A shit-extruding machine. What a concept!
Do you ever torment yourself? Can you be self-critical? Would you like to stop? This interview demonstrates the type of useful and creative recommendations you can receive that can help you outgrow your own version of a “shit-extruding machine!”
This is also an example of how a nightmare life script can be turned into something that is pretty funny when you learn not to take it so seriously. When you directly look at and listen to your worst fears they get smaller. You see how silly and absurd they really are!
This dreamer imagined her worst fears had come to pass. How would she feel?
Shitty!
What color would that shitty feeling take?
Dog shit brown!
Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.
Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?
A machine that extrudes shit. It’s pumping it out like mad all around me wherever I go and on me as well. I stink.
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Shit producing machine, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I am big and ugly pitted metal, like a funnel with a long tube. I’m full of shit and I’m joyfully extruding it everywhere, like a demented pogo stick, hopping around Jana, and especially having fun covering her with it.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
I am very lively! I love my job! I love life! I love tormenting Jana! And I love producing all this shit that people hate and that is absolutely good for nothing!
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
No, I think I do a very good, thorough job. I seem to do a magical job of taking air and sky and turning it into an infinite amount of shit. I never run out of energy to do it!!! Fun!
Shit producing machine, what aspect of this Jana do you represent or most closely personify?
The persecutor. The part of herself that likes to beat up on herself and enjoys it!
Shit producing machine, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
No, I think Jana needs me to stay motivated. Besides, I have great fun tormenting her.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Shit producing machine, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10 Hey, I am indestructible and am happy! I’m WAY confident!
Compassion: 0 What’s that? In fact, I don’t believe in that stuff. It creates laziness and lack of motivation.
Wisdom: 10 I think I am very wise. I definitely know what’s best for Jana: to be reminded of how shitty she is and how shitty life is.
Acceptance: 10 I am EXTREMELY accepting! Do YOU accept dog shit everywhere? Would you be happy with YOURSELF producing infinite amounts of dog shit??
Inner Peace: 3 I’m not anxious, but I keep moving and active. I don’t like that peaceful garbage. Too lazy.
Witnessing: 10 I like to watch Jana labor under all that shit!
(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
Hmmmm,…I don’t want to change. If I were 10 in Inner Peace and Compassion I definitely wouldn’t be a shit extruding machine. I’d probably just be the sky, which is dull and boring.
How would Jana’s life be different if she naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?
I wouldn’t like that. I would have no power over her. That wouldn’t be good, because she needs me to torment her to motivate her to grow.
If you could live Jana’s life, how would you live it differently?
Well, I’m not at all tormented. I wouldn’t allow anything to torment me. Not anyone, not any thought, not any feeling. I would be so vigilant not to allow that to happen that it wouldn’t even get started. Maybe I couldn’t stop the world from extruding shit, but I could certainly choose whether or not I felt tormented by it, and I would choose not to be.
If you could live Jana’s life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently? If so, how?
1. Regarding waking up to the luminosity and emptiness of life, I would be the sky. It’s both of those things.
2. Regarding experiencing joyful absurdity, I think staying me is good. I have a lot of fun! And there’s a lot of reality to me. Pretending I don’t exist is retarded.
3. Experiencing this moment as unlimited abundance: I would be both me and the sky, since the sky is unlimited and my shit and my ability to produce it is unlimited. So you have an abundance of the good, the bad, and the ugly. That’s reality.
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?
Those three are excellent. I couldn’t agree more.
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?
Only when she wants more of those three qualities that are her life issues. Only when she wants to stop persecuting herself. When he realizes she’s persecuting herself, she could do MUCH worse than to think of me and imagine she is me!
Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?
To help her not take herself, her problems, her fears so seriously.
What do you think about this person’s nightmare?
It’s boring. It’s melodrama. Can’t she think up anything more creatively tragic than that?
How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?
Oh, she’d rather stay worried and in drama, persecuting herself than have fun. Life is serious, you know? And that’s fine with me, because then I get to have my FUN!!!!
What would you recommend that she do about that?
Wake up, realize what she’s doing, and become the sky! Then be me and enjoy producing shit!
I think this person created this nightmare because
She likes scaring herself! It makes her feel alive and like her problems are important!
What have you heard yourself say?
I think I need to persecute myself to motivate myself to grow and do my work. It’s bullshit. Well, actually, dog shit. I need to be the dog shit producing machine so I can laugh at what I am doing to myself. I need to become the sky so I can experience abundance and luminosity.
If this experience were a wake-up call from your life compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Love yourself! Don’t take yourself or your life seriously! Trust me! You’ll have more energy and more fun and be more likely to accomplish your dream, which is a very, very good one!
Comment: Most of us take ourselves and our problems far too seriously. This creates drama, meaning we feel persecuted by our thoughts, become the victim, and seek rescuing from others or from mindless activities: eating, email, internet, sex, or TV. When we wake up and recognize this pattern it becomes optional; we have a choice. We can decide to stay asleep and dreaming, in the case of self-criticism, dreaming a nightmare, or we can wake up, recognize what we are doing and start dreaming something productive, like the dream that life has for itself, awakening within us! This is the purpose of the course of study for an IDL Coaching Certificate. It’s fun and allows you to grow in your own way at your own pace, while keeping you firmly focused on emerging potentials that bring out the best in you.
