Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki

Getting in Hot Water: The Sacred Practice of Rule-Breaking

• dana balicki • Season 3 • Episode 8

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What if breaking the rules isn't just about random acts of rebellion, but a sacred, messy practice essential for personal and collective liberation? Let’s explore the nuances of disobedience, how it (and obedience) lives in our bodies, and plunge into why we must regularly practice breaking smaller rules to prepare ourselves for breaking bigger rules when it truly matters–AKA right friggin’ now!

From dealing with homophobic lighting™, to reclaiming our attention by fondling plants as our to-do lists (and our collective productivity-shame) try to kill us, small rebellions build our "rule-breaking muscles." As the systems around us create increasingly narrow parameters for living, we must resist being groomed into compliance and reconnect with our deepest inner knowing.

This episode is a love note to all the small and spontaneous rebellions...we also throw open the doors to the Church of Plantfondling, a sacred space of disobedient prayer, cultivating more-than-human relationships, dancing with the layers of reality and our aliveness, and calling in divine guidance along the way. Let’s get in some good trouble together, crybabies!

Subscribe, share with friends, and leave a review. Join Dana every Friday at 10 am PT on IG @danablix for a live guided grounding meditation (and #plantfondling). 

~ RESOURCES ~

  • Cy blocking the NG convoy on its way to LA!
  • New report on undocumented immigrants paying higher tax rate than billionaires and corps (by Americans for Tax Fairness)
  • Know Your Rights (re ICE) from National Lawyers Guild LA
  • Follow the Global March to Gaza 
  • Free guided grounding meditation—a practice of calling your energy back/nervous system tending/reclaiming your attention) ~ (http://bit.ly/grounding-now)
  • Beautiful Trouble — your troublemaker toolbox for effervescent rebellion!
  • Enter to win a free coaching session ~ leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, to be entered in a monthly drawing for a free coaching session. Email dana@danabalicki.com the review title + your review name to enter. Winner announcements will be made across platforms mid-month.

// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, podcast art ~ natalee miller //

Support the show

@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 😭

Speaker 1:

Dearest crybabies, welcome back to Crying in my Jacuzzi, the ebbs and flows of living an examined life where we live, laugh, love in the Anthropocene. I'm Dana Balicki, transformational coach of 13 years, former grassroots organizer, reverently, irreverent, deep feeler. Woo-woo Sherpa, your internet big sis that you always wanted, and slow-down medicine guide in exploring the weird magic of humaning together. The Jacuzzi Verse is where we dive into the messy, beautiful, ridiculous and profound journey of self-exploration and collective evolution, because life is a lot and sometimes the only thing left to do is to sink into the warm, bubbly depths of it all and let it flow. Crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi. Crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi. I have always been obsessed with rule breaking.

Speaker 2:

As a law breaking citizen.

Speaker 1:

I'm an anarchist. That means I am anti-hierarchy. I'm also non-pathological and relational in my work the complete package. I'm a huge believer that we have to regularly practice breaking dumb rules. I mean, if you ask my mom, I have always thought that almost every rule was dumb, I mean unless I was setting it, which is a whole different thing. But we have to practice.

Speaker 1:

Practice is prayer. That's how I feel about it. We turn to it, we turn to it, we bow to it, we allow ourselves to be guided by it in its imperfectness, in our imperfectness, our imperfection or our inherent perfection, meaning there's nothing that we have to do or get right in order to be perfect, and that our perfection must contain imperfection, just like our hope must contain hopelessness. That's the invitation here in the Jacuzzi verse, right? So we practice breaking the dumb rules all around us on daily basis, so that we can break the bigger rules when it really matters. And right now it really matters, and right now it really matters. And so many of us are going to be like hunkering down and trying to figure out how to stabilize which makes all the sense in the world, and we are going to be given by the systems smaller and smaller and smaller parameters in which to live inside of, and we have to be careful not to fall into the trap of living by their imagination. We're constantly being groomed yes, being groomed to be good consumers, to be compliant. This is why I love my goddess daughter, esme, esme Moon, my besties, my life wives, little girl who is a wild, wonderful firecracker of a human. I thought my husband was the most Aries Aries, whoever Aries but she might have him beat. She has a lot of amazing qualities, and one of them is that she is not a super obedient child. And look from one long-term disobeyer to another Game recognize, game I think it matters. Game recognize, game I think it matters. I think we don't need to raise more obedient humans.

Speaker 1:

Our over-indexing on obedience and politeness serves certain people, serves their bottom line, serves people's comfort level, or perceived comfort levels, serves to work inside of all of the structures of normativity. And look, anarchy isn't just wild chaos. There is order in that chaos. It is just horizontal, it is not about power over, and so it's really important right now that we look at power dynamics all around. And so I bow to Esme and the way she makes her own rules and disobeys the ones that don't make any sense to her.

Speaker 1:

Now, look, I don't have kids, so I'm not speaking from a perspective of a parent working with a kid. There's so much beautiful and potent complexity inside of that. I'm just speaking to this one little aspect of obedience and over-indexing as a culture around following rules that are just handed down to us and we are expected to perform and possibly push down not possibly definitely push down our own inner knowings, our own resonance, our own trust in ourselves to follow a bunch of fucking rules that don't make any sense and create, harm or hurt people Not always the same thing being hurt, being harmed, anyway. So I find parallels to practicing breaking the rules when it matters in my own work, in my own inner emotional work, and then in my coaching work, Because it's always about deconstructing what society has told us to feel right, what it has told you to feel, to do, how to think, what to take in, how to make decisions or how to let other people make decisions for you, by slowly releasing your grip on your own self-trust over time.

Speaker 3:

I'm totally untrustworthy. I'm a flibbertigibbet.

Speaker 1:

And so I'm always looking at this. I'm always looking at the ways that we internalize systems and how we then get to do the work of breaking those down inside of ourselves, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law. So we get to be our own little potent experiments. We don't have to go far, tearing down those walls that we have built inside of ourselves, in our hearts and in our minds and in our spirits, so that we can see what's really on the other side, what really matters to us. So then, instead of reconstructing these huge walls, we can build new things that make more internal sense to us, that make more sensation to each of us and to us together, collectively with Julia Frodaul, the role of examining and understanding the structural issues of the old oppressive models and then visioning, designing and building alternatives, creating new worlds.

Speaker 1:

And what I'm suggesting here is to increase your awareness, to lean into the practice of noticing where are the rules other people's rules that you are participating in that don't really make sense to you, the rules that no longer make sense to your soul, to how you understand the nature of existence? This is about resonance, what is resonant and not resonant. This is a practice Tuning in, listening deeply to your own deepest inner knowing, not all the mind chatter, but what you know, even if you can't explain it, even if you don't think the people around you in your life and your support system would agree with you. This is you getting real and honest, loving and clear with you. All right, so that's one piece. Start noticing, write them down. No joke, are there little ones in your own life even that have come up today for you, like for me? Going into places with bright lights. A friend recently said bright lights are homophobic and I was like, ah, look at me being such an ally with nothing above a 40 watt on a dimmer in my house. Yeah, I will unscrew light bulbs at a restaurant. You're a creature of pure chaos.

Speaker 1:

And that's just one example of a little rule break. It can take so many different shapes and can be really functional or can be a little deeper, a little more existential. Maybe you notice that you say sorry a lot and there's a little disruption that you want to create because maybe you're not fucking sorry. I have a friend who really works on saying thank you instead of sorry and I really like that. Sorry, not sorry.

Speaker 1:

The other rules, conscious and unconscious, that you have made for yourself or that were handed down to you. Maybe it's around your obsession with productivity. I mean that's really our cultural obsession with productivity. I mean that's really our cultural obsession. Maybe it's around things that you really like to do but never feel like you have enough time for them in a reprioritization. Maybe there's some longstanding relationships or commitments that you've made that really need a review and a change up. Maybe there are just some things that you've gotten really used to and you're going to give yourself some permission to check in with yourself and see whether those are some rules that you would like to practice.

Speaker 1:

Bending and breaking hey, maybe there's a bend before there's a break. Maybe there's a twist. Maybe the twist or the bend is all you need. Marisha, the human pretzel, so fine, so flexible. I don't know, but I'm inviting you to ask yourself these questions. Oh, let's ask Alex and Janet what sort of rules they're breaking, or bending, or twisting, or whatevering. Alex, janet, is there something you all are working on practicing that you'd like to share with the crab babies?

Speaker 3:

Well, indeed I do, Dana. I really love to be in nature and just watch plants grow. Even if I have things to do, I always make time for that.

Speaker 2:

Oh well, that's fun, Alex. I mean, I was designed to be good at many things, but I'm not very good at cooking or baking, but I really love to do it. I've come to enjoy the sensation of doing something I'm not very good at. If they ever have robots on one of those baking shows where the contestants make truly terrible cakes, I think I could win it make truly terrible cakes.

Speaker 1:

I think I could win it. Honestly, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. That's not nothing to make space for things that feel important, even if the world is not telling you that it's the most important thing you should be doing, or letting yourself just be sort of bad and keep doing it anyway because it still feels good. Oh, that's resonance.

Speaker 1:

Janet, are you a well-seasoned troublemaker or maybe just dipping your toe in for the first time? New to the troublemaking game? Wherever you are on the spectrum, my gorgeous, gorgeous crybaby, beautiful Trouble is for you. It's a book, it's a strategy card deck, it's an online toolbox, a creative campaign incubator for all your activism local, big, global troublemaking needs and desires. Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls beautiful trouble a crucial resource for change makers. In a movement moment. There's so rarely a shortage of energy, of zeal, of vigor, but there is often room to grow with our skills. So, whether it's just you, or maybe you and a couple of friends trying to build something in your community or trying to lift something bigger with others, everything and anything that you might need to make that absolutely irresistible, beautiful trouble is just waiting for you. Beautifultroubleorg.

Speaker 1:

We practice breaking the small rules so we can break the big rules. What we've been told is right and wrong, who's worthy of love, who's worthy of life, who and what is valuable, who gets access to various resources and who doesn't. And look, rule breaking is uncomfortable, it is risky. I'm feeling a little anxious, if you know what I mean. We talked loads about risk in various episodes in this season I guess really in all seasons, but especially last episode with the lovely Leah Garza and how risk is necessary for relationships to grow and evolve and that will require your discomfort. Your discomfort is needed for conflict as well. Right, so important right now. So comfort, remember, not the same thing as safety.

Speaker 1:

We're getting taught that all the time inside of white supremacist culture, rape culture sucks and it's okay to be afraid. I don't even believe in fearlessness. And it's okay to be afraid. I don't even believe in fearlessness. I believe you can be in relationship with your fear and right-size it. It's going to be there, but it's not all of you. It doesn't have to be the very biggest thing in the room. You can talk to it and be in relationship with it. You must, we must, don't push it away or cut it off or pretend like it's not there. That's probably why it's there in the first place, because something has been denied, something that you are concerned about and care about was pushed aside.

Speaker 1:

So turn towards it, see if you can connect with it and then maybe just right size it Like I like to imagine, instead of it being the car that I'm riding in or my entire body, that it's something I can put in my pocket or put in my purse and take with me and look, this is also a practice. Remember, practice is prayer. So it's going to want to get bigger and you'll be able to feel that. Cultivate the practice of turning towards it again. Talk to it. I see you, hi, I know why you're here. It's okay that you're here.

Speaker 1:

Let's take a breath. What are you most afraid of happening right now? Ah, yes, I hear that. I get that. That feels really, really important. Of course we would be feeling this right now because we care about those things. So of course we would be feeling this. These are some things, some ways you can speak with resonant language to your own scared parts. So let's take a step toward these things that feel scary. You can say that to your scared part too. Let's take a step together. I believe we can do it. Let's do this together. We're not alone. I'm with you If we're following rules.

Speaker 1:

That the people with the most power it's a relative statement, but the people with the most supposed and understood power which I don't actually think is true I do think it's us. The people are not paying attention to the rules, then by being good rule followers I mean I'm talking to the Democrats right now, a whole fucking lot of them. Where's that going to get us? I'm not saying that there should be no accountability for the people breaking these rules, but I'm also saying that we might have to consider no, we have to consider breaking rules and not holding onto the ones that really don't work for us, hoping that somehow that brings people back to some central place of what right and we can break rules by being incredibly human with each other right. Like, let's break those rules as climate chaos and collapse continues and the systems to help people fall apart, we will be all that we have. I mean, we are always all that we have together, right, but sometimes we're breaking rules by showing up for our neighbors.

Speaker 3:

For some of us, that might be a little rule-breaky by checking in with the people in our lives that may be in various states of citizenship or immigration status and learning what we must do when ICE shows up. I'm Denise Heverly and I'm Bill Goodman. Together, we've been fighting fascism for over 50 years.

Speaker 2:

And so much has changed over those 50 years, such as the ingredients to a successful firebomb.

Speaker 3:

And the glass that bank windows are made of.

Speaker 2:

But there's one thing that hasn't changed over 50 years, something that is so important to tell you kids who are new to this movement.

Speaker 3:

Shut the fuck up. You're sitting in the police transport van after a protest. Shut the fuck up in a holding cell with your comrades. Shut the fuck up. Cop knocks on your door. Shut the fuck up. Texting on an unsecured device. Shut the fuck up. Pull over by the cops after a protest. Shut the fuck up. Cop just asking about your day. Shut the fuck up. Feds call your mom. Tell your mother to shut the fuck up.

Speaker 2:

Now repeat after me. When the cops come calling, what do you do? Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1:

Sponsored by National.

Speaker 2:

Lawyers.

Speaker 1:

Guild. I'll put more sources down in the show notes. But again, breaking rules, we have to practice them in small ways. So if you practice them in small ways, you are going to build up your rule-breaking muscle capacity to be courageous when it matters, which now is always. And so there's that. The first part is recognizing, like. Recognizing like okay, where are the rules? That small little ones, my daily life, like unscrewing a way too bright led white light bulb, like what is that even doing?

Speaker 2:

or stopping to spend time with a tree, even if you have a long to-do list or doing something you're bad at because you like it, or just experiment with saying fuck you to perfection so let's look at the small ways and then the bigger ways in which you are following rules that you maybe didn't even notice.

Speaker 1:

Bring attention, your precious attention, to these things and then start practicing the small break into the rules break every rule. The rule is wrong and then see where you can practice bigger ones. Or maybe there are some groups you can connect with that are practicing these bigger rule breakings rebellions and you go make some new friends. Energetic grounding is the age-old cornerstone of countless spiritual and magical practices. For me, grounding has been one of the most important and nourishing practices of my adult life. Nourishing practices of my adult life. It's how I tend to my nervous system. It's how I call my attention and my energy back to myself when it's scattered, when I'm in the swirl, it helps me connect to myself and those around me that I care about. Because it helps me practice staying me that I care about. Because it helps me practice staying, practice presence, practice tenderness, even when the world around me doesn't seem to have a whole lot of any of those things. It's even more important than I do that we do so. Go get your free grounding, guided meditation, the link in the show notes. Have me your ear. Use it whenever you wish. We could all use some slow down medicine right about now.

Speaker 1:

And my own lifelong commitment to rebelliousnession has led me many places as an activist, an organizer and then as someone who does deep inner work with folks to help them break down the systems of internalized oppression within themselves, so that we can do it with each other, it with each other and in my own personal life. I have to keep doing the work and for me, in the past few years, what that has taken the shape of is rule breaking in how I think about my work in the world, how I think about my business, and shifting from models of growth, while and questioning a lot of those models to see if they really are aligned with what I understand as the way forward, what I really believe about how we must be together and human together and more than human together, and so unraveling from these industrial growth social models to an orientation, that which is more life-sustaining, and for me that has meant not pushing growth, in certain ways making more space for living. And as much as I love my work and it feels like my, it feels like my life, it is my life commitment. I must keep asking questions.

Speaker 1:

I must keep catching myself when I'm slipping into old traps of rule following Rules that are so deeply internalized inside of me around money and worth and value and belonging and purpose and connection and all of the things. So I allow my business to take different shapes and I don't make it mean anything about me when it does. And as you really start to break the rules and get a little bit more comfortable with your discomfort, you've right-sized your fear, you're in relationship with it, you're getting and feeling more and more aligned with your values. Then how might you get to move? Where are you in the creation of this web of connection and humanity and love? What is your role? What skills and magic do you bring?

Speaker 1:

And sometimes you have to break some rules to mend a broken heart. There are a lot of people doing some pretty amazing loving acts, what I consider deeply loving acts of rebellion. Right now we are living at an amazing time. It is so complex and painful and scary, and today all my feeds were filled with mutual aid, glorious photos and videos of the seud convoy linking up with the march for gaza to break the siege and bring aid, and folks in minneapolis and dc and cities around the country and my beloved la hometown, people showing up for each other, just creating resources, beautiful resources to help people still show up for their immigration hearings, but remotely. Ways to get people food, ways to get people childcare and support, ways to subvert the systems. And aggression and violence from ICE, police officers, national Guard of the convoy and just stopped, stopped the car, blocked. The entire convoy was arrested and released. Ah, bless you, sai, love you so much. That's the kind of energy we need to bring Break the rules, of energy we need to bring. Break the rules. Even if you don't have a big plan, let your heart be big, let your truth be known, stand up for folks who are being thrown in jail, kidnapped, unjustly, illegally. I know it's scary, I know Sai was scared but she did it anyway and she made a video. You should go watch it. I know Sai was scared but she did it anyway and she made a video. You should go watch it. I'll put it in the show notes. We can do this together. It's the only way. Do the work inside of yourself, find your people, practice breaking rules and getting uncomfortable in small ways so you can do it in big ways, little by little, then, all of a sudden. It's the only way change happens.

Speaker 1:

So another thing and you've heard me talk about this before is plant fondling. I find it to be a really accessible, small, tender, attention, reclaiming, connective, relational, deeply relational practice that just boops you right out of your regular flow of life and busyness. And that's a do list and I got the things to do and I got to think about this and I got to move the beans forward and I got to figure out how to get this together and this together, this together, and move this person around and this thing around, and how to manage this and feel this and feel less of that. You know it's like we're trying to process so much through our little meat bodies, our little tender, sensitive meat bags. Someone on Instagram got really mad at me recently by saying meat bags and I was like we are just really tissue and water. So we are basically meat bags.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, I say that with reverence and connecting with another life form, a plant that does not communicate in the same way that humans do, does not email us, does not give us words and tell us like hey, I'm feeling this way. There's other ways it shows us, maybe it needs water or something else, but then there are layers and layers and layers. I believe water or something else, but then there are layers and layers and layers, I believe, of more sensitive, complex, nuanced communication that can be had, even just pure connectivity, just intention to slow the fuck down, reach out to another being that is not going to give you a cookie at the end, that is not going to wave its hand and say I'm so desperate for something and tell you in exactly clear terms what it is, but is just an invitation to be in connection by reaching out, by touching it, by looking at it, by allowing it, imagining that it is also regarding you, taking a few breaths and this whole rule breaking. I've done it a lot in my life. I do it all the time I can be real rebellious, sometimes perhaps to my own, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Do I want to say detriment? No, you know what I was going to say that, but that is not resonant. I don't fucking believe that. I don't think it's to my own detriment at all. The detriment is actually y'all. I'm having this realization truly in real time, right here, right now. The detriment, like when I was feeling that, ah, yes, to my own detriment it was because I was very unconsciously comparing my own growth and ambition and success and achievement God that was so sneaky. God that was so sneaky. And then judging myself and my life according to some ideas that I've had over time about where I should be and what I could have had or achieved or whatever man, that was really fucking sneaky. Amazing, amazing, how this works.

Speaker 1:

I was holding in my heart this little ping of like ah yes, I'm a rule breaker, this is who I am, and to my own detriment sometimes, because sometimes I break rules and when I don't follow them, I don't get as far as other people. It was something like that. It was some little feeling like that and I almost grabbed it and made it true again and instead I'm going to choose rule breaking and I will not. I will not take that in. So that is my prayer. That is the altar I pray at. I've been coming to call this the church of plant fondling, not just because it's about plant fondling, not just because it's about plant fondling. It's really like the church of rule breaking, the temple of rule breaking. Praying at the altar of rule breaking but saying the church of plant fondling is like so much more fun, don't you think? Try it out, say it out loud the Church of Plant Fondling.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Church of Plant Fondling, where we break rules, remake rules that are resonant and nourishing and fondly, and it's a sacred practice, right? So? Sacredness, disobedience, curiosity, compassion, these are all the things that are not the master's tools. So if we use them, we know that we will not be rebuilding the master's house Sensation. We will build something anew, something that has not existed before.

Speaker 1:

And I always say, little by little, then all of a sudden. It's the only way change happens. It is a core tenant of the Church of Plant Pondering. We break the rules little by little by little. Go practice today. This is your homework and we do it and we do it. We can't go to all the biggest rules. First you have to practice them in your own life. I will be sharing I have such a long list, oh my God, just wait. I will be sharing more practices from the Church of Plant Fondling experiments in aliveness to help you meet the moment.

Speaker 1:

Tend to the part of yourself that is getting crushed under the weight of all of these old rules and to create a container for aliveness, for curiosity, for depth, for connection, for relationality.

Speaker 1:

We have to tend to all these inner workings, to build those muscles, to develop our capacities, to loosen our grip on what we think we know, because that will be probably what actually saves us. Using our imaginations, reclaiming our attention. These are acts of liberation. This is us breaking down that wall or burning that bridge, flinging open a door to something wildly new and mysterious, titillating and fondly and sensory-sensual, making us feel things, maybe, that we've forgotten. And so the freer we become with ourselves, inside of ourselves, the freer we can be together. So welcome, welcome, welcome to the Church of Plant Fondling, where practice is prayer, where rule-breaking is our hymn and where aliveness is always calling us. So let's get courageous. Yes, if this episode swirled something in you, please share it, send it to a friend and if you haven't already, make sure to boop that subscribe button so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, give us a rating.

Speaker 3:

Five stars.

Speaker 1:

And a written review. Send me the name of your review and I'll add you to the monthly raffle for a free coaching session with me. Subscribing, rating and reviewing are amazing and they help us out immensely. Viewing are amazing and they help us out immensely. And you, listening, you sharing with your community is the very best thing that we in the Jacuzziverse could hope for. So thank you, crybabies, Thank you for your support. Earworm theme music by the very talented Kat Otteson, Sound design and editing magic by the effervescent Rose Blakelock. Keep questioning, keep feeling, keep rebelling in all the ways that matter. And remember the jacuzzi is everywhere. At any moment you could enter into the version of non-normative consciousness that is jacuzzi consciousness.