Shaping is not a complicated thing. It's simple - but that doesn't always mean easy. To shape well, it takes a lot of passion and a lot of focus. If you don't usually do a lot of shaping, then even a small shaping takes more energy running through your system than you're used to.
Shaping comes with a kick. That kick is physical, like working out a lot. It leaves you tired and weak, your muscles hurt and your joints ache and your guts are messy. Shaping is more than just physical, you are running energy into your guts and your integrity, so it is also coming up into your emotions and the more meta-level stuff. So you hurt emotionally as well: you feel overwhelmed, hopeless, depressed. It's a vastly empty, pointless, dreary feeling like there's nothing left to live for. And on an energy level, you can't scan for a while, and none of the meta- stuff makes any sense, and you feel like you should give up because what's the point anyway.
If you've felt these things and didn't recognise the kickback from Shaping, the way you can recognise the kickback that comes from working out physically, you may have figured Shaping hurts and never done it again, and not built the muscle to get good at it. If you stop going to the gym the first time you're sore, you'll never be in shape. Once you get used to Shaping, you can shape a lot more and be fine, until you do something much bigger than you're used to and you'll probably feel some of this kick.
It's in the last few reps when you're working out, that you really build the strength. It's when you push into the difficult places that your body gets stronger. The kick is the opportunity for the Shapers to do this. If in the middle of that, you say "I decide this, and I am going to stick to my decisions without fussing and whining and I don't care." When you do this, you see remarkable growth. Making the right decisions when you are in this kick is necessary, and so recognising the kick is necessary, and so the list is necessary.
When shaping an emotional thing, or shaping a deep intuitive or shamanic thing, the kicks will be different in size and shape. When shaping physical world things or underlying energies, surface or structure, have different kicks. There's some consistency between the type of kick and the type of shaping you did. It will be useful to start mapping how different types of shaping relate to the different kinds of kicks, how you can notice, and what the best ways of handling it are.
Angel, 2014-08-04
