Tool of the Month - The Turd in the Pearl
When Phil Stutz scrawls his sketch of the string of pearls, I think he is gently reminding us to embrace our inner Sisyphus. If we have any hope of happiness, it is purely in our willingness to to take action, non-stop, without regard for the results. But I love how Phil adds a key detail to his pearls. Each one has a turd in it. Your actions are allowed to be flawed. They can even stink. If you make room for such imperfection, you become relentless.
Here’s how to practice The Turd in the Pearl. Do something you know for a fact will fail. Your action’s only redeeming feature should be that it aligns with your intentions. It helps if you start with intentions that are inspired by the deeper longings of your soul. Even better if your intentions are audacious or just slightly out of reach.
Examples might be: Audition for a community theater role. Put an insanely low bid on an item up for auction. Show up to the DMV without an appointment. Attend an open mic with a song you barely know. Bake your first cake from scratch and serve it to your crush on her birthday. Invite an impossible guest to your next barbecue (maybe they’re famous, or they hate you, or they’re dead) … I could do this all day… and in fact I’ve performed every one of the example-actions I just named (I stumbled through the open-mic and the DMV tasks just this very week). I would never give you medicine I don’t take myself.
Don’t miss the key-skill inspired by this tool. Withhold your judgement. Yes it’s true that the results fall short of your intentions. Or maybe you get lucky and the results exceed your expectations. Either way, neither praise nor rebuke yourself. The outcome doesn’t matter. Intention backed by the action is the whole game. You took the action? You won. End of story. The only way to lose this game is to stop taking action. You especially can’t allow the results, good or bad, to influence your decision to keep taking action.
Non-judgement is the superpower we’re developing here. But if you simply must judge, try to turn your judgement into gratitude. “I’m grateful I took actions that validate my soul’s deepest desires”. Or “I’m thankful that this turned out better than I thought it would.” Or how about, “I’m so glad this didn’t go worse.” If you’ve been doing shadow-work, you can aim your gratitude at your shadow. Turn to your shadow and say, “Thank you for encouraging me to do this… see… we really are in this together. I hope you’ll trust me to follow through on your inspirations. What do you want to inspire me to do next?”
If you feel criticism coming up for how poorly the action performed, remind your shadow, “If these actions don’t work out, that’s on me… you just keep the ideas coming. I really need your creativity. My life would be dull and hardly worth living without you.”
You might think I’m just trying to encourage you to up your reps in what is essentially a numbers-game. And sure… that’s a cool side-effect of this tool. The more shots you take… blah blah yadda blah. But the real reason this tool is so helpful is that your shadow is the wellspring of your hopes and dreams, especially the impossible ones, and your shadow will reward you whenever you take actions on its inspiration. The reward is confidence.
If it feels like the action you’re taking is a boulder too heavy for your inner Sisyphus to get rolling, then push a turdy pearl instead. This could mean starting with small tasks, or merely visualizing yourself performing tasks using Reversal of Desire. Every action counts.
Testify!
In this edition of Testify!, a sculptor named Bruno recently revealed to me the secret he discovered for moving forward against the tide of perfectionism that holds him back from taking chances with his sculptures.
First, he built a system of showing up at key moments in the week to focus without distractions and simply keep getting his hands dirty with the clay.
I have 5 hours left in the studio today and 3 tomorrow. I’m going in an hour early today and tomorrow so that’s 10 hours total, the equivalent of 3.3 classes.
He struggled with the feelings of fear and judgement that would come up throughout the process.
I really want to do well and I feel that it’s looking ok, pretty good actually, but the hair is ruining it. I’m just not getting how to sculpt hair. And the fact that it’s curly is making it harder.
I already have to fix it, and I’m scared to do that because I’m afraid I’ll ruin it. But I guess if it already looks bad I can’t ruin it more.
I want to try and remember that I’m the guy who takes action and does things, regardless of outcome. But my fear of failing is holding me back.
Wish me luck. I’m going to have to remove a lot of hair.
I sent him back a few words of encouragement… keep going.. don’t stop. The next day he sent me an update…
Thanks for the support Denis. I guess the tool I used was wanting pain? It was difficult because I did not want to ruin it, but when I decided it was already wrong I had no choice but to fix it.
I was able to get over my fears and work on it. It was stressful though.
Parade of Shadows
At the height of my stress in grad school, I succumbed to a shadow take-over and got close to throwing away my marriage and career. My fellow students whom I offended reported me to the school administration. They sequestered me from my cohort, investigated my behavior, and summoned me to a hearing to decide if I violated the school code. In the end I lost my friends. My loved ones forgave me. The investigation and hearing ended in my favor. I should have been nothing but grateful. Yet it gnawed at me… the idea that if I tried really hard to tell my side of the story, I could get back into the good graces of the friends who shunned me. I even convinced one or two of them to hear me out. No dice. None of it could put humpty dumpty back together.
Practicing Phil’s tools such as Hatred and Misunderstanding, The Tower, and The Father remind me not to waste my energy on getting the world to see me the way I want to be seen. At the same time, I couldn’t deny that there was a part of me, a shadow, who wanted redemption. Wanted to belong again. Even though I decided, as the leader of my self, to move forward without any hope of such a redemption, I still had this part of me asking me to relate to it somehow. I decided that even though his desires were easily judged as “unhealthy” and impossible, I could still take actions that harmonized with what he wanted. He imagined a world in which he was always treated “as if” he belonged. So I decided to create a Turd in The Pearl moment by throwing a lavish graduation party and inviting my estranged cohort to it. I knew full well that none of them would come. Indeed none would even reply to the invite. But that wasn’t the point. By making the gesture I was saying to my shadow “sure man… we can invite those people… I know you’d want things to be different. I’m willing to do one small thing that honors that.”
And so we continue this dance. Chances keep coming to show that guy he still matters, even though I can’t give him what he wants. Even though I bet we’re far better off with him not getting what he wants. And so I take the action aimed at his intentions. A small pearl of an action …turdy … feeling heavy as a boulder… while hitting the send-button on a very, very late June newsletter.
May you take the actions that honor your soul’s intentions.
May you break the chains of success and failure.
Thank you for indulging me. Don’t stop.
-Denis
