Let’s say you have a problem.

Maybe the hedgehogs are getting into the cacti patch again, or your boss keeps making passive-aggressive jabs, or you got another call from the school.  Or maybe you really, really hate your wallpaper.

Here’s a pop quiz:

Do you

a) Run out immediately and buy new hedgehogs and wallpaper;
b) Sit down in lotus position and meditate; or
c) Drink heavily?

Here is the correct answer:

None of the above.  Or maybe all of the above.

It depends on your belly.

Last week we talked about how external problems– the way your apartment shrunk pitifully over the summer, for example– are often just our minds taking a trip to crazytown.

The good news is that since that journey happened inside your own darling head, you can get back that way too.  You always have a return ticket.

But sometimes the way back can be confusing.  When should we be ‘questioning our limiting beliefs’ or ‘doing our own work’ or ‘finding the teacher in the challenge’– and when should we just get in the car and go buy a weedwhacker to take care of the damn cacti???

(We’ll get to the wallpaper in a minute.)

How do you know whether you’re reacting, over-reacting, being proactive, or escaping into la-la land?  If you’re thirsty, should you meditate on the astral essence of water?  Should you think positive thoughts about how you’re going to manifest water?  Or should you should just walk over to the faucet and fill up your glass?

The answer, truly, is in your belly.

So last week I got caught in a shame spiral.  I fixated on an external situation– the smallness of my apartment– and made it mean all kinds of mean, horrible things about myself.  Here’s how I knew it was a shame attack and not divine instructions to hire a real estate agent: it was the sludgy, icky, gaggy feeling in my belly.

THAT physical sensation– of feeling simultaneously revolted and paralyzed– is your big red flag.

That’s how your belly signals “Shame spiral!!  Code red!!” in bodily morse code.

If you feel shut down, ashamed, or despairing– MAKE NO MOVES.  From that place, you won’t make good choices.  You’ll go out and drape your own sweet beauteous self on the cacti.  You’ll take the weed-whacker to the office.  You’ll pull out the vodka bottle and marry the hedgehogs.

Shame shuts us down.  Desire pulls us forward.

Once I stopped the shame attack , I felt something very differently in my belly.  I felt a surge of warm energy, a confident bouncy desire to get something tangible done.  And then I could make my home beautiful again with verrrry little drama.  But as long as I was in the grip of a shame attack, I might as well have been a very distraught hedgehog.

When you feel a big clean surge of possibility, you can follow that urge toward whatever you feel compelled to get done.  It’ll feel different, on a tangible physical level, than a shame attack, which will always tell you that you OUGHT to be doing something BUT you suck too much to even try.

One of the best things about working with my private clients is that I get to sit with them while they ponder some of the biggest decisions of their lives.  Should they stay or go?  Should they invest or cut their losses?  Should they leap or build a cocoon?

One of the things I can sense– I can almost taste it– is whether they’re murky or clear.

When there’s a lot of circular thinking, or they feel trapped, or every direction looks equally unappealing, it’s a sure sign that there’s some internal clearing to do first.

Because even if the choice is agonizing, when you’re clear, there’s a palpable momentum.  Even if heartbreak and fear are present, there’s also a sense of movement, an incredible quickening.

That pull, that sense of forward motion, is inexorable yet deeply quiet.  It has none of the frantic panic of a shame attack.  And sometimes it will feel like pure joy.  So here’s what it comes down to:

If you look at your wallpaper with great despair, because it reminds you of that great lover you had in high school, the one who took everything good from you, the one who turned you into the pile of human sludge that you are at this moment, the whole reason you’re living in this dump, where EVEN YOUR WALLPAPER shows you’re a loser– consider that a big red stop sign.  Slow down, sweet pea.  Make no big moves, make no important decisions, and don’t start any crucial conversations.  First attend to the crud swirling around inside you.  (Try this or this or this.)

But if you look at your wallpaper and you think, Gee, I’ve always hated purple velvet, and I don’t even like silver cabbage roses, and Hey! I have a putty knife in the basement! and I could just pull it down this very weekend, it’ll be EASY!  –Then probably?  It’s just the wallpaper.

And you can totally tear that shit down.

much love,
Katherine

P.S.  I don’t KNOW why there are hedgehogs in this one, okay?  I apologize.  I went after them with a weedwhacker and couldn’t get them out.  Just kidding!  No hedgehogs were harmed in the making of this missive.  They just insisted on being here.  Maybe I can distract you– squirrel!

No?  Ok, then here’s a lucky clover.