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Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

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Shanti and the Self: A Californian Love Story

July 6, 2018 41 Comments

Yesterday, my aunt emailed me about this blog. She told me about her time studying in Santa Barbara in the 1980s, and the warning she was given repeatedly as an incoming foreigner: “You’ve come to California. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re in America.”

I don’t know if it’s true (is it true, Americans?), but it did bring one of my favorite Californians to mind. Let me tell you about her, then you tell me whether the Californian Republic should formally secede from the Union.

I myself am Californian enough that I regularly visit a massage therapist to get thoroughly rubbed. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to call my masseuse “Shanti.” A lovely and vibrant person, Shanti is scary-good at her job.

How to describe Shanti? If she were a drink, she’d be homemade kombucha. If she were food, she’d be an activated almond harvested by moonlight and exchanged for a reiki session from a dear friend. If she were an item of clothing she would be a unique garment comprising a kaftan with built-in yoga pants.

Shanti has a lot of interests, and loves to talk. Last week she chose to wax lyrical on a familiar subject, The Dangers of the Modern World. Among the things Shanti knows are killing us are:

  • hair dye
  • microwaves
  • anything non-organic
  • Apple watches
  • the internet.

She’s a loving being, Shanti, and she really does want to protect me from these evils. She’s been known to go through the refrigerator in my house, uninvited, and discard anything that doesn’t meet her standards. “They are really hurting you, Ro,” she’ll tell me, citing her favorite evidence for the damage I’m doing to myself. Looking at me gravely, she likes to intone ominously: “There are a lot of studies out there.”

If Shanti were an animal, she’d be a llama.

But you know, I have to confess that even when she’s throwing out perfectly good food while I sit quietly and fume (it goes worse if you argue), there’s something deeply caring about my daffy masseuse.

She was the first American to sincerely and unironically welcome me into the world of self-care. “Learn to receeeeive, Ro,” she would croon, week after week, as she rubbed the kinks out of my bad shoulder. And I realized how foreign that idea was to to me.

Bilbo does not struggle with self-care.

Self-care is something that Californians take very seriously, and none more than Shanti. “Girl, you need to dedicate time every day to yourself,” she says, adding with another familiar unironic Californian pop-psych flourish, “Time to escape your worries and your codependency.”

Keep rubbing me, I would think in the early days, and I won’t even snort at this.

See, where I come from, it sometimes feels that the very word “self” is borderline taboo, unless you’re using it in deprecation of some kind. Case in point: not long after I came to live in California, I was on the phone with a friend, and described a plan to spend a couple of days with friends doing some navel-gazing.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Sounds kind of self-indulgent.”

Part of me completely agreed.  There’s an instinctive cultural resistance in me that has trouble finding the line between self-care and self-indulgence, but California has been helping me learn to relax… and receive.

Bask in it.

They say America is the culmination of individualism, and at least on this coast, taking care of yourself is a serious business. Shanti knows it. Shanti’s so into self-care that if she were a scented candle, she’d be Ylang-Ylang and bergamot. Seriously.

So yeah, I’m learning to bask a little in California’s self-care. It lets you have a massage every week. And to forgive yourself for wanting one.

Shanti tells me to receive, and I let my body melt into her strong and earnest hands. I no longer snort when she tells me that the CIA is tracking me on my smartphone. I let her care for me, and in doing so I care for myself.

As she rubs me and my shoulder finally begins to let go, it occurs to me that if Shanti were a chakra, she’d be the heart.

Questions for Americans: Is California really that far out? Or was my aunt just caught up in just those crazy ’80s in Santa Barbara?

This article originally appeared on Rowan’s Wild Inventures substack newsletter. To subscribe and get all Rowan’s posts in your inbox, head over to Wild Inventures on substack now. 

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Comments

  1. Carol says

    July 6, 2018 at 5:33 am

    Rowan, this is gorgeous writing, I want to be this good.
    Living in NZ is similar I think to OZ in the respect that ‘self’ is almost a dirty word, it is almost always used with words like, ‘toughen up’ and ‘get a backbone.’ The ‘self ‘ in this part of the world has yet to be discovered in relation to compassion I think. Xoxo

    Reply
    • rowan says

      July 6, 2018 at 8:13 pm

      I’m so glad you agree with me on the point about the Antipodes, Carol. I’m sure NZ and Oz are very similar. And framing it in terms of compassion feels spot on. Thank you!

      Reply
  2. River LaMoreaux says

    July 6, 2018 at 5:41 am

    Yes, California really is that far out.
    I’ve lived in several places in the US, including California, Florida, Utah, Hawaii, and now Idaho.
    What I believe is that all of the places are far out in their own ways. California has the self care and magical culture you speak of, Georgia has a weird combination of hospitality and deep hatred of the other, Utah is just on another planet (Kolob perhaps?) which was reinforced by my recent visit there, Hawaii has Mormon temples and Christian influences that are trying to overwrite the indigenous culture (STILL), and Idaho is clearly Mormon-adjacent but not as climatically demanding as Utah, less obviously Mormon, and has the lottery (yay!) in addition to state liquor stores (a weird cultural thing borrowed from Utah).

    I’m not sure that you could define many things that are “American”. I used to illustrate this in my classes when discussing culture, by showing them a slide of apple pie, the flag and a baseball bat – but past that – regional influences are strong.

    Still, I found echoes of places within other places – a plant in Georgia that smelled like sage, and sand dunes (next to peat bogs) covered in opuntia and rattlesnakes. In Utah they have a section called “Dixie” where cotton was grown like in Georgia. Much of the rugged pioneer individualism in Utah is also in Idaho (I have ancestors who settled both).

    SO, as you’re looking for the quintessential “American” stuff in your travels and explorations, also look for the overlaps in the differences. I guess my best answer to your question is “yes, but it’s complicated.”

    So says the Geographer.

    Reply
    • rowan says

      July 6, 2018 at 8:12 pm

      Geographer, I love your points. The idea that every place has its own “far out” is very appealing to me. The examples you give are fascinating.

      I have definitely been struck by how strong statehood is here, far more than in Australia (where we only have a handful). Bureaucratically as well as culturally, the state feels like the basic unit of affiliation — beyond that it’s “I pledge allegiance…” and the high rhetoric of the nation. Which is harder to relate to in some ways (I’m guessing).

      Reply
  3. Christina Lawler says

    July 6, 2018 at 10:23 am

    Wait until you visit Connecticut! That’ll give you some perspective on how widely different the two Coasts are. I am Oregon born. Have you ever been to Ashland? Lots of “Shanti’s” there.

    But if you want a taste of diversity and to be your tribe, you’ll have only to head to P-Town, Massachusetts (Provincetown). I had a massage from a Shanti like woman there, in a place called Namaste Spa. If light writing were a massage that’s what this would
    Have been. I had just finished Be the Truth, and travelled into the Abyss with Dante and Martha. I was in need of sun, sand, libations, and relax. I told the woman I had been through a lot emotionally. The entire massage felt like she was infusing every inch of my body with love. It was a spiritual experience.

    I miss the West Coast dearly. However the senses have never had such a feast as Fall in New England. So we have that going for us. After that you’ll pretty much have to survive the weather until the next one 😉

    Welcome 🙂 keep writing. I’ve really been enjoying.

    C

    Reply
    • rowan says

      July 6, 2018 at 8:04 pm

      This is awesome! Thanks, Christina. I’m so excited for Fall in the Northeast!

      Reply
  4. Sarah Cloyd says

    July 6, 2018 at 1:35 pm

    I think CA is leading the way! People are tired of being sick and tired and are discovering that the remedy for that is self care. If we don’t do it for ourselves, no one else is going to do it for us. Other parts of the country still choose to believe this is kooky hoo ha and has no basis in reality…these are the parts of the country you will still find “smoking sections” in restaurants and fresh (let alone organic) food is hard to find. You won’t find massage therapists there, unless they’re also waiting tables and cleaning houses to make enough money to live on, and no one will have ever heard of a “Naturopathic physician”…so, CA may be “far out” but I think Californians are redefining what it means to be “self centered”.

    Reply
    • rowan says

      July 6, 2018 at 8:03 pm

      Thanks for the comment, Sarah. I am certainly very grateful for what California has taught me!

      Reply
  5. Cami Pack says

    July 6, 2018 at 8:19 pm

    Best ending line. <3 And enlightened Portlanders might declare we led CA toward this whole-hearted, slowing down business, and they still has a lot of catching up to do! 😉 (But then Portlanders seem to have it in for Californians, and Shanti sounds like one of us.)

    Reply
    • rowan says

      July 6, 2018 at 8:56 pm

      Thanks, Cami! I give Portland its due. We were actually thinking of moving there before we decided to go East.

      Reply
      • Cami Pack says

        July 7, 2018 at 6:45 am

        *gasp* tra.ge.dy … and so excited for you! 🙂 Such a thrill.

        Reply
  6. chani says

    July 7, 2018 at 1:43 pm

    Love this Ro, the structure of your writing is so satisfying! self-care is something i talk about on the daily with postnatal women. you got to do something loving for your self when you’re in a highly giving state (mothering!) so important and you’re right, self is a taboo word particually self love, which i guess is why self care is so hard for us as thats admitting self love!!!!

    Reply
    • Rowan says

      July 7, 2018 at 5:56 pm

      That is such a great point, Chani! I’m so glad you talk about this with the women you work with. I don’t know why we as Australians are so reluctant to embrace “self-care” (however we word it!) but hopefully this is changing. x

      Reply
  7. Eliza Tipping-Smith says

    July 9, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    Oh my goodness I love this! & makes me miss California so… keep them coming Roey! X x x x

    Reply
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The culture’s real agenda is to get you to stay in the left hemisphere of your brain. 🧠

Why?

Because if you do, then you continue to give your life for cannon fodder and give your labor for billionaires—you aren’t questioning the status quo. 

And as soon as you get out your paintbrush or sit down at the piano, you open up a way of thinking that creates where there was nothing before—that creates everything from amazing art to solutions to climate change. And that’s revolutionary. 👊

To hear more about unlocking the true power of art and joining the creative revolution, tune in for the full episode and find out why making art might be the most important thing you do for yourself—and for the world. 

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very speci Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very special episode for you today as we’re talking with our friends and fellow creative revolutionaries, Amie McNee and James Winestock. 🎨

Amie is a writer, author, and creativity coach whose new book, We Need Your Art, is out now.
Her goal with this book is to remind you that you are here on this earth to make things and to use your incredible brain to create—and that art isn’t just a hobby, but vitally important work.

As Amie describes her work, “I basically just bully people to make them create things.” (Spoiler alert: It worked for Martha!)

If you’ve ever doubted your artistic worth, this conversation will remind you: The world truly needs your art, now more than ever. Listen to the full episode and let Amie’s contagious passion help you take your art seriously—and help change the world. ✨

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧 

@inspiredtowrite
Did you know that true kindness is a superpower? ✊🌼

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about the way that true kindness—starting with kindness towards ourselves—is actually a deeply subversive force in our culture.

Kindness has the power to disrupt systems of cruelty and division, and it’s a rebellion against the scarcity, everyone-in-it-for-himself mentality that’s pedaled so widely (never more than now in this culture).

So if you want to be a rebel against the culture of domination and extraction and overwhelming force, be a rebel first by being kind to yourself.

You can listen to Bewildered episode 101: Out-Kind the Culture, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you want to be really subversive and really sti Do you want to be really subversive and really stick it to The Man? 👨🏻‍⚖️
(Especially The Man as he is currently configured in our culture…)

Here is how to do it:
Be kind. 🥰

Be kind to yourself, and you will naturally be kind elsewhere. Keep in mind: Kindness is not what the culture tells us it is—foolish, passive, naive—no. Kindness is immense power. ☀️

If we can learn to tap into it in a way that is accessible to us, it is so much more powerful than the forces of cruelty that want to keep us in our place.

Hope you’ll join us for this new episode of Bewildered: Out-Kind the Culture. 💗

You can listen to Bewildered episode 101: Out-Kind the Culture, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
What’s something you accept about yourself? 🤔 What’s something you accept about yourself? 🤔

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about the idea of training your “human”—the body, mind, and personality you were given at birth but is separate from your Self—and one of the steps is accepting your human as it is.

Ro has accepted that her human will never be consistent through a year. She’ll have months of being really on top of things and months where the things are on top of her. There doesn’t seem to be any way around that. 🧐

Each mode her human goes into feels like the ultimate personality. Like, “Now I’m myself! And this is how it will continue for the rest of time.”

But she’s getting much better at understanding that it won’t last—it is what it is right now—and just letting that be, as one season gives way to another, knowing that they do come back around as well. 🛞

The culture fixates on permanency and consistency—“Be the same creature throughout the year and for always”—but that’s just not how many people’s humans work at all.

To find out more about observing, accepting, and training your human so you can cultivate more peace and joy, tune in for the full conversation! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 100: How to Train Your Human, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you ever just catch yourself doing something an Do you ever just catch yourself doing something and think, “I have such a funny human. Look at it. Look what it does.” 😅

That is what our episode today is about—what it is to function inside the human that we’re given when we’re born. 🐣

And learning:

🤔 how it works
👍 what it will do
👎 what it won’t do

And maybe training it to be the best human and have the most fun as a human that it can.

It’s all on a new episode of Bewildered called “How to Train Your Human.” Check it out, it’s pretty fun. 😀

You can listen to Bewildered episode 100: How to Train Your Human, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
How do you know if you’re stuck in an algorithm How do you know if you’re stuck in an algorithm cycle? 🌀

Here’s how it works:

If something strikes you as interesting, the algorithm will instantly create the impression that everyone knows about this thing that you’ve just discovered—everyone’s talking about it, and everyone has the same concerns. 🗣️

Then what happens with that impression is that just by the force of the number of people, it makes it seem more credible and true. So even if I’ve only seen 30 people saying the same thing, my impression is that it’s probably about 75% of all people.

And if 75% of people believe something, there’s a very good chance it’s correct, right? That’s just what they call “Doing the math.” ➕➖✖️➗

And not only does it feel factually right, it feels morally right as well.

So how do we break out of this illusion of consensus and navigate through all the chaos and uncertainty? Find out on this episode of the Bewildered podcast! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Like most people, you’ve got a worldview. 🌎 A Like most people, you’ve got a worldview. 🌎
And also like most people, you want to uphold and defend that worldview. 🛡️

Enter “apophenia”—a condition all humans are susceptible to—which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful patterns between unrelated or random things.” 🧶

Apophenia is often the chemical and mental scaffolding by which we uphold a worldview that, under scrutiny, may not hold up that well. 🤔

Or might not even hold up at all. 😳

Want to learn more about apophenia, conspiracy theories, fractured worldviews, and how we can all come to our senses? Join us for this episode of the Bewildered podcast! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you ever find that in order to explain to someo Do you ever find that in order to explain to someone what’s really going on you need:

📌 a gigantic pin board
📰 newspaper clippings
🧶 a lot of yarn

If that is the case, you might be suffering from a condition known as “apophenia.”

On today’s episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about:

👽 conspiracy theories
🤖 algorithms
💔 a fractured sense of reality
⚔️ the war of the worldviews

All of this—and how we can come to our senses. I hope you’ll join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.
There is a wonderful artist we love called Amie Mc There is a wonderful artist we love called Amie McNee (@inspiredtowrite), who recently wrote a very cool essay on her Substack about not wanting a job. She said that if you don’t want to have a conventional job in this society, you will be seen as weak or lazy. 🦥

For Amie, it’s a very different sort of thing—it’s about not having a high tolerance for suffering and not wanting to suffer. Here’s what she says in her essay:

“We live in a culture that venerates toiling and drudgery. Because I have an intolerance for a life that doesn’t sparkle, I created a life that was filled with meaning and purpose. Ironically, to do so, I worked harder than I ever have before, but it was work that absolutely glittered. 💎

“Now I write, talk, paint, connect. I do it to make money. I do it because it lights me up. I do it because that is why I’m here on this earth. Life sparkles, yet I still feel like I'm getting away with something. I’ve snuck around a compulsory part of being a human being, which is doing work that sucks.”

If you want to hear more about creating a life that lights you up, instead of a life where you’re only a drudge for money, be sure to tune in for this episode of Bewildered. Let’s figure it out!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
Our culture tells us to always put money in the mi Our culture tells us to always put money in the middle of our lives, and there’s a compulsiveness to this feeling of hoarding money and of making money. 🤑

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about this compulsion and looking at what might fill our attention if we take money and jobs out of the middle.

Money is basically an abstract extrapolation of the barter system. 🪙🟰🐮

Our culture has turned it into something you can hoard when actually you can’t, not in any meaningful way, because on its own, money doesn’t mean anything. 🪙🟰🪙

We heard a quote in the context of addiction that said, “You can never get enough of something that almost works.” Money is an addictive thing that makes you want more and more and more of it because you’re trying to fill a differently shaped hole.

In this episode we’re challenging the idea that money should be at the center of our lives and proposing what kinds of things we could put there instead. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
Our culture tells us that you need to put money… Our culture tells us that you need to put money…

💵 the making of money
🪙 the generating of money
🤑 the money-making-money-making-money

…at the very center of your attention, if not your entire life.

Now, it may be that at this moment, work and getting money has to fill a lot of our day, but it doesn’t have to fill our attention.

What we’re talking about today on Bewildered is what happens when you pluck the money/work cultural story from the center of your attention. 🎯

Let’s see what goes there instead. It’s kind of wild…

Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
In this episode of the Bewildered podcast, we’re In this episode of the Bewildered podcast, we’re discussing our very noisy culture and how different kinds of noise can affect us in different ways. 🙉

For Ro, when she’s in New York walking down the street during Sunday brunch time, she finds the noise of people chatting outside at restaurants enlivening instead of irritating. Its effect on her nervous system is net positive.

“And I don’t think that’s association or any sort of mental gymnastics that’s happening. I genuinely think it hits my nervous system differently because it contains a different emotional frequency,” she says.

Martha says that there’s a certain amount of reaction to noise that we can’t control.

For example, you could be habituated to traffic noise where you think nothing of it, and yet:

😩 It’s destroying your sleep.
〰️ It’s keeping you from alpha waves.
🌰 It’s triggering your amygdala to make you afraid.

And you don't even know that’s happening. 🤯

“If there’s an alarm call, you’re going to have a very strong reaction,” she adds, “and you can’t really control that. But there’s also a level in which you have some say, you have some deciding power, because it’s about what the sound means to you.”

Tune in for the full episode to learn how different sound frequencies can affect you (for better and for worse) and how to take a break from our increasingly noisy culture.

You can listen to Bewildered episode 97: Clamor and Birdsong, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Are you a fan of white noise? 🤍 We find that w Are you a fan of white noise? 🤍

We find that white noise is not ideal for work, as it can set your teeth on edge a little bit. 😬

Luckily, there are other “colors” of noise that are more in the mid-range of what we can hear, where it’s like the sound is a bit blunted.

We particularly enjoy green noise, which is the one that supposedly sounds most like the natural world, and it’s very pleasant. 💚

You can play these different colored soundscapes on loops on YouTube—like ten hours of uninterrupted green noise—and it’s just wonderful!

It’s an inexpensive way to create your own personalized soundscape—for example, with green noise on your laptop and birdsong on your phone, for free—and positively affect your nervous system. 💚🦜

Want to learn more about the effects of sound on your nervous system and how to navigate an increasingly noisy culture? Join us for this episode of the Bewildered podcast!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 97: Clamor and Birdsong, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

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