Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki
Join seasoned Transformational Coach & longtime activist, Dana Balicki, for a wildride into the jacuzzi-verse to explore the ebbs & flows of living an examined life. Each and every episode invites you to explore the strange magic of humaning together in these wild times.™ With 13 years of coaching expertise, Dana blends irreverent reverence, spiritual insight, decolonial teachings, collective movement-building, high-woo, personal narrative, and grounded growth-oriented practicality for deep, thought-provoking conversations.
Sound editing and design by Rose Blakelock, theme song by Kat Otteson, artwork by Natalee Miller! Extra support by robot cohost Alex & robot producer (and part-time cohost) Janet.
Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki
A Magical Field Trip to Rage-ville
it’s another trip to the magical library for some BIBLIOMANCY divination! let’s explore the transformative power of rage, drawing connections between our big (sometimes scary) feelings and the boundless potential they hold when tended to with curiosity and compassion.
as per always, you’re invited to take any divine messages received or needs met and carry them back into your daily lives.
~show notes~
- 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). DM (@danablix instagram) or email a screenshot of your submission—take it right before you hit submit—along with the review name/title. winner announcements will be made across platforms!
/// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, podcast 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 😭
Oh boy, today I am fully feeling all the feelings. I've got little rivulets of sadness, sprinkle of despair, a big scoop of rage, absolutely some glimmers and shimmers of hope. One of those little like cream swirls on top of the soup and make it look kind of fancy when it's really just pureed squash. I got one of those of tenderness. Basically, I'm just human and I am a crybaby, wishing she had an escape pod.
Speaker 1:It's one of those days and I'm in a moment in my life where I'm not drinking, I'm not even supposed to be eating salt. We left gluten, dairy, all sorts of things like by the wayside a long time ago. I also have to cut out chocolate all forms, even the purest ceremonial grade cacao purest ceremonial grade cacao Can't do it. I got hungry little bacteria in my guts and so in my attempt to starve them out, I am just feeling. Also, living here in the desert, which is beautiful but can also be a little isolating, I would like an escape pod. I really can't go to social media. That is not an escape pod.
Speaker 1:That is a very intense reflection of our humaning together right now, and while I am so proud of the growing anti-war movement, sometimes the nervous system just needs a moment to recalibrate and I am, yes, privileged enough to be able to take that moment.
Speaker 1:And I want to take this moment with you, because you may or may not have an escape pod, but let me tell you that we don't need an escape pod, because there is magic, and I remember that we can come together and whisk away to the magical library, take a field trip. Yeah, in our imaginations, yeah, in our imaginations, I remember that magic is always available when we turn to it. I remember that we all have agency, even in urgency, even under forms of oppression. And so here we go, crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi. I love the smell of magical dust. It's different than normal dust, it tickles in the nose and it also doesn't make me sneeze. So, in this library, back, here we are, let us go and find the book, the book that wants to speak to us ow oh god, that just clonked me like right in the neck.
Speaker 1:How did they even fall on my neck? I don't get it. Okay, what is this? Okay, oh, I gotcha.
Speaker 1:Women who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pincola Estes, phd. I'm familiar with this book. I absolutely consider it an oracular text filled with myths and stories and then breakdowns of those myths and stories from around the world, from from throughout time, and how we can use them to understand ourselves. Since it jumped out and necked me, but we're grateful for however, these oracular texts make themselves known, let's open. What do we have? Opening Page 381. Marking territory the boundaries of rage and forgiveness Okay, and here's the section.
Speaker 1:Rage as teacher Okay, even raw and messy emotions can be understood as a form of light crackling and bursting with energy. Light crackling and bursting with energy. We can use the light of rage in a positive way in order to see into places we cannot usually see. A negative use of rage concentrates destructively in one tiny spot until, like acid, creating an ulcer, it burns a black hole right through all the delicate layers of the psyche. But there is another way. All emotion, even range, carries knowledge, insight, what some call enlightenment. Our rage can, for a time, become teacher, a thing not to be rid of so fast, but rather something to climb the mountain for, something to personify via various images in order to learn from, deal with internally, then shape into something useful in the world as a result, or else let it go back down to dust. In a cohesive life, rage is not a standalone item. It's a substance waiting for our transformative efforts. The cycle of rage is like any other cycle it rises, falls, dies and is released as new energy. Attention to the matter of rage begins the process of transformation In allowing oneself to be taught by one's rage, thereby transforming it, disperses it. One's energy returns to use in other areas, especially the area of creativity.
Speaker 1:Although some people claim they can create out of their chronic rage, the problem is that rage confines access to the collective unconscious, that infinite reservoir of imaginal images and thoughts, so that a person creating out of rage tends to create the same thing over and over again, with nothing new coming through. Untransformed rage can become a constant mantra about how oppressed, hurt and tortured we are. I appreciate that that is the lesson coming through today. Bye in our bibliomancy practice using text as tools for divination, or are they using us? I mean, it jumped out and basically bit me. So we are perhaps not being used by, but we are entangling with, but we are entangling with being in relation with this message. You're a part of this too. May this exploration of rage ripple out.
Speaker 1:What I've learned as a coach and as a human person is that we get a lot of programming around rage, anger, and anger is the emotion that shows up when a boundary has been crossed, and sometimes that's a boundary we've stated and it gets crossed. Maybe it's a boundary we haven't stated, someone crosses it. Maybe we're crossing our own boundaries. Maybe by the time the anger comes up and we're like, oh, that boundary has been crossed in some way, we're like, oh, I didn't even realize I had that boundary right, like it can be a little bit of a tangle. There's a couple layers there to look at.
Speaker 1:Our rage can also show up, as there's there facets of it perhaps can show up as sadness or brokenheartedness or a sacred rage. Looking at it, not turning away, not stuffing it down, not pushing it into the shadow yet again. And behind all that anger is pain. Behind all that pain is unmet needs. We all have them. It is something that connects us all, this human family, and we don't have to fix it like, yes, you'll hear me talking about healing, but healing is not fixing.
Speaker 1:But I do believe that we can be in relationship with that anger. We must, otherwise it's just like a forest fire ripping through the trees and all the little non-native grasses going up in flame oh so quickly. And if we invite it, if we turn towards it, if we acknowledge it and see it, there's room to be in relationship with it, right To observe it, to observe it with compassion, perhaps even in moments. You might have to do this a few times. I know I do Understand why it's there. You might have to do this a few times. I know I do Understand why it's there. Understand if the thing that is in front of me is indeed the thing I am truly angry about or is it something else that has lit the fire. I think about that movie, the Witch, and at the end, which, like the movie, is devastation at the end, which, like the movie, is devastation at the end, and the devil. The devil in the form of the goat. Did the goat have a name? I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I just remember he said do you want to live deliciously? Oh gosh.
Speaker 1:I just love that goat. Of course you do, and hey, connie.
Speaker 2:Fancy meeting you here. Oh hey, dana, I was just hanging with the librarian and I thought I'd book jump out at you and after that I decided to eavesdrop. You must have really come in here with some B-B-E Big Bibliomancy.
Speaker 1:Energy BBE. I like that. Yeah, I did. I really felt like I needed and wanted an escape pod from the world, but instead I got dropped the fuck in with Women who Run with the Wolves so by zooming from the world, but instead I got dropped the fuck in with women who run with the wolves.
Speaker 2:So by zooming all the way out, you got to look at anger as the ancient, beautiful beastly goddess that they are.
Speaker 1:Well, you got that right. And then the young witch walks through the woods and sees this fire and all of these women, older women and their pendulous tits and long hair, just swirling, dancing around the fire and rising, rising, rising, floating up, being in relationship with that fire. It wasn't burning down the whole forest, but it was burning and they were in relationship to it and they were in relationship with each other with it. I mean that's a whole other thing, like how we be in relationship with rage in community, what I mean. I think we're learning some of that too. It is not comfortable, it will not be, at least not the whole way, but the benefits of learning how to be in relationship with this emotion, to allow it to move and deliver the information, the creativity to be taught by it and to let it be like any other cycle, which, as humans I don't think we're so great with cycles of emotions we kind of like when something feels good and we grab onto it and strangle it to death, and when something feels bad, we try to stuff it down. So we have got work to do Me too. Thank you, clarissa Piccoli Estes, thank you Women who Run With the Wolves, thank you to all of the myths and stories and the wild woman archetype, and thank you to this little copy of this book that knew I needed it. Perhaps knew you needed it, that we together needed this reminder.
Speaker 1:The truth is that we risk acting out our emotions unconsciously when we're unwilling to feel them, and anger gets a shitty rap as being some low vibe, negative emotion, which is garbage, because all emotions have information for us. They all serve a purpose. Yes, there's room to write our relationships with all of them, and we over focus on joy in our culture. The over culture is like no, no, joy, joy, joy. It's all about pleasure and pleasing. Important, but so is anger and it's powerful and it's often wielded violently and irresponsibly and quite ungracefully by those attempting to maintain power over.
Speaker 1:If you turn towards your emotions, towards anger, get curious with it. There might be some inner work you need to do around it. But if you give it some space, some spaciousness, spaciousness begets intimacy. But if you give it some space and some care, some compassion for it, for the part of you that wields it, that uses it, the part of you that is scared of it we all have those parts. If you turn towards it, maybe it will allow for something else to exist, a new relationship. There is agency. You have it, anger has it. You and anger have it. Maybe anger needs you to express it. Maybe there's something you need from it. It can be like algae and fungi. Sometimes, when they come together, they can't do all the things that they need to do, and so they make lichen. Maybe you and Anger need to make lichen, or you know your version of Anger lichen.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. I thought you might.
Speaker 1:Connie, I really thought you might. Let's be in relationship with it. Let's gather around the fire of it. It's okay if it's a small fire. Size doesn't matter, it's how you use it. Let's let it. Size doesn't matter, it's how you use it.
Speaker 2:But let it lift you up where you can see all the things that you can't see from the ground, when you're too scared to look. That's right. Have courage, little ones. What'd you call them again?
Speaker 1:Dana. Oh, these are the crybabies, all right.
Speaker 2:Have courage, crybabies, go ride. I'll show you. Get out there and make some anger. Like them, make new beings that have never existed before. The world needs them right now?
Speaker 1:Sure does, connie, sure does. Thank you all for joining me today in this sacred place, this liminal place, the magical library between the layers of our realities. Let's look around, make sure we didn't leave anything. Let's head on out and back into our days. Wherever we are, we take the rage oracle with you Crying in my jacuzzi. If you enjoyed what we did here today, go over to wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast and give us a rating. As many stars Five as your heart desires. Five stars though. Theme music and other musical bits by the very talented Kat Otteson, sound design and editing by the effervescent Rose Blakelock. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to playing with you more in my jacuzzi. That sounded dirtier than I meant it, but you know what I mean.