Be sure to check out the three upcoming breathwork sessions I’ll be guiding in the next couple of weeks, including one with timing that works for Europeans and Africans too. You can find those at the end of the newsletter.
Hi Friends,
I’ve started writing to you many times the past couple of weeks, and in some cases, including today, have gotten far into a newsletter and ultimately lost interest in what I was writing. So I stopped. I feel a strong desire to share some words with you today, and I’ve decided to do something different here: I’m going to share one of the chapters from Big Love. It’s called Cracked Pot, and it reflects how I’ve been feeling today, after yet another unsuccessful attempt at composing a piece of writing that feels good to me. Here goes…
Cracked Pot
As an adult, I took piano lessons for a couple of weeks. Saxophone lessons for a month or so. One African drumming lesson. I took voice lessons for a few weeks, two different times with two different coaches. I joined a band and backed out before the first rehearsal. I stuck with method-acting classes for a couple of years. I even moved to LA to pursue acting but lost interest within a month of my arrival. I also signed up for DJ school but only went two times. I fared no better in the martial arts — two sessions of aikido, two weeks of capoeira, and two months of tae kwon do. Purple belt, thank you very much.
I’ve joined myriad multilevel marketing companies (sometimes called pyramid schemes), certain to get rich quick with all of them. I sold super blue-green algae, which tasted even worse than it sounds, and spent thousands of dollars on herbal products that I planned to sell but, due to inaction and expiration dates, ended up throwing away (along with my money). I became an online travel agent for a few days, and a phone service sales rep for two different phone companies in the network marketing world. I once handed $1,000 in cash over to a group of people who showed me a drawing of an actual pyramid with all our names in it. The leader of the group assured me that my $1,000 would yield me a $16,000 payoff. No products, nothing to sell. A literal pyramid scheme, and I still bought in.
I worked for a high-end gay matchmaking service for several months and became so impassioned by the prospect of finding people mates, and so disheartened by an unusually difficult boss, that I quit that job and launched my own matchmaking business called Adamo, which means “to fall in love with” in Latin. I quickly signed up my first client, a lovely sixty-something gay Episcopalian priest who wanted nothing more than to find love and paid me $12,000 to help him do so. I, however, lost my passion for matchmaking soon after taking on that first holy client and regrettably, for him, had to discontinue our business relationship, and for me, had to return his $12,000.
Not long after my stint at playing Cupid, I studied for weeks to get my California real estate license and leased a BMW I couldn’t afford so that I could drive my clients around in style. I never applied for a single real estate job, though. The excitement faded the moment I passed my exam. Actually, it had faded even before the exam, but I didn’t want to admit that to myself. See: BMW payments.
I’ve switched cities ten times and have lived in twenty- four homes in the past twenty-three years, not counting all the weeks I house-sat in my twenties to keep from having to pay rent. My Aunt Cathy called me her little gypsy, and my family members all complained about the number of times they needed to update my phone number and address in their little phone books. (Remember those?)
The point I’m making is that I lose interest easily. I can get maniacally excited about some new thing, give it my full attention for a week or two, or a day or two, and then move on from it completely. I have signed up for lessons and spent money I didn’t have (thank you, credit cards) on my new passion, convinced it would be a part of my life forever. I’m a frustrating — some, though I have yet to meet them, might say delightful — blend of impulsive, delusional, and ADD- addled. My partner G always tells me he wishes we weren’t a couple so he could make money selling me things I’d never use. Instead, he gets stuck spending money to buy them for me. Please don’t mention the Vitamix blender to him. It was a birthday present!
If you rave to me about how the harmonica has changed your life, there’s a good chance I’ll go out and get a harmonica the next day, just to see if it changes mine, too. Actually, many years ago, and on the recommendation of a complete stranger I’d met in a bookstore, I tried a self-taught harmonica tutorial. For an hour. (It didn’t change my life.)
I’d never liked this aspect of my personality. Because I never stuck with anything, I felt like I was failing all the time, like I had no follow-through, and I judged that as bad. As lazy, immature, and unreliable. (Wait, are you nodding in agreement?) Even so, like a dog chasing a squirrel, I ran after the next life-changing experience the moment it presented itself.
And inevitably lost interest. This “flaw” in my character, as I saw it, contributed to intense feelings of disappointment and shame.
What’s wrong with me? I wondered. How can I fix this part of myself?
I had accepted that my impulsive, delusional, ADD ways meant that I was broken.
One of my favorite parables — which I’ve seen credited as an Indian and a Chinese folktale — tells the story of a cracked pot. I don’t know where it originated, and I haven’t been to India or mainland China, so I’m going to set it in the mountains of Bali, one of my favorite places on the planet.
As my version of the story goes, a bold Balinese woman named Nyoman lived alone in a wooden cabin high up in the mountains near Ubud. Each morning, she trudged more than two miles to the closest stream to gather water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. She carried with her two large clay pots, which she had crafted specifically for the purpose of carrying water. She’d painted one pot purple and the other pink, but only because she’d run out of her favorite black and silver paints.
Every morning, she hung the pots on a long bamboo pole, one pot at each end of the pole, then rested the pole across her neck and shoulders in order to carry the clay pots back and forth between her cabin and the stream. The journey mostly sucked, especially the return. Who wants to lug two giant pots full of water more than two miles up a mountainside? Not Nyoman, but she needed the water.
At least she adored her pots. They loved her, too.
“Thank you, dear pots, for the gift of water each day,” she said, each time she returned home from the stream before collapsing onto her bed, sweaty and exhausted.
“It is a great honor to serve you, dear Nyoman,” the pots replied, because in parables such as this, clay pots don’t just talk but do so with refined formality.
One day, upon returning home with her pots, Nyoman was surprised to see the purple pot only half full of water. “What the f—” Before she had a chance to finish her thought, which may or may not have been profane, she noticed a crack on the side of the pot, where the water must have escaped. “Hmm,” she thought. “Interesting.”
The purple pot sensed its crack and knew it had arrived home only half full. Though it felt disappointed by this, it didn’t panic, hopeful it would retain all its water the next time.
The following day, however, the purple pot returned half full once again. The day after that, too. Then the performance anxiety really set in. In fact, for more than a year, Nyoman filled the pots, as she always did at the stream’s edge, and the purple pot returned with only half its water, causing it great distress. To make matters worse, the pink pot, which always returned home full, had grown a little, well, full of itself. When Nyoman went to sleep, the pink pot teased the purple pot. “Pull up your pants,” the pink pot whispered. “I can see your crack.” The pink pot laughed, but the purple pot sulked even more.
One morning, as warm sunshine blessed the mountain, Nyoman returned home with her pots and thanked them, as usual. “Thank you, dear pots, for the gift of water each day.”
“It is a great honor to serve you, dear Nyoman,” the pink pot replied.
The purple pot, however, burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, dear Nyoman. I’ve failed you over and over again. I am a worthless pot!”
“Failed me? Worthless?” Nyoman didn’t understand. “Did you take acting classes when I wasn’t looking, because you sure have gotten dramatic!” Nyoman laughed wildly at her tired joke while massaging her tired feet.
The purple pot just frowned, because obviously pots that talk and cry can also frown.
“I am cracked and no longer worthy of your care. For more than a year I have not been able to provide you with a full load of water. Every morning, the moment we leave the stream I feel the water begin to seep out through the crack in my side, and I know I will disappoint you again. Please craft yourself a new pot, one that will not fail you so.”
Nyoman held the pot in her hands and smiled. “My dear purple pot, you need to chill, for real. You haven’t disappointed me at all.”
“But I am no good,” the pot insisted. “I am a cracked pot.”
“You and me both, honey,” Nyoman replied. “I need to show you something.” She carried the purple pot outside and walked with it along the path to the stream. “Do you see all the wildflowers along your side of the path?” she asked. “All these Balinese beauties?”
The purple pot took in the yellow- and rose-tinted plumeria, the violet bluebells, and the fiery red ixora flowers that colored its side of the path. It even spotted some wild jasmine shrubs, their simple white flowers salted among all the color. The pot’s journey to and from the stream had been clouded with so much guilt and shame that it had never noticed the flowers until this moment. “I see them,” the pot replied.
“Do you see any flowers on the other side of the path?” Nyoman asked. “The side under which the pink pot travels each day?”
The purple pot looked to the pink pot’s side of the path but saw no flowers, just bare mountainside. “I don’t understand,” the pot said. “Why are there flowers only on my side of the path?”
Nyoman chuckled. “Because, drama queen, the morning after I noticed your crack, I planted seeds along your side of the path. Every day, as we return home from the stream, you water them. What used to be empty ground now bursts with color because of you. At least now, when I make the back-breaking journey to and from the stream each day, I get to take in the beauty and scent of all these flowers! All because of your crack. Got it?”
The purple pot listened to Nyoman in disbelief. It stared out at the blanket of flowers it had played a part in creating, and it wept, like no pot — purple or pink or black or silver — had ever wept before. It had only ever seen its crack as a flaw but now understood that it was also a gift.
“Thank you, dear Nyoman,” it said. “It is my great honor to serve you.”
Though it still frustrates me at times, I’ve grown to appreciate — even love — the part of my personality that jumps from one thing to the next. Better to have played an African drum once than never to have played an African drum at all. I’m more gifted at trying new things than I am at sticking with them. That’s just who I am. It’s one of the cracks that makes me, me. I’ve met many interesting people this way and have played in all sorts of different worlds. My crack has grown endless flowers and friendships, including the priest, my piano teacher, my acting coach, and even the guy who brought me into that $16,000 pyramid scheme.
I was talking about this chapter with my friend Susan, and she reminded me that had I not dragged her to a Teach for America informational session in college, she may never have worked with that organization and become a teacher. I, of course, was dead set on becoming a Teach for America teacher, too, but lost interest before finishing the application (it was really long).
Susan went on to teach elementary school for twenty years. Sometimes our cracks lead others to their flowers, too.
Which of your cracks have you spent too much time judging?
How might your “flaws” actually be adding to the beauty of our world?
We can waste our lives feeling guilty and ashamed over aspects of our appearance or personality that we can’t control or that we can control but feel less free when we do so.
Whatever we consciously repress only oppresses us in return. We can hide ourselves because of our perceived flaws. Or we can embrace the flaws. We can choose to see the ways in which our cracks add beauty to the world around us and the ways in which they enhance our own lives. We can choose to recognize that whatever makes us who we are is something to celebrate, not suppress. Without needing them to define us, we can begin to let our cracks give us a bit more definition.
Then, like the flowers we’re bound to inspire, we can finally, fully bloom.
Bigger Love with Scott Stabile is a reader-supported publication. If you’re benefiting from the content and have the means, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thanks!
Breathwork Offerings
I’m offering two Online Breath & Belonging sessions next week, one on Wednesday the 19th at 6pm PST / 9pm EST and one on Thursday the 20th at 2pm EST / 7pm GMT (perfect for any Europeans and Africans who haven’t been able to join due to timing.
My dear friend Jacob Nordby invited me to guide online breathwork for his Heal + Create membership community and has graciously opened the event up, for free, to all. Join me on Sunday, October 23rd, for Breathe Your Way Home. Though it’s free, you must RSVP for this event.
Here’s an email I received from one of the attendees at last night’s Breath & Belonging:
These sessions are getting better and better. I am loving the effect that it is having on my life force energy, my chi is buzzing. It is an amazing experience. Honestly, I have begun to do recorded breathwork sessions every other day, but your live session is a whole other ball ground. Can't wait for next time.
And here’s some other feedback I’ve received:
"That was the most peaceful healing session.""After the breathwork session ended, I felt like hugging everyone, including strangers. I went to bed with a big smile on my face.""I have to tell you that after the breath workshop, there were sounds coming out of my flute I have never ever produced in the 30 years I’ve been a professional flute player.""Ok so this time it actually felt psychedelic. Like I had a whole healing journey. WHAT THE HECK SCOTT!!""I have experienced inner child healing and letting go of a lot of old pain & grief in my body through Scott's breathwork offering.""It felt incredibly nurturing and supportive, and a lot of energy moved through.""What the F*** just happened to me?! I feel like a different person!"
Podcast
Have you checked out Hey Jacob, Hi Scott, my podcast with Jacob Nordby? We’ve got a new episode going up today, and 46 other episodes for you to dive into.
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