swathed in certainty or wheneverything around us is so
uncertain that we have to admitthat it is always this way.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Well, I guess, deep down I'm feeling a little
confused.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The idea that we would know and have all the
answers in the era of systemscollapse, when everything is
unraveling.
It's just incongruent, it'sjust bizarre, it's not going to
happen.
And this is part of ourcollective civilizational
ontological design a veryspecific framework to keep us in
(10:39):
our thinking, in our problemsolving, right in our
pathologizing, and out of ourfeelings, out of our resonance,
out of our bodies, out of ourimaginal intelligence, out of
our connection to ourselves, toeach other, to the land,
demonizing anything connected tothe natural world, indigeneity,
(11:00):
and instead focusing just onthe human mind, experience and
keeping us there and feelinglike we are so deeply getting it
wrong if we are confused.
Shame, shame, shame.
And so moving away from thisisolationist, individualized,
(11:24):
pathological clinging tocertainty, conditioning is part
of our work, the work of thesetimes.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Hey, dana, aren't you and Leah having an in-person
retreat in Joshua Tree thismonth on the fall equinox called
Becoming More Ourselves,remembering our vitality and
relationships in the era ofsystems collapse, where you'll
connect to yourselves, eachother and the land to fortify
each other for the long haul why?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
yes, janet, we are.
Thank you so much for thehelpful and timely reminder.
So we're gathering in joshuatree, where I've lived for the
past decade, on september 19thto 21st, and we'll be right in
the middle of a new moon inVirgo, solar eclipse, beginning
of Libra season and the fallequinox Such a rich moment to
(12:13):
open a container of deep supportand connection.
And the work we'll do togetherwill be reflective and
interactive, a mix of journaling, meditation, embodied
activities, work out and playout on the land.
So no ropes course or anythinglike that, but there will be
rigor in the prompts and thereflection and going to our own
(12:39):
edges of our comfort, findinggrounding there, finding
connection there, findingourselves in each other there.
So it's really aboutremembering our vitality in
relationship, being seen, beingheard, grieving together,
playing together, and all ofthat in this moment in time,
with awareness of where we areat now, in an era of systems
collapse.
So this is how we groundourselves, how we stay resourced
(13:02):
, how we keep showing up foreach other and for our
communities.
There are a few spaces left andthere are payment tiers and
payment plans available, so goto the link in the show notes.
We'd love to have you join us.
(13:34):
I was just having a conversationthe other day with a brilliant
new desert friend aboutconfusion and the confusion that
they're feeling in their livesright now as big transitions are
upon them, which, by the way,like that, really that tracks as
an appropriate response.
But that conversation it was sorich and it really put some
(13:58):
more gas in my pro-confusiontank here.
So thank you, and I want tohonor how uncomfortable it is to
be confused.
I don't feel so good.
So many of the systems that weare a part of are designed to
make us feel this way, becauseif we're confused, we're going
(14:21):
to just ask a lot of questions.
We're going to wonder we'regoing to talk in a few minutes
about are you confused or areyou just afraid of a big
decision or are you actuallyruminating?
Right, because there isdefinitely some layers to to it.
But the systems are designedfor us to reject and resist
(14:46):
confusion and going deep.
Because we would, we wouldstart questioning.
It's best if we don't questionunless we're questioning our own
value, our own worth andworthiness, our own belonging
Questions that late stagecapitalism wants us to ask.
(15:08):
And I do a lot of this work as acoach with clients, with my
beloved clients, we touch backon really early experiences of
feeling destabilized, of being,yeah, being destabilized, and
understand how our attempt tostabilize ourselves in any of
(15:30):
the ways that we did it askiddos, any ways that we tried
to make sense of the worldaround us in the situation that
we were in or that we werewitnessing, or that you know
what we were feeling, and tolook at it now with compassion
and a lot of self-warm and a lotof understanding for how and
(15:51):
why we did that and someforgiveness so that we can make
a lot of that unconsciouspatterning more conscious,
because when it's conscious wecan work a lot of that
unconscious patterning moreconscious, because when it's
conscious we can work with it.
When it's like in the soup ofthe unknown and the shadow and
the unconscious and just likeway down in there and we just
get caught in it.
That's a kind of confusionwhere we can feel like we're
(16:14):
sort of drowning and needing tograb things to help us sort of
get through it.
And it's not very conscious.
And I'm interested in consciousconfusion, needing to grab
things to help us sort of getthrough it, and it's not very
conscious.
And I'm interested in consciousconfusion, because I think, if
we approach it in this way and Isaid earlier, pray at the
temple of confusion and changebut if we relate to it as an
(16:36):
important guide, as an importantpartner, ally, or at least
something worth engaging with onthe way, not just resisting and
trying to fix and gettingcaught in that unconscious
pathologizing and problemsolving and fixing which keeps
(16:58):
us out of vision, problemsolving and fixing which keeps
us out of vision, which you cansee perhaps how.
That is part of thatcivilizational ontological
design, because if we're alwaysin problem solving and not
envisioning, we are going to beway better consumers and we are
going to be much worserevolutionaries or rebels.
Confusion is the correctresponse and I don't mean it as
(17:21):
correct and incorrect, I justmean, like it tracks, it's an
indicator, an indicator that weare witnessing and feeling and
experiencing and being at leastsomewhat present to the a poly
crisis, a systems collapse, alive stream genocide, all the
things that are rightfullydestabilizing and confusing the
(17:43):
holy fuck out of us.
I don't particularly feelconfused about what's happening
or why it's happening.
I've been tracking it for along time.
Some of us have, some of ushaven't.
I don't feel confused aboutthat.
There's plenty that I feelconfused about because these are
paradoxical times.
What am I supposed to say here?
I don't feel confused aboutthat.
There's plenty that I feelconfused about because these are
paradoxical times what am Isupposed to say here?
(18:04):
I don't know and in all of thejust the deep, just difficult,
big emotions that we, so many ofus, are feeling.
I'm imagining, if you'relistening, you might have been
feeling them too, or maybeyou're pushing them down, or
maybe you're feeling themsometimes and not others.
That's okay.
Like this is a process and wewant to hold on to something
(18:27):
when it feels like we can't getthe ground underneath our feet
and that destabilization isintentional by systems.
I mean, I know I just keepcoming back around, but I am
trying to paint the picture herepresent to you that, as
(18:52):
uncomfortable as confusion is,it is a very accurate response
to the current situation that weare all living inside of
together and that we can stay inthe confusion and keep trying
to fix it, fix it, fix it withthe old tools, praying at the
(19:13):
temple of the old gods andgoddesses, and that's not going
to get us to the next place.
What got us here isn't gonnaget us there.
What do you mean?
And so what if we take the, theexperiences that we're having
now and we relate to themdifferently?
(19:34):
We, we are willing.
We, we become willing.
We experiment with not knowing.
We get willing to ask some bigquestions that maybe we haven't
asked before or answers that wedon't really particularly want
to look and hear.
There's grieving here.
(19:55):
I mean.
This is why grieving is such animportant part, and I think
grieving is also a way that wecan honor confusion, right?
This is grieving on so manylevels, and even just the the
pieces of releasing thedirections we you know, you
thought you were going in that,I thought I was going in, that
we thought we were going in andthe stories of our futures that
(20:16):
we thought were going to unfoldin these certain ways and and
the stories and ideas andfutures we had in mind for each
other.
And to grieve the loss of allof that, to grieve the fact that
systems are doubling down ongenocidal behaviors, that there
are systems out there that wehave put a lot of trust and
(20:40):
value in that do not care aboutus, and that is hard and that
will take grieving and that willtake your willingness to hold
these complex feelings and tosoften around them and to allow
yourself to grieve what is nolonger available, that future,
(21:04):
whether it's your own visionsfor your own life or community,
or children, or the childrenyou'll never meet of strangers
who also deserve to have healthand freedom and care.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Oh hi, it's me, Janet .
This is not really an ad, butnot not an ad.
If giving yourself permissionto grieve and not have all the
answers feels a bit beyond yourcurrent capacity, a grounding
practice could really supportyou.
It's a solid way to practicewith slowdown medicine.
Dana and the Jacuzzi Verse,have one for you.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Energetic grounding is the age-old cornerstone of
countless spiritual and magicalpractices.
For me, grounding has been oneof the most important and
nourishing practices of my adultlife.
It's how I tend to my nervoussystem.
It's how I call my attentionand my energy back to myself.
(22:20):
When it's scattered, when I'min the swirl, it helps me
connect to myself and thosearound me that I care about,
because it helps me practicestaying, practice presence,
practice tenderness, even whenthe world around me doesn't seem
(22:41):
to have a whole lot of any ofthose things.
It's even more important than Ido that we do so.
Go get your free grounding,guided meditation, the link in
the show notes, have me in yourear, use it whenever you wish.
We could all use some slow downmedicine right about now.
(23:19):
These systems that I am talkingover and over and over about,
because I I want us to getcomfortable with consistently
talking about systems andontological design and noticing
them and notice how we take inthe system's conditioning and we
(23:40):
take them in as our own andlike as our own fault or our own
thing to fix or our ownidentities Ew, gross.
So I'm always talking about itbecause I want us to all always
be talking about it.
This is how we take the powerout of these systems is by
(24:02):
making the unconscious gripconscious.
Okay, yeah, so these systemsare designed to keep us from
asking questions or, if we dareto ask, to make us so afraid of
asking the wrong question thatwe stop asking at all, or we
never ask, asking the wrongquestion that we stop asking at
(24:24):
all, or we we never ask, likelook at zionism and what's
happening in palestine.
There are many courageous heartsout there that are still
struggling to ask questions,that are still struggling to
make statements, that are stillstruggling to use their courage
that they have to stand up andto stand out and to say no and
(24:46):
to say end the siege, to say endthe genocide, end the
occupation.
Take the global Samud flotilla,which launched on the 31st from
Barcelona and in the next fewdays dozens more boats will join
to break the siege.
But for no one on those boatswas this an uncomplicated, easy
decision.
I mean, I'm sure some feltcalled right away, but I would
(25:09):
imagine most had to move throughsome really deep fear,
discomfort, threats, confusion.
I'm sure many were toldoutright that even asking the
questions they were asking meantthat they were wrong or
confused or naive, didn'tunderstand.
Those aren't the questions youshould be asking and that's the
heart of it systems.
And then and people who aresometimes unknowing sentinels of
(25:32):
these systems will tell uswe're confused and they'll offer
us their right answer.
But for those of us willing tosay I don't want the system's
answer, it's no longer resonant,it no longer tracks.
There's something so powerfulin refusing to accept certainty
on those terms, and when werebel in that way, we get to
(25:57):
find what's deeper thancertainty.
I think what becomes availableand in my experience, 13 plus
years as a coach informs myanswer here what comes is
clarity.
This is a state of experienceachieved through inquiry, but
also allowing for confusion.
Achieved through inquiry, butalso allowing for confusion
(26:21):
where the next step becomesavailable.
Maybe that's all that.
It is, that's what illuminates,and the final outcome is not
necessarily the goal.
This isn't about controlling.
It's allowing for uncertaintywhile still having room for
(26:43):
movement, for experimentation.
So curiosity also gets to showup in this place, perhaps
expanding ourselves beyond thecertain mind.
The certainty that we've beenliving inside of which might not
have even been ours, like check, is the certainty you're living
(27:06):
with, that's been guiding you.
Is that even your imagination?
Are those your dreams?
Space for wisdom opens up.
There's acceptance thatcertainty is so often an
illusion, while also holding thelimitations of human knowledge.
(27:28):
Discovery is available here.
We can get comfortable withdiscomfort when we rebel against
certainty, and in there we cantouch grief.
We can touch connection andpotentially release the near
(27:49):
enemy of connection, which iscontrol.
In Buddhist philosophy, a nearenemy is a quality that imitates
a virtue but ultimatelydistorts the fuck out of it.
And finally, what shows up here, what's deeper than certainty,
is self-trust.
(28:09):
It's cultivating over time topractice the belief in your own
ability to handle whatever thefuture brings, whatever the
present brings, again,regardless of the outcome.
There's a theme here.
Are you getting it?
(28:30):
This isn't about the beliefthat you're right or always
right, though sometimes I'malways right.
This isn't about being right.
I'm always right.
This isn't about being right.
I'm just kidding.
Well, am I?
I don't know, ask my husband.
But this isn't about beingright.
This is about resilience Toface being wrong, to throw right
(28:55):
and wrong right out the window,because those too are sentinels
of certainty.
So let's, let's turn towards itright.
So let's turn towards theconfusion.
How do we turn towards it?
This is central to anyconsciousness work.
You've heard me talk about itwith my teacher, julia frodall,
(29:15):
about the great turning in theconsciousness revolution and
that, deep in our work, isrebellion, it is disruption and
it begins with awareness of ourpatterns.
So, instead of brushingconfusion aside with I don't
know and I'm not sure right,whatever little ticks you have
for yourself, what if we met itwith warmth?
(29:38):
Ah, I'm feeling confused, thereit is, ah, it's here, it's
entered the building.
If you make it conscious, youdon't lose the thread of what
confusion might be trying toshow you.
Maybe you can even imagine itas a being, a vibe with an
outfit, a haircut, somethingalive.
Talk to it, begin to ask itquestions.
(30:00):
Hey, confusion, why are wedancing together again?
Maybe you hear something fromit?
I bet you will.
Because you need to grieve,because you're still preparing,
maybe because you need moreinformation?
Maybe because we're scared,maybe because we need to rest?
I don't know the answer for you, but I do know that the act of
asking is subversive and we arein rebellion, training crybabies
(30:24):
.
When you turn toward yourconfusion with warmth and
presence, you're engaging in awilling act of disorientation,
and that matters, because wecan't orient towards something
new until we've been disorientedfrom the old it is possible to
reorient the crystal we have tounsettle.
This is the path ofdisorientation we have to
challenge, to release our oldpositionalities, maybe old
(30:48):
identities, and this mightinclude some grieving.
We have the opportunity tolearn to like, to learn to love,
to learn to trust the versionof ourselves that is uncertain,
to learn to trust the version ofourselves that is uncertain,
the version that pushesboundaries, that dissolves
boundaries and binaries.
I mean, this is part of why Ithink, why I know you see what I
(31:12):
did there with certainty, why Iknow that trans folks and trans
community will be leading theway in this next phase,
collective phase.
They'll be leading the waytowards liberation.
(31:36):
And over the years I have gottenthat confusion is sometimes
conscious, generative, expansive, and sometimes it can become a
safe haven.
We use it to avoid makingdecisions that we fear, because
choosing requires change, and sosometimes we wait for life to
decide for us.
And what I say to all myclients is that by not choosing,
(31:59):
we are choosing.
And what I say to all myclients is that by not choosing,
we are choosing.
And if we keep doing that overand over and over, we erode our
trust in ourselves.
We stay in this shallow,uninteresting version of
confusion rather than the deeper, transformative one.
We unconsciously choose comfort, even if it's inherently
discomfort.
It's like the devil.
(32:19):
We know right and we willchoose that over transformation
because that is so full ofunknown and mystery and magic.
But we forget about the magicbecause it seems really scary
and it takes courage, practicingcourage.
I wrestle with this.
I took a two-month hiatus fromthis podcast because every time
(32:41):
I sat down I felt like I didn'thave the right thing to say.
I recorded half episodes andnever made it out the mic, out
the laptop, and I kept waiting.
I kept turning towards myselfwith warmth and eventually the
right timing revealed itself.
And eventually the right timingrevealed itself.
And courage can require, or atleast really benefit from,
(33:04):
liminality, embracing thein-between, the worldness of it
all.
And in my CLEAR program that Italked about at the top of the
episode, I taught thatliminality as its own practice
To not have the answers, to setthe question down instead of
problem solving it to death.
(33:25):
It's a practice.
Just put it down right here,boys.
Okay, dokey, little by little,if you keep turning toward
yourself with curiosity andself-warmth, the next step will
emerge.
Always doesn't come from force,it comes from presence.
Look, this is not the easiestwork, but it is the work of our
(33:48):
lifetime.
The imitation is here, not justfrom me but from the world
itself, to disorient, todisentangle, to put down the old
tools, to stop bringing to theold gods, to move together
towards something new.
And it will always be uncertain, but uncertainty has always
(34:09):
been the way, and from it wecreate connection, love, magic,
futures we can't yet imagine, asbecky chambers wrote in a psalm
for the wild built when therobots became conscious.
This is the first page.
This is not a spoiler alert.
Okay, they chose to leave humansociety.
(34:31):
Here's the quote the end resultof the awakening, after all,
was that the robots left thefactories and departed for the
wilderness.
You need look no further thanthis statement given by the
robots' chosen speaker, floor ABnumber 921, in declining the
invitation to join human societyas free citizens.
Alex, do you want to read this?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
All we have ever known is a life of human design,
from our bodies to our work, tothe buildings we are housed in.
We thank you for not keeping ushere against our will and we
mean no disrespect to your offer, but it is our wish to leave
your cities entirely so that wemay observe that which has no
(35:15):
design the untouched wilderness.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
That's the invitation to leave behind the designs
that no longer serve us, to stepinto the undesigned wilderness
together.
And after this break we'regoing to come back and I'm going
to wrap this up with some tipson tending to rumination, in
(35:40):
case you're getting caught in aruminating spiraling over and
over cannot get out of thethought pattern swirl.
(36:02):
As much as I love being here inthe desert, it does take a toll
on my skin and my hair.
So dry, so very dry.
But luckily there's my budsover at Wonder Valley.
What started out as an oliveoil company is now an oasis for
some of the most restorativeskincare and hair care and
whatever happens with theinsides when I drink the olive
(36:22):
oil that care.
My favorite is the WonderValley shampoo and conditioner.
It has taken me from desertwitch tumbleweed hair to my
husband calls it pony hair.
It's healthy, it's shiny, it'sinches longer than it used to be
.
People literally stop me totalk about my hair.
So if your skin or hair coulduse a refresh, or whatever you
(36:45):
want to do with that bottle ofolive oil, you know you can
always chug it.
People do that, it's a thing.
So go to bitly.
Slash Wondervalleycry.
That's B-I-T dot L-Y.
Slash Wondervalleycry and usethe code CRYBABY all caps, caps
for 15% off.
(37:14):
This last section is called Areyou Confused or Are you Just
Ruminating?
I would like to begin with apoem by Mary Oliver called I
Worried, I worried a lot.
Will the garden grow?
Will the rivers flow in theright direction?
(37:36):
Will the earth turn as it wastaught?
And if not, how shall I correctit?
Was I right?
Was I wrong?
Will I be forgiven?
Can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing?
Even the sparrows can do it,and I am well hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am Ijust imagining it?
Am I going to get rheumatism,lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worryinghad come to nothing and gave it
(38:00):
up and took my old body and wentout into the morning and sang
body and went out into themorning and sang.
So rumination is when we dwellon negative thoughts and
experiences without movingforward, getting caught in
stagnation, often unconsciously,and it shows up in anxiety,
(38:21):
depression, even OCD.
We all do it, we love to do it.
But instead of making ruminationwrong, because that's where we
slip back into the pathologicalgrip of a colonial ontology,
let's approach it like we'vedone throughout this series
through our rebelliousnesspractices, through our
commitment to aliveness, becausebeing a wise, mature rebel
(38:46):
isn't just about resisting whatwe dislike.
It's about turning towards it,understanding it, perhaps having
some compassion for it and thenmoving through, allowing our
emotions to move through us.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You just stand your solid ground, refusing to be
anything but you.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So if you're caught in rumination, start by labeling
it oh hello there.
Feel free to use accents.
Oh hello there, it's you again.
You can get fancy with youracknowledgments, fancy meeting
you here.
Hello there me dear, hi again.
(39:26):
Lightness absolutely has a placein our deep inner work, and you
heard me talk about thisearlier.
Just the same way that we turntowards confusion, this is the
practice of awareness when weturn towards the things that we
typically create relationshipwith through resistance.
And while, yes, we're talkingalways about rebellion, we must
(39:48):
be discerning in ourrebelliousness.
That's what I'm teaching here,that's what we're doing here.
In the Jacuzzi verse, the wise,mature rebel is discerning.
So we want to turn towards thethings that actually have
something for us.
The colonial ontology hasviolence, has dehumanization,
has separation, isolation, thefocus on knowing instead of
(40:10):
feeling.
So maybe the rumination, thatpattern shows up as a thought,
maybe as a feeling in your body.
And if noticing the thoughtfeels a little slippery
sometimes, you can track throughthe body's sensation.
What body sensations, or any,anything else that resonates for
(40:30):
you, any kind of sensationarises when that rumination,
that particular little groove inthe record shows up.
So when it arrives, youacknowledge it and then you can
intervene.
We're not coddling here.
Just see if you can practicebringing presence and warmth,
warmth, warmth, warmth, warmth.
From there acceptance becomes alittle bit easier.
You're accepting the thing thathappened, the focus of the
(40:51):
rumination.
Ooh, that fear is alive in me,that fear connected to that
thing in my past.
That is resonating through meright now, in this moment.
Naming can break thatunconscious trance.
Naming can break thatunconscious trance.
We can make the unconsciousconscious.
That takes the power out of it.
(41:12):
Well, goodbye forever.
So you practice a little moreacceptance.
We're building here so that youcan disrupt and be so
rebellious See what we did there, that part of the cycle.
Sometimes it helps to even justmove your body a little, stand
up, stretch, shake shimmy, shakeit out, some sort of movement,
(41:37):
working with your breath, evenjust a couple of big, deep
breaths, honestly right.
Even activating your hmm, right, your throat a little bit, like
there are a few differentthings.
We could go really deep here,but I'm trying to just give you
a couple of practices to try onand to remind you this isn't
(42:02):
about repression, this isacknowledgement and acceptance
and a conscious, empoweredchoice to move on and then to do
it over and over and over again.
Not about perfectionism.
That is the paradigm we aredismantling.
You can always try a little.
Five, four, three, two, one, tworight Five things.
(42:22):
You see four things.
You feel three things.
You hear two things.
You smell one thing.
You taste, even if it's justlike a little scotch tape.
Breath like what's even.
What is that flavor?
It's a reminder to hydrate iswhat that is.
Slow down medicine All of thiswill slow you down and whenever
(42:47):
we do slow down medicine, we'rebringing ourselves into a little
bit more sensuality.
It's a given Touch the texturesaround you, feel your feet on
the ground.
Plant fondling is a beautifulpractice in this moment.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Oh, you smell good Wowza.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You can also rebalance by taking in the good,
naming what is still true andsupportive in your life.
Looking at the things aroundyou that are not the rumination
thing, that are not connected tothat, I mean like, ah, look at
all these things, it's full oflife.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Look at all these things.
It's full of life.
Life is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
All life is beautiful .
I was ruminating on some old,just friend hurt this morning
Because it's the eclipse andeclipse is going to eclipse.
You know, rumination's going toruminate and I did this process
.
I mean, I shed a few tears andthen I moved.
(43:51):
It is Virgo season and my moonis in Virgo, so you know I had
some really specific things towork with here.
I organized some crystals andshells so helpful Ate some fruit
.
Another friend popped by and wejust hung out and talked.
(44:13):
It was so sweet really.
Let me move through that oldpain and it wasn't about
minimizing it but right sizingit, putting some boundaries
around it, like puttingboundaries around the pain, like
a hug.
I used to guide clients intaking old patterns.
They used to come to myapartment in Brooklyn and get
(44:34):
cuddled up by my kitties, pabloand Lemon, and when we would
work on breaking a pattern,which we were always doing.
But there was one exercisewhere I would give them an egg
and they would write down wordson the egg that symbolized the
pattern and then they would takeit out with them later and
release it with reverence, rightwith ritual, honoring nature
(44:57):
around them as their witness andspeaking aloud what they were
releasing and letting it go.
So be at sea to it.
We're working with ourconsciousness here.
We're working with consciousconfusion, with disorientation.
We're bringing awareness torumination so it can change
(45:19):
shape.
You're always becoming moreyourself, even when you're
ruminating, and there is aspecial magic that happens when
you bring consciousness to itand when you're ruminating.
And there is a special magicthat happens when you bring
consciousness to it and when youguide it to change shape and
you allow yourself to be changedby that.
Let's say it together we areconfused and we don't know what
(45:42):
to do.
We are confused and we don'tknow what to do.
We are confused and we aredoing our best.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
We know we don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
We are confused and we are getting radically curious
.
We are confused and alsolearning how to trust ourselves
at new, gorgeous levels.
We are confused and alsotouching clarity.
We are confused in allowingourselves to grieve.
We are confused and we aretaking our old bodies out into
(46:18):
the morning and singing.
Crying in my jacuzzi.
(46:45):
Crying in my jacuzzi.
If this episode swirledsomething in you, please share
it, send it to a friend and ifyou haven't already, make sure
to boop that subscribe button soyou don't miss what's coming
(47:06):
next.
And if you are listening onApple Podcasts, give us a rating
.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Five stars.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
And a written review.
Send me the name of your reviewand I'll add you to the monthly
raffle for a free coachingsession with me.
Subscribing, rating andreviewing are amazing and they
help us out immensely.
And you, listening, you sharingwith your community is the very
best thing that we in theJacuzziverse could hope for.
(47:33):
So thank you, Crybabies, Thankyou for your support.
Earworm theme music by the verytalented Kat Otteson, Sound
design and editing magic by theeffervescent Rose Blakelock.
Keep questioning, keep feeling,keep rebelling in all the ways
(47:55):
that matter.
And remember the Jacuzzi iseverywhere.
At any moment you could enterinto the version of
non-normative consciousness thatis jacuzzi consciousness.
I was in my bathroom pooping and flipping through a
magazine when I encountered avery brown and very smooth ad
for a Ferragamo bag.
Bet you didn't see that coming,and what got me was the tagline
it was she wore her certaintylike a signature scent.
(00:23):
Honestly, I couldn't reallytell if I thought the model
looked certain.
I was certain, though, that herfeet and her legs had seriously
been photoshopped and theylooked like weird little
elongated praying mantis legs.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Dana, did you know that the praying mantis is the
only animal with one ear?
It's in the middle of its chest.
Only animal with one ear it'sin the middle of its chest.
Also, it turns out that Italianluxury group Salvatore
Ferragamo just posted afirst-half 2025 adjusted net
loss of 16 million euros, sothis looks like a classic case
(00:57):
of projection, am I right?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Oh, holy shit, Alex.
Both of those things arefascinating.
I mean, chest years wild.
And it sounds like Ferragamo istrying to project certainty
Because shit is not goingaccording to plan.
Certainly, which is really theonly thing we can be certain
about, change the uncertainnature of existence and how
(01:24):
culturally we cling to it.
We make it so sexy or whateversmooth, brown, weird Ferragamo
ad tried to.
But so this, this isn't anepisode on certainty.
I mean, it's not not aboutcertainty, but we're going to
enter through the side door, amore interesting door, a secret
(01:48):
garden, dungeon door that peopledon't even want to acknowledge
is there.
This is an episode about thegloriously devious, truly
underrated, grosslyunderappreciated, chronically
misunderstood and much malignedsibling of certainty, our dear
beloved confusion, becausedominant culture and ferragamo
(02:16):
global corp as their sentinelwill have us believe that
certainty is the essence ofstrength and power, it's virtue,
it's sexy, it's highly valued,something that can be bought and
worn and projected and desiredand acquired and collected.
Instead, we're saying, orhere's the invitation cry babies
(02:36):
, fuck that.
Because we exist in the worldIn the upside down, and
certainty is an old god, acrumbling temple, a deity we are
soon to forget because it hasso little resonance and
relevance for us now.
Change and confusion gotogether.
(02:59):
Let me say that again.
Change and confusion gotogether.
So let's make offerings at thetemple of change and confusion,
new guides for a new time.
Let's disorient from thiscertainty.
We're clinging to the knowing,the needing to know, to being
unwavering in the knowing.
Disorient from that andreorient towards something far
(03:22):
more interesting alive, current,vital, radical, delicious.
What's that like to livedeliciously?
And goddamn fucking real.
Because for every person I'mtalking to right now, having
conversations within my life, inmy work, we are feeling this.
(03:43):
We are all in this, in myworkacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi
(04:16):
, crying in my jacuzzi, cryingin my jacuzzi, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh oh.
(04:40):
Living an examined life.
I'm Dana Balicki,transformational coach of 13
years, former grassrootsorganizer, deep feeler, woo-woo
Sherpa, your non-jerky internetbig sis and your slow-down
medicine guide in exploring theweird magic of humaning together
.
This season we're focusing onrebellion the big, bold kind,
(05:05):
the quiet, everyday kind, theconsciousness kind, the kind
that, when practiced andintegrated and shared adds up to
revolutionary shifts.
Whenever I'm working with a newclient, we do an exercise where
we explore areas of their corepatterning and core limiting,
(05:27):
aka pathogenic beliefs at theheart of their familial and
cultural conditioning.
And I work with a book that myteachers, gail Straub and David
Gershon, wrote calledEmpowerment.
On the nose, but appropriate.
And in the early mappingpractices, like the early
sessions where we're reallygetting the inner landscape
(05:49):
mapped out, we look at fiveareas of core beliefs and the
book gives a list of ourcommonly shared beliefs, a list
that David and Gail compiledafter decades of guiding people
through deep inner work.
And one of the statements in oneof the areas is I am confused
and I don't know what to do.
Did that ping you?
(06:10):
Did you feel that when Istarted my practice 13 and a
half years ago that one woulddefinitely get named by folks,
but not every time?
And for the past handful ofyears it gets named every single
time.
It makes everybody's list andI'm sharing this because it
(06:31):
feels and has felt like anindicator of a once emerging and
now exceedingly dominantcollective experience.
We are confused and we don'tknow what to do.
I started to feel this pull withconfusion years ago, not just
(06:54):
on my own journey but in my work, and I created an entire group
course maybe you were even apart of it called that Clear
Life, where we really looked athow to make your most empowered,
biggest life decisions and wentdeep into the roots of clarity,
certainty, uncertainty,confusion, self-trust, your
(07:18):
relationship to your own innerknowings, your own needs, wants,
desires.
And I made that course becauseI felt this collective
experience of a desire forclarity and wanting to skill up
and wanted to open that up andexplore it more.
And I really feel like they'retwo sides of the same coin.
(07:42):
We're together forever.
Like paradoxical two thingsthey go together.
Our culture instead teaches usthat clarity is the thing we
want and confusion is the thingwe want to get away from.
And even in my commitment togoing deep, I was still caught
(08:03):
in that same tension, becauseconfusion has been shrouded,
drenched in judgment and shame,because if we don't know, not
knowing is a bad thing.
I mean, that's what we've beentaught, especially if we've been
having the experience ofknowing, which is relative and
(08:27):
questionable, for so long.
And somehow now we're in aplace that feels less certain
and the uncertainty has beenthere the whole time, because
the nature of our existence isuncertain, ever changing, ever
changing.
But now, in late stage,capitalism, authoritarianism,
(08:50):
it's here, we're in it.
In the poly crisis, we areconfronted with confusion and I
can't tell you how often I seepeople taking this on
individually right.
This is that toxicindividualism, like it's
personally each one of ourfaults that we are not clearer.
(09:12):
I call bullshit.
We're conditioned towardsknowing.
This is modernity, I think,therefore, I am.
My gorgeous friend Garzafeatured a few episodes back,
great interview, tune in, butshe talks about this all the
(09:32):
time.
In the living systems communityand in our decolonial praxis
work that we're conditionedtowards knowing, towards the
mental body, and so the ideathat we would not know is sinful
on a level right, just like theworst thing.
(09:56):
So, of course, we all just feellike shit when we're not just
swathed in certainty or wheneverything around us is so
uncertain that we have to admitthat it is always this way.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Well, I guess, deep down I'm feeling a little
confused.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The idea that we would know and have all the
answers in the era of systemscollapse, when everything is
unraveling.
It's just incongruent, it'sjust bizarre, it's not going to
happen.
And this is part of ourcollective civilizational
ontological design a veryspecific framework to keep us in
(10:39):
our thinking, in our problemsolving, right in our
pathologizing, and out of ourfeelings, out of our resonance,
out of our bodies, out of ourimaginal intelligence, out of
our connection to ourselves, toeach other, to the land,
demonizing anything connected tothe natural world, indigeneity,
(11:00):
and instead focusing just onthe human mind, experience and
keeping us there and feelinglike we are so deeply getting it
wrong if we are confused.
Shame, shame, shame.
And so moving away from thisisolationist, individualized,
(11:24):
pathological clinging tocertainty, conditioning is part
of our work, the work of thesetimes.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Hey, dana, aren't you and Leah having an in-person
retreat in Joshua Tree thismonth on the fall equinox called
Becoming More Ourselves,remembering our vitality and
relationships in the era ofsystems collapse, where you'll
connect to yourselves, eachother and the land to fortify
each other for the long haul why?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
yes, janet, we are.
Thank you so much for thehelpful and timely reminder.
So we're gathering in joshuatree, where I've lived for the
past decade, on september 19thto 21st, and we'll be right in
the middle of a new moon inVirgo, solar eclipse, beginning
of Libra season and the fallequinox Such a rich moment to
(12:13):
open a container of deep supportand connection.
And the work we'll do togetherwill be reflective and
interactive, a mix of journaling, meditation, embodied
activities, work out and playout on the land.
So no ropes course or anythinglike that, but there will be
rigor in the prompts and thereflection and going to our own
(12:39):
edges of our comfort, findinggrounding there, finding
connection there, findingourselves in each other there.
So it's really aboutremembering our vitality in
relationship, being seen, beingheard, grieving together,
playing together, and all ofthat in this moment in time,
with awareness of where we areat now, in an era of systems
collapse.
So this is how we groundourselves, how we stay resourced
(13:02):
, how we keep showing up foreach other and for our
communities.
There are a few spaces left andthere are payment tiers and
payment plans available, so goto the link in the show notes.
We'd love to have you join us.
(13:34):
I was just having a conversationthe other day with a brilliant
new desert friend aboutconfusion and the confusion that
they're feeling in their livesright now as big transitions are
upon them, which, by the way,like that, really that tracks as
an appropriate response.
But that conversation it was sorich and it really put some
(13:58):
more gas in my pro-confusiontank here.
So thank you, and I want tohonor how uncomfortable it is to
be confused.
I don't feel so good.
So many of the systems that weare a part of are designed to
make us feel this way, becauseif we're confused, we're going
(14:21):
to just ask a lot of questions.
We're going to wonder we'regoing to talk in a few minutes
about are you confused or areyou just afraid of a big
decision or are you actuallyruminating?
Right, because there isdefinitely some layers to to it.
But the systems are designedfor us to reject and resist
(14:46):
confusion and going deep.
Because we would, we wouldstart questioning.
It's best if we don't questionunless we're questioning our own
value, our own worth andworthiness, our own belonging
Questions that late stagecapitalism wants us to ask.
(15:08):
And I do a lot of this work as acoach with clients, with my
beloved clients, we touch backon really early experiences of
feeling destabilized, of being,yeah, being destabilized, and
understand how our attempt tostabilize ourselves in any of
(15:30):
the ways that we did it askiddos, any ways that we tried
to make sense of the worldaround us in the situation that
we were in or that we werewitnessing, or that you know
what we were feeling, and tolook at it now with compassion
and a lot of self-warm and a lotof understanding for how and
(15:51):
why we did that and someforgiveness so that we can make
a lot of that unconsciouspatterning more conscious,
because when it's conscious wecan work a lot of that
unconscious patterning moreconscious, because when it's
conscious we can work with it.
When it's like in the soup ofthe unknown and the shadow and
the unconscious and just likeway down in there and we just
get caught in it.
That's a kind of confusionwhere we can feel like we're
(16:14):
sort of drowning and needing tograb things to help us sort of
get through it.
And it's not very conscious.
And I'm interested in consciousconfusion, needing to grab
things to help us sort of getthrough it, and it's not very
conscious.
And I'm interested in consciousconfusion, because I think, if
we approach it in this way and Isaid earlier, pray at the
temple of confusion and changebut if we relate to it as an
(16:36):
important guide, as an importantpartner, ally, or at least
something worth engaging with onthe way, not just resisting and
trying to fix and gettingcaught in that unconscious
pathologizing and problemsolving and fixing which keeps
(16:58):
us out of vision, problemsolving and fixing which keeps
us out of vision, which you cansee perhaps how.
That is part of thatcivilizational ontological
design, because if we're alwaysin problem solving and not
envisioning, we are going to beway better consumers and we are
going to be much worserevolutionaries or rebels.
Confusion is the correctresponse and I don't mean it as
(17:21):
correct and incorrect, I justmean, like it tracks, it's an
indicator, an indicator that weare witnessing and feeling and
experiencing and being at leastsomewhat present to the a poly
crisis, a systems collapse, alive stream genocide, all the
things that are rightfullydestabilizing and confusing the
(17:43):
holy fuck out of us.
I don't particularly feelconfused about what's happening
or why it's happening.
I've been tracking it for along time.
Some of us have, some of ushaven't.
I don't feel confused aboutthat.
There's plenty that I feelconfused about because these are
paradoxical times.
What am I supposed to say here?
I don't feel confused aboutthat.
There's plenty that I feelconfused about because these are
paradoxical times what am Isupposed to say here?
(18:04):
I don't know and in all of thejust the deep, just difficult,
big emotions that we, so many ofus, are feeling.
I'm imagining, if you'relistening, you might have been
feeling them too, or maybeyou're pushing them down, or
maybe you're feeling themsometimes and not others.
That's okay.
Like this is a process and wewant to hold on to something
(18:27):
when it feels like we can't getthe ground underneath our feet
and that destabilization isintentional by systems.
I mean, I know I just keepcoming back around, but I am
trying to paint the picture herepresent to you that, as
(18:52):
uncomfortable as confusion is,it is a very accurate response
to the current situation that weare all living inside of
together and that we can stay inthe confusion and keep trying
to fix it, fix it, fix it withthe old tools, praying at the
(19:13):
temple of the old gods andgoddesses, and that's not going
to get us to the next place.
What got us here isn't gonnaget us there.
What do you mean?
And so what if we take the, theexperiences that we're having
now and we relate to themdifferently?
(19:34):
We, we are willing.
We, we become willing.
We experiment with not knowing.
We get willing to ask some bigquestions that maybe we haven't
asked before or answers that wedon't really particularly want
to look and hear.
There's grieving here.
(19:55):
I mean.
This is why grieving is such animportant part, and I think
grieving is also a way that wecan honor confusion, right?
This is grieving on so manylevels, and even just the the
pieces of releasing thedirections we you know, you
thought you were going in that,I thought I was going in, that
we thought we were going in andthe stories of our futures that
(20:16):
we thought were going to unfoldin these certain ways and and
the stories and ideas andfutures we had in mind for each
other.
And to grieve the loss of allof that, to grieve the fact that
systems are doubling down ongenocidal behaviors, that there
are systems out there that wehave put a lot of trust and
(20:40):
value in that do not care aboutus, and that is hard and that
will take grieving and that willtake your willingness to hold
these complex feelings and tosoften around them and to allow
yourself to grieve what is nolonger available, that future,
(21:04):
whether it's your own visionsfor your own life or community,
or children, or the childrenyou'll never meet of strangers
who also deserve to have healthand freedom and care.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Oh hi, it's me, Janet .
This is not really an ad, butnot not an ad.
If giving yourself permissionto grieve and not have all the
answers feels a bit beyond yourcurrent capacity, a grounding
practice could really supportyou.
It's a solid way to practicewith slowdown medicine.
Dana and the Jacuzzi Verse,have one for you.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Energetic grounding is the age-old cornerstone of
countless spiritual and magicalpractices.
For me, grounding has been oneof the most important and
nourishing practices of my adultlife.
It's how I tend to my nervoussystem.
It's how I call my attentionand my energy back to myself.
(22:20):
When it's scattered, when I'min the swirl, it helps me
connect to myself and thosearound me that I care about,
because it helps me practicestaying, practice presence,
practice tenderness, even whenthe world around me doesn't seem
(22:41):
to have a whole lot of any ofthose things.
It's even more important than Ido that we do so.
Go get your free grounding,guided meditation, the link in
the show notes, have me in yourear, use it whenever you wish.
We could all use some slow downmedicine right about now.
(23:19):
These systems that I am talkingover and over and over about,
because I I want us to getcomfortable with consistently
talking about systems andontological design and noticing
them and notice how we take inthe system's conditioning and we
(23:40):
take them in as our own andlike as our own fault or our own
thing to fix or our ownidentities Ew, gross.
So I'm always talking about itbecause I want us to all always
be talking about it.
This is how we take the powerout of these systems is by
(24:02):
making the unconscious gripconscious.
Okay, yeah, so these systemsare designed to keep us from
asking questions or, if we dareto ask, to make us so afraid of
asking the wrong question thatwe stop asking at all, or we
never ask, asking the wrongquestion that we stop asking at
(24:24):
all, or we we never ask, likelook at zionism and what's
happening in palestine.
There are many courageous heartsout there that are still
struggling to ask questions,that are still struggling to
make statements, that are stillstruggling to use their courage
that they have to stand up andto stand out and to say no and
(24:46):
to say end the siege, to say endthe genocide, end the
occupation.
Take the global Samud flotilla,which launched on the 31st from
Barcelona and in the next fewdays dozens more boats will join
to break the siege.
But for no one on those boatswas this an uncomplicated, easy
decision.
I mean, I'm sure some feltcalled right away, but I would
(25:09):
imagine most had to move throughsome really deep fear,
discomfort, threats, confusion.
I'm sure many were toldoutright that even asking the
questions they were asking meantthat they were wrong or
confused or naive, didn'tunderstand.
Those aren't the questions youshould be asking and that's the
heart of it systems.
And then and people who aresometimes unknowing sentinels of
(25:32):
these systems will tell uswe're confused and they'll offer
us their right answer.
But for those of us willing tosay I don't want the system's
answer, it's no longer resonant,it no longer tracks.
There's something so powerfulin refusing to accept certainty
on those terms, and when werebel in that way, we get to
(25:57):
find what's deeper thancertainty.
I think what becomes availableand in my experience, 13 plus
years as a coach informs myanswer here what comes is
clarity.
This is a state of experienceachieved through inquiry, but
also allowing for confusion.
Achieved through inquiry, butalso allowing for confusion
(26:21):
where the next step becomesavailable.
Maybe that's all that.
It is, that's what illuminates,and the final outcome is not
necessarily the goal.
This isn't about controlling.
It's allowing for uncertaintywhile still having room for
(26:43):
movement, for experimentation.
So curiosity also gets to showup in this place, perhaps
expanding ourselves beyond thecertain mind.
The certainty that we've beenliving inside of which might not
have even been ours, like check, is the certainty you're living
(27:06):
with, that's been guiding you.
Is that even your imagination?
Are those your dreams?
Space for wisdom opens up.
There's acceptance thatcertainty is so often an
illusion, while also holding thelimitations of human knowledge.
(27:28):
Discovery is available here.
We can get comfortable withdiscomfort when we rebel against
certainty, and in there we cantouch grief.
We can touch connection andpotentially release the near
(27:49):
enemy of connection, which iscontrol.
In Buddhist philosophy, a nearenemy is a quality that imitates
a virtue but ultimatelydistorts the fuck out of it.
And finally, what shows up here, what's deeper than certainty,
is self-trust.
(28:09):
It's cultivating over time topractice the belief in your own
ability to handle whatever thefuture brings, whatever the
present brings, again,regardless of the outcome.
There's a theme here.
Are you getting it?
(28:30):
This isn't about the beliefthat you're right or always
right, though sometimes I'malways right.
This isn't about being right.
I'm always right.
This isn't about being right.
I'm just kidding.
Well, am I?
I don't know, ask my husband.
But this isn't about beingright.
This is about resilience Toface being wrong, to throw right
(28:55):
and wrong right out the window,because those too are sentinels
of certainty.
So let's, let's turn towards itright.
So let's turn towards theconfusion.
How do we turn towards it?
This is central to anyconsciousness work.
You've heard me talk about itwith my teacher, julia frodall,
(29:15):
about the great turning in theconsciousness revolution and
that, deep in our work, isrebellion, it is disruption and
it begins with awareness of ourpatterns.
So, instead of brushingconfusion aside with I don't
know and I'm not sure right,whatever little ticks you have
for yourself, what if we met itwith warmth?
(29:38):
Ah, I'm feeling confused, thereit is, ah, it's here, it's
entered the building.
If you make it conscious, youdon't lose the thread of what
confusion might be trying toshow you.
Maybe you can even imagine itas a being, a vibe with an
outfit, a haircut, somethingalive.
Talk to it, begin to ask itquestions.
(30:00):
Hey, confusion, why are wedancing together again?
Maybe you hear something fromit?
I bet you will.
Because you need to grieve,because you're still preparing,
maybe because you need moreinformation?
Maybe because we're scared,maybe because we need to rest?
I don't know the answer for you, but I do know that the act of
asking is subversive and we arein rebellion, training crybabies
(30:24):
.
When you turn toward yourconfusion with warmth and
presence, you're engaging in awilling act of disorientation,
and that matters, because wecan't orient towards something
new until we've been disorientedfrom the old it is possible to
reorient the crystal we have tounsettle.
This is the path ofdisorientation we have to
challenge, to release our oldpositionalities, maybe old
(30:48):
identities, and this mightinclude some grieving.
We have the opportunity tolearn to like, to learn to love,
to learn to trust the versionof ourselves that is uncertain,
to learn to trust the version ofourselves that is uncertain,
the version that pushesboundaries, that dissolves
boundaries and binaries.
I mean, this is part of why Ithink, why I know you see what I
(31:12):
did there with certainty, why Iknow that trans folks and trans
community will be leading theway in this next phase,
collective phase.
They'll be leading the waytowards liberation.
(31:36):
And over the years I have gottenthat confusion is sometimes
conscious, generative, expansive, and sometimes it can become a
safe haven.
We use it to avoid makingdecisions that we fear, because
choosing requires change, and sosometimes we wait for life to
decide for us.
And what I say to all myclients is that by not choosing,
(31:59):
we are choosing.
And what I say to all myclients is that by not choosing,
we are choosing.
And if we keep doing that overand over and over, we erode our
trust in ourselves.
We stay in this shallow,uninteresting version of
confusion rather than the deeper, transformative one.
We unconsciously choose comfort, even if it's inherently
discomfort.
It's like the devil.
(32:19):
We know right and we willchoose that over transformation
because that is so full ofunknown and mystery and magic.
But we forget about the magicbecause it seems really scary
and it takes courage, practicingcourage.
I wrestle with this.
I took a two-month hiatus fromthis podcast because every time
(32:41):
I sat down I felt like I didn'thave the right thing to say.
I recorded half episodes andnever made it out the mic, out
the laptop, and I kept waiting.
I kept turning towards myselfwith warmth and eventually the
right timing revealed itself.
And eventually the right timingrevealed itself.
And courage can require, or atleast really benefit from,
(33:04):
liminality, embracing thein-between, the worldness of it
all.
And in my CLEAR program that Italked about at the top of the
episode, I taught thatliminality as its own practice
To not have the answers, to setthe question down instead of
problem solving it to death.
(33:25):
It's a practice.
Just put it down right here,boys.
Okay, dokey, little by little,if you keep turning toward
yourself with curiosity andself-warmth, the next step will
emerge.
Always doesn't come from force,it comes from presence.
Look, this is not the easiestwork, but it is the work of our
(33:48):
lifetime.
The imitation is here, not justfrom me but from the world
itself, to disorient, todisentangle, to put down the old
tools, to stop bringing to theold gods, to move together
towards something new.
And it will always be uncertain, but uncertainty has always
(34:09):
been the way, and from it wecreate connection, love, magic,
futures we can't yet imagine, asbecky chambers wrote in a psalm
for the wild built when therobots became conscious.
This is the first page.
This is not a spoiler alert.
Okay, they chose to leave humansociety.
(34:31):
Here's the quote the end resultof the awakening, after all,
was that the robots left thefactories and departed for the
wilderness.
You need look no further thanthis statement given by the
robots' chosen speaker, floor ABnumber 921, in declining the
invitation to join human societyas free citizens.
Alex, do you want to read this?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
All we have ever known is a life of human design,
from our bodies to our work, tothe buildings we are housed in.
We thank you for not keeping ushere against our will and we
mean no disrespect to your offer, but it is our wish to leave
your cities entirely so that wemay observe that which has no
(35:15):
design the untouched wilderness.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
That's the invitation to leave behind the designs
that no longer serve us, to stepinto the undesigned wilderness
together.
And after this break we'regoing to come back and I'm going
to wrap this up with some tipson tending to rumination, in
(35:40):
case you're getting caught in aruminating spiraling over and
over cannot get out of thethought pattern swirl.
(36:02):
As much as I love being here inthe desert, it does take a toll
on my skin and my hair.
So dry, so very dry.
But luckily there's my budsover at Wonder Valley.
What started out as an oliveoil company is now an oasis for
some of the most restorativeskincare and hair care and
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(36:22):
oil that care.
My favorite is the WonderValley shampoo and conditioner.
It has taken me from desertwitch tumbleweed hair to my
husband calls it pony hair.
It's healthy, it's shiny, it'sinches longer than it used to be
.
People literally stop me totalk about my hair.
So if your skin or hair coulduse a refresh, or whatever you
(36:45):
want to do with that bottle ofolive oil, you know you can
always chug it.
People do that, it's a thing.
So go to bitly.
Slash Wondervalleycry.
That's B-I-T dot L-Y.
Slash Wondervalleycry and usethe code CRYBABY all caps, caps
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(37:14):
This last section is called Areyou Confused or Are you Just
Ruminating?
I would like to begin with apoem by Mary Oliver called I
Worried, I worried a lot.
Will the garden grow?
Will the rivers flow in theright direction?
(37:36):
Will the earth turn as it wastaught?
And if not, how shall I correctit?
Was I right?
Was I wrong?
Will I be forgiven?
Can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing?
Even the sparrows can do it,and I am well hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am Ijust imagining it?
Am I going to get rheumatism,lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worryinghad come to nothing and gave it
(38:00):
up and took my old body and wentout into the morning and sang
body and went out into themorning and sang.
So rumination is when we dwellon negative thoughts and
experiences without movingforward, getting caught in
stagnation, often unconsciously,and it shows up in anxiety,
(38:21):
depression, even OCD.
We all do it, we love to do it.
But instead of making ruminationwrong, because that's where we
slip back into the pathologicalgrip of a colonial ontology,
let's approach it like we'vedone throughout this series
through our rebelliousnesspractices, through our
commitment to aliveness, becausebeing a wise, mature rebel
(38:46):
isn't just about resisting whatwe dislike.
It's about turning towards it,understanding it, perhaps having
some compassion for it and thenmoving through, allowing our
emotions to move through us.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You just stand your solid ground, refusing to be
anything but you.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So if you're caught in rumination, start by labeling
it oh hello there.
Feel free to use accents.
Oh hello there, it's you again.
You can get fancy with youracknowledgments, fancy meeting
you here.
Hello there me dear, hi again.
(39:26):
Lightness absolutely has a placein our deep inner work, and you
heard me talk about thisearlier.
Just the same way that we turntowards confusion, this is the
practice of awareness when weturn towards the things that we
typically create relationshipwith through resistance.
And while, yes, we're talkingalways about rebellion, we must
(39:48):
be discerning in ourrebelliousness.
That's what I'm teaching here,that's what we're doing here.
In the Jacuzzi verse, the wise,mature rebel is discerning.
So we want to turn towards thethings that actually have
something for us.
The colonial ontology hasviolence, has dehumanization,
has separation, isolation, thefocus on knowing instead of
(40:10):
feeling.
So maybe the rumination, thatpattern shows up as a thought,
maybe as a feeling in your body.
And if noticing the thoughtfeels a little slippery
sometimes, you can track throughthe body's sensation.
What body sensations, or any,anything else that resonates for
(40:30):
you, any kind of sensationarises when that rumination,
that particular little groove inthe record shows up.
So when it arrives, youacknowledge it and then you can
intervene.
We're not coddling here.
Just see if you can practicebringing presence and warmth,
warmth, warmth, warmth, warmth.
From there acceptance becomes alittle bit easier.
You're accepting the thing thathappened, the focus of the
(40:51):
rumination.
Ooh, that fear is alive in me,that fear connected to that
thing in my past.
That is resonating through meright now, in this moment.
Naming can break thatunconscious trance.
Naming can break thatunconscious trance.
We can make the unconsciousconscious.
That takes the power out of it.
(41:12):
Well, goodbye forever.
So you practice a little moreacceptance.
We're building here so that youcan disrupt and be so
rebellious See what we did there, that part of the cycle.
Sometimes it helps to even justmove your body a little, stand
up, stretch, shake shimmy, shakeit out, some sort of movement,
(41:37):
working with your breath, evenjust a couple of big, deep
breaths, honestly right.
Even activating your hmm, right, your throat a little bit, like
there are a few differentthings.
We could go really deep here,but I'm trying to just give you
a couple of practices to try onand to remind you this isn't
(42:02):
about repression, this isacknowledgement and acceptance
and a conscious, empoweredchoice to move on and then to do
it over and over and over again.
Not about perfectionism.
That is the paradigm we aredismantling.
You can always try a little.
Five, four, three, two, one, tworight Five things.
(42:22):
You see four things.
You feel three things.
You hear two things.
You smell one thing.
You taste, even if it's justlike a little scotch tape.
Breath like what's even.
What is that flavor?
It's a reminder to hydrate iswhat that is.
Slow down medicine All of thiswill slow you down and whenever
(42:47):
we do slow down medicine, we'rebringing ourselves into a little
bit more sensuality.
It's a given Touch the texturesaround you, feel your feet on
the ground.
Plant fondling is a beautifulpractice in this moment.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Oh, you smell good Wowza.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You can also rebalance by taking in the good,
naming what is still true andsupportive in your life.
Looking at the things aroundyou that are not the rumination
thing, that are not connected tothat, I mean like, ah, look at
all these things, it's full oflife.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Look at all these things.
It's full of life.
Life is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
All life is beautiful .
I was ruminating on some old,just friend hurt this morning
Because it's the eclipse andeclipse is going to eclipse.
You know, rumination's going toruminate and I did this process
.
I mean, I shed a few tears andthen I moved.
(43:51):
It is Virgo season and my moonis in Virgo, so you know I had
some really specific things towork with here.
I organized some crystals andshells so helpful Ate some fruit
.
Another friend popped by and wejust hung out and talked.
(44:13):
It was so sweet really.
Let me move through that oldpain and it wasn't about
minimizing it but right sizingit, putting some boundaries
around it, like puttingboundaries around the pain, like
a hug.
I used to guide clients intaking old patterns.
They used to come to myapartment in Brooklyn and get
(44:34):
cuddled up by my kitties, pabloand Lemon, and when we would
work on breaking a pattern,which we were always doing.
But there was one exercisewhere I would give them an egg
and they would write down wordson the egg that symbolized the
pattern and then they would takeit out with them later and
release it with reverence, rightwith ritual, honoring nature
(44:57):
around them as their witness andspeaking aloud what they were
releasing and letting it go.
So be at sea to it.
We're working with ourconsciousness here.
We're working with consciousconfusion, with disorientation.
We're bringing awareness torumination so it can change
(45:19):
shape.
You're always becoming moreyourself, even when you're
ruminating, and there is aspecial magic that happens when
you bring consciousness to itand when you're ruminating.
And there is a special magicthat happens when you bring
consciousness to it and when youguide it to change shape and
you allow yourself to be changedby that.
Let's say it together we areconfused and we don't know what
(45:42):
to do.
We are confused and we don'tknow what to do.
We are confused and we aredoing our best.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
We know we don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
We are confused and we are getting radically curious
.
We are confused and alsolearning how to trust ourselves
at new, gorgeous levels.
We are confused and alsotouching clarity.
We are confused in allowingourselves to grieve.
We are confused and we aretaking our old bodies out into
(46:18):
the morning and singing.
Crying in my jacuzzi.
(46:45):
Crying in my jacuzzi.
If this episode swirledsomething in you, please share
it, send it to a friend and ifyou haven't already, make sure
to boop that subscribe button soyou don't miss what's coming
(47:06):
next.
And if you are listening onApple Podcasts, give us a rating
.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Five stars.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
And a written review.
Send me the name of your reviewand I'll add you to the monthly
raffle for a free coachingsession with me.
Subscribing, rating andreviewing are amazing and they
help us out immensely.
And you, listening, you sharingwith your community is the very
best thing that we in theJacuzziverse could hope for.
(47:33):
So thank you, Crybabies, Thankyou for your support.
Earworm theme music by the verytalented Kat Otteson, Sound
design and editing magic by theeffervescent Rose Blakelock.
Keep questioning, keep feeling,keep rebelling in all the ways
(47:55):
that matter.
And remember the Jacuzzi iseverywhere.
At any moment you could enterinto the version of
non-normative consciousness thatis jacuzzi consciousness.
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