Align Your Orbit: Power Juggle

Align Your Orbit is a monthly series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide you toward intentionality and impact in your daily life. These are games to inspire intuition, so please adapt the offerings to fit you and find delight in how you engage.

As more humans slip toward irrationality due to economic, environmental, and emotional stressors, chaos intensifies. Instable processes erode, and weak foundations become apparent. When conflict tempts you toward abdication of privileges and responsibilities, claim power with transparency while making paths to increased agency visible to others. There is no one better suited to forge the future than you.

Want to experience this month’s offerings as a Spotify playlist?

Experiments for September

1.      Reap Rewards – It’s easy to feel guilt when you have choice and control, but when power requires labor, most people shrink away. If you fill power vacuums, make sure there’s something in it for you. Don’t forget that power should come with rewards. What benefit comes from more responsibility?

Challenge Mode: Living your glorious, actualized self attracts attention, not all of it generative. As you become more visible, blame and criticism naturally come your way. Practice separating constructive feedback from toxic envy. Wear an amulet to deflect destructive insecurity. Offer paths to power but refuse to hold space when someone rejects their own access to agency.

2.      Address Your Alter Ego –Find where your actions don’t align with your words and use that as a prompt for self-reflection. Which parts of you are at war with themselves? Ask what creates dissatisfaction and get curious about compromise rather than overwhelm yourself with harsh or hasty solutions.

Challenge Mode: Indulge your darkest selves this month in healthy environments and consensual contexts. Seek spaces that welcome and encourage your cravings. Create community around the fires in your chest. Be fearless in your attempts to resource satisfaction. Embrace perpetual foreplay.

3.      Diversify Commitments – Even with your calendar booked solid, don’t fall into the trap of assuming you don’t have space for anything else. We’ve found that diversifying commitments creates unexpected room in untouched or forgotten categories. Invite your commitments to serve more than one purpose.

Challenge Mode: Creating altars out of objects of significance invites categorical possibilities into your timeline. What future do your magical items call in? Where does this magic come from?

4.      Utilize Dissatisfaction – The future you want requires a kernel of dissatisfaction to appear. Everything requires constant improvement. Don’t shy away from what isn’t working; use it as fuel to look for elusive solutions.

Challenge Mode: Take an honest look at your body and get curious about what you want to change. Release ideas of limitations and instead treat specific outcomes like skills to develop. What steps can you take to surprise yourself with strength, flexibility, or grace?

Please tell us how these experiments are working for you!

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Andra’s Recap of August’s Experiments

The primary theme for August was Just Ask with emphasis on your calling, performing rigorous self-care, budgeting capacity, and prioritizing your own desires.

I took great effort not to preempt several steps ahead in difficult conversations, realizing that being that far ahead in a situation is often just a waste of energy. I did my best to ask about how someone came to a conclusion rather than making assumptions on my own. As a result, I challenged my view of the people in my life in helpful and necessary ways.

In terms of purpose, I started working at SCRAP thinking it would alleviate this intense calling I have to do something that actively feels like it is saving the world. I had hoped that the energy I put in there would quiet the demands of that part of me. And while that was true for a while, those demands are back. Specifically, they seem interested in nudging me in a more human direction with disruption as the primary request. It is endlessly frustrating how many people continue to go about their lives as though the economy, the government, the healthcare system, and the environment are not on fire. I’m curious about ways to shake people until they start smelling the smoke.

I’ve also spent a great deal of effort finding tools that I need for my next steps, and though they have arrived, I haven’t had the opportunity to use them. I’m looking forward to making some space for that.

I wanted to spend more time designing my routine, but it was difficult when things felt like they were still in flux. I didn’t even have a clue what my schedule for September would be until it was posted yesterday, for instance. But, on the other hand, I remembered how helpful riding my stationary bike is for my routine since I can get a lot of phone-related stuff done then, and I’ve begun making that part of my morning again.

In budgeting my capacity, I found that I started to act prickly in conversations just on the mere chance that someone was going to ask for something I needed to say no to. Instead, I’ve shifted toward asking, can I have some time to think about that? That way, I’m not afraid of agreeing to something I don’t actually want and can still be soft in the moment.

At the yarn mill, I’ve seen the ways that teaching others what I do pays off. My apprentices are now teaching each other how to accomplish new tasks and bringing new knowledge to the group, and it is such an alchemical process. I love it so much. This really feels like a community worth developing.

Focusing on my own desires rather than preempting others was incredibly useful advice this month as I had multiple interpersonal conflicts that had to do with undisclosed hopes or desires that another person brought to light. Because of my confidence in the fact that it is not my responsibility to anticipate someone else’s needs, I was able to take a step back and reflect what those individuals were saying back at them.

This seems like a silly thing, but customizing my quick reactions on FB Messenger has been a lot of fun, and I feel like it’s added a lot of personality to my messaging. I’m looking forward to finding more ways to make technology fun.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy September’s experiments!