Ep 068 The Clenching Bu**hole Technique (Why messy action trumps all)

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If you're stuck in that endless loop of checking boxes and wondering why success still feels empty, this episode is your wake-up call.

I'm breaking down my signature framework for getting unstuck and actually taking action that creates real growth: The Clenching Butthole Technique. Yeah, you read that right. And no, I'm not kidding.

What You'll Learn:

The 3 Stages of Action:

• Zero Clench - Your comfort zone (where nothing new happens)
• Shit Your Pants - The freeze zone (too overwhelming to be useful)
• Clenched Butthole - The messy action sweet spot (where ALL the magic happens)

Why messy action literally trumps everything:

• No growth happens without mess
• The only way to increase capacity is through messy action
• No one is perfect when they start off
• If you don't ask, the answer is always no
• Rejection is redirection (and every "no" teaches you something valuable)

Your Weekly Challenge:

For the next 7 days, take ONE messy action every single day. Ask yourself each morning: "What messy action am I going to take today?"

Then come back and tell me what magic happened.

Remember:

We're not going after perfection. We're going after growth. And growth lives in that uncomfortable-but-not-traumatizing space where you're clenching just enough to know you're expanding your capacity.

Your dreams aren't going to manifest themselves while you're sitting comfortably on the couch. Get out there and get messy.

Connect with Shalvika:

• Email: admin@shalvikapatil.com
• Substack
• Instagram: @ShalvikaP

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear this message!

Transcript

[00:00] Intro Music Shalvika: Welcome to your Aligned as Fck Life podcast, hosted by your girl, Shalvika. I am a life transformation coach, a wife, a cat mom, pure generator, Enneagram 3, Pisces sign, and helping you build an aligned as fck life is my jam. Out in this world, we believe that there are no set rules for building a life, career, and business. That we are all unique and we should be able to embrace our uniqueness in everything we do while shedding all the rules or bullshit rules one at a time. We will talk all things mindset, manifestation, healing, energetics, rituals, success, and so much more. I believe that I can have it all and you can too. Ready for an episode that will take you one step closer to your aligned as f*ck life? Let's get started.

[01:05] Shalvika: Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Your Aligned as F*ck Life with Shalvika. And today's topic, if you have glanced at the topic of today's podcast, I know is very interesting, okay? So I'm calling it "The Clenching Butthole Technique: Why Messy Action Trumps All." If you've been in my world, if you have been one of my clients, you are probably already aware about the clenching butthole technique of taking action, of goal setting. Right? But for those of you who are new, who have never heard of this, welcome to this episode and welcome to this concept, because I think this is where the magic really fucking happens. All right? It is at the spot that I call the clenching butthole spot.

[02:00] Shalvika: But before we dive into that, I just wanted to kind of talk to you a little bit about why this is important, okay? A lot of times I work with many people who come up to me who have achieved a certain amount of success in their life, who have achieved even the things that they said they want to achieve, right? But they still feel stuck. They feel like something is missing. They feel like "I am not fulfilled enough at this point in time." And I feel that that happens because a lot of times we operate on autopilot. We operate from this idea of this checklist, right? Like get your education by 23, 24, get married by—I don't know, 27. I don't know the exact ages, but you know you get the drift, right? Like have a kid by—have your first kid by 30, like buy this kind of a house, move into a better locality, send your kid to a certain kind of school, have a second kid, send them to better schools. It's a never-ending loop that we are constantly running on. It's a hamster wheel that we are running on and none of us knows how to stop that hamster wheel.

[03:17] Shalvika: The entire idea behind me building Your Aligned as Fck Life, whether it be my Substack (which is essentially long-form writing like blog posts), or my podcast, or all of my body of work, including all of the courses that I've released so far, has been from a perspective of helping you build your aligned as fck life. Because I feel like no amount of success is going to bring that alignment for you unless you intentionally choose it. Right? Nothing—no amount of money, no amount of material possessions, no amount of position in a company—is going to help you feel that you are aligned with your purpose, is going to help you feel at peace and content with the choices that you have made. And one big part—one massive part—of those choices is how you set goals, how you take action. And that is what we are going to talk about today.

[04:18] Shalvika: Because I have used this example before, but I'm still going to use it again. If you are not crystal clear about what you want, if you are being vague about what you want, what you're going to get is vague results. It's like you walk into a restaurant. The server walks up to you and asks, "What do you want?" and you say, "I want food." So the server goes and he gets you paneer tikka masala, and you say that, "Oh, but I wanted roasted chicken. I didn't want paneer tikka masala." But if you think about it, your server is not wrong. You asked for food, he got you food. And that's precisely why it is so important to be crystal clear about the direction of where you are going, about the direction of the actions that you take every single day, the direction of your identity, and the direction of the goals that you set.

The Three Stages of Action

[05:15] Shalvika: All right, cool! So let's come back and start actually talking about the clenching butthole technique. So essentially, whenever we are thinking of setting a goal or taking an action, there are three stages that each of those goals or actions can fall under. So let's dive in.

Stage 1: The Zero Clench Stage

[05:37] Shalvika: Stage one is the zero clench stage. Now, when I say zero clench, I am specifically talking about your butthole. So whenever you're thinking—I know it sounds weird, but hear me out—whenever you are thinking about setting a goal or taking an action, I want you to pause. I want you to, you know, close your eyes for a second, take a deep breath, and I want you to ask yourself: "Am I clenching my butthole?" If there is zero clench, it means this particular action falls under the zero clench category. Essentially, what this means is that this is an action where you are extremely comfortable. Everything that you probably do already today in your life every single day—things that you repeat, things that you don't think about before doing—be it calling your mom, be it meeting your best friend, be it dropping an email to your team member, right? These things that you're comfortable with fall under this category of zero clench. Now, when I say notice the clench in your butthole, what I mean is I want you to actually take a pause, tune into your body, and see if you are compressing, clenching, shrinking yourself in any part. And if there is no clenching, then you are in stage one, which is zero clench.

Stage 2: The Shit Your Pants Stage

[07:11] Shalvika: Awesome! Let's now move on to the second stage that your goal or action can fall into, and this stage is the other extreme of zero clench. This is the "shit your pants" stage. This is where you're extremely uncomfortable. It is something that you have probably not done in the past. It's something that scares the shit out of you—which is why you are in the shit your pants stage. It is something that makes you feel a lot of anxiety. It makes you feel a lot of "I want to run away from this point, I want to not go there"—that kind of an energy, that kind of thought, that level of anxiety, right? So examples of shit your pants actions or goals can be walking up to a stranger and asking for a job. You know, you meet someone who's very interesting, or you see someone who you know works at a certain position in a company—walking up to them to ask for a job for yourself can be an extremely uncomfortable situation for someone. It could also be speaking in front of a crowd of maybe 5,000 people. Maybe you're okay with speaking in front of 100 people, but 5,000 people is where you shit your pants. Maybe it is going live on Instagram every single day.

[08:31] Shalvika: I actually am thinking about this one client who had been for a while trying to grow her yoga page. But the thing was, she was never ready to come and show up on Instagram—because that's the page that she wanted to go—because she was just so shit scared about recording videos face to camera. She was shit scared about going live every single day. And I'm not saying you need to go live every single day, but you know, that's something that she needed to experiment with.

Stage 3: The Clenched Butthole Spot

[09:04] Shalvika: And that brings us—that idea that she needed to experiment with something—brings us to the third stage or the third category under which your goals or actions can fall into, and that is the clenched butthole spot. So it is that sweet spot—I mean, yeah, it is the clenched butthole spot, but it is still that sweet spot—where you are neither comfortable nor extremely uncomfortable. So you are neither in the zero clench range nor are you in the shit your pants range. You are—there is a slight discomfort associated with it. There are thoughts of "Is this okay for me to do?", there are thoughts of "Do I think I'm going to be able to accomplish it?", but not to such an extent where you are completely frozen. So it is that spot where your nervous system is not in fight-or-flight mode, where you don't want to just, you know, switch off your laptop and go play your PlayStation for the next five hours or just binge watch something on Netflix, right? It's not that spot. You know this is uncomfortable, but you also know that it's not that uncomfortable that I am going to die, right? Or I'm going to shit my pants. So it's neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. It's that middle ground.

[10:29] Shalvika: And this is what we are really here for, because this is where the magic happens. Now, some examples of the clenched butthole spot could be sending a DM to someone on LinkedIn. Maybe you don't actually walk up to them and ask for a job, but you just send them a DM and introduce yourself. "Hey, I'm so-and-so, this is what I do, I found you on LinkedIn, and I found that this is something that both of us are interested in, A-B-C-D-E are the things that I have done in this field, and I was wondering if we can just, you know, have a conversation about it." Or it could be publishing an article rather than going and talking in front of like 5,000 people. Or it could be a 10-second video that you have recorded face to camera instead of going live. It's that middle ground, that middle sweet spot. And this middle sweet spot is what I like to call the messy action zone. Your clenched butthole spot is your messy action zone. This messy middle is precisely where all of the magic happens.

Why Messy Action Trumps All

[11:39] Shalvika: Because—and I'm going to talk to you about that. I'm going to talk to you about why messy action literally trumps everything. You may have heard that no amount of growth comes in your comfort zone, right? No growth happens without a mess. Think about if you've ever known a young child in your life—you know, maybe a sibling that you've seen grown up, or a cousin, or maybe you have a kid yourself, right? That kid is not going to one day just get up and start walking. There's going to be a lot of times when he's going to hold on to maybe the couch and get up, and then he's going to fall, and then he's going to try and take the first step and he's going to fall, and he's going to cry, and he's going to try again. And it's going to keep on happening. It's going to keep on going over and over again, right? Because no growth happens without mess, right?

[12:39] Shalvika: The only way to increase capacity is by taking messy action. If you have ever gone to the gym—and if you say, you know, wanted to start off with—you wanted to—your aim was to deadlift 100 kilos, you are not going to start off with deadlifting 100 kilos. You're going to start small. You'll probably start at five kilos or 10 kilos, and then increase it to 15, and then increase it to 20, and slowly build your lifting capacity to reach 100 kilos. So the only way to increase capacity is by taking messy action. Now, when my goal is deadlifting 100 kilos, lifting 20 kilos does not make sense. But we still do that. That is the way we approach it. Why? Because heavy lifting needs an increase in capacity. And that's the same with everything. You want to make more money? You need to increase your capacity for receiving more money. You want to grow in your business? You have to be willing to increase your capacity for making mistakes, for falling on your face, for getting rejected. That is where messy action really happens. It's not going to happen by you sitting in an office hoping that clients are going to come up to you.

[13:58] Shalvika: The largest month that I've ever had in my business has actually been the month where I got rejected the most. And I'm going to talk about this—I'm going to record an episode on this, on what I call the rejection challenge that I went through. But what I'm trying to tell you is that messy action is the only way to develop what in conscious leadership language I call strategic resilience. It is building intentional resilience so that you can keep growing in your life, in your career, and your business. It is that space where you accept that no one is perfect when they start off. Literally no one is perfect when they start off. We are not going after perfection. We are going after messy action. We are going after actually taking action that we know may lead to a mess. Because you know what? If an action may lead to a mess, there is also a possibility—an equal possibility—that that action may lead to some kind of a growth, right?

[15:10] Shalvika: So to recap: No growth happens without a mess, right? The only way to increase capacity is to take messy action. No one is perfect when they start off. And the last point—oh, no, sorry—I have two more points. Sorry, I just took a look at my notes. I have two more points. The last two points that I want to talk to you about is: If you don't ask, the answer is always no. Think about it. You want to ask out someone, but you don't have the balls right now to walk up to them and ask them out, right? So the answer is no—they are not going to go out with you unless you go and ask them out. So if you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you ask, there is always a possibility that the answer could be yes. And this is true for everything. This is not just about people, but this is about everything. This may be about maybe you want to become a content creator, maybe you want to grow your blog, maybe you want to grow your podcast. The only way to grow is to actually go out there and do something about it. Because if you don't, the answer to the growth is no—there is zero growth happening, right?

[16:21] Shalvika: The last point that I want to leave you with is when you take messy action, it is going to lead to a lot of rejection. It is going to lead to a lot of heartbreak. It is going to lead to feelings of "I don't want to continue going" because, you know, "I'm getting so many no's." It's possible—we're human. Our nervous systems have a certain amount of capacity and I'm going to talk about that. But remember: Rejection is redirection. Every time that I've wanted to launch a program and I have had no one sign up for it, I have taken that as a sign to stop, pause, and ask myself: "What is it that this experience is telling me about? What is it that my people actually need right now? What is it that I could give and provide that will actually be valuable for my audience?" Of course, it is heartbreaking at times when you've put in efforts. But the thing is, again, going back to the second point that we talked about: The only way to increase capacity is messy action. By creating something—even maybe creating something that other people don't want—what I'm doing is I am flexing that muscle of my own creativity. I'm flexing my muscle of "How can I sell this?", I'm flexing my muscle of "How can I market this?" Right? So every rejection is a redirection. Every rejection gives us something of value. Every mistake is an opportunity for me to go back and evaluate what could be done differently, right?

[18:02] Shalvika: And final note—I know I said the other one was the final note—but final note: Remember, all of our nervous system capacities are different. If I'm asking you to go and take messy action, I do not mean that go and traumatize yourself. I do not mean that go and pick up at your wounds that you may already have. If it is something that feels tender, if it is something that feels heavy, your messy action can also be the smallest little step. If you've been struggling with social anxiety, the messy action doesn't have to be go and talk to like three strangers. Maybe the messy action could just be, "You know what? I'm going to go to a new cafe today, I'm going to sit at—sit at a table all by myself, and all I'm going to do is look at someone in the eye." Always, always assess what your nervous system capacity is when you are going ahead and doing something like messy action.

Recap and Weekly Assignment

[19:08] Shalvika: Awesome! To recap, there are three stages of the clenching butthole technique. This is the technique that we use to arrive at what is my messy action. Stage number one is zero clench—this is where I'm completely comfortable with the goal I'm setting, with the action that I'm about to take. It is something that I do regularly and it's something that I don't even have to think about. This is your comfort zone. This is where, yes, you do operate a lot of times—you do operate most of the times in this area—but it's important to not operate 100% of the time in this area. The second stage that we talked about is the complete opposite. The first was zero clench, the second is shit your pants stage. This is where you're extremely uncomfortable, where the goal that you're thinking about, the action that you're thinking about, wants you—it makes you feel like you're about to shit your pants. It induces anxiety, it induces actual bodily, physical reaction of fear, of fight or flight. This is what we want to avoid at all costs because if you—if you go and do this, you are going to enter into freeze, fawn, fight, or flight, and then it's going to be really difficult to move out of that unless you know how to work with your nervous system, right? So this is where you're extremely uncomfortable. And the third stage, which leads to our sweet spot which is the messy action, is the clenched butthole stage. This is where you're neither comfortable nor are you uncomfortable. Where you're neither not clenching your butt nor are you shitting your pants—you have just mildly clenched your butt. This is uncomfortable but it is not so uncomfortable that it makes you want to bury your head under the sand and not look at the world. This is how you gauge whether an action is messy action or not. You ask yourself what stage of the clenching butthole technique a particular action or goal lands in. And if it is in the clenched butthole stage, then that is your messy action. And we want to do more of messy action because that is where the beautiful, messy, human, vulnerable growth really, really fucking happens.

[21:28] Shalvika: Awesome! So that is the clenching butthole technique. But before I wrap up, I want to leave you with one task, one assignment for this week. Every morning, right—if you have a journaling ritual, if you have any other ritual, if you have a meditation ritual, right—whenever you're doing that, I want you to take five minutes and I want you to ask yourself, "What messy action am I going to take today?" Every single day for the next seven days, I want you to take one messy action. And I want you to go and report back to me after these seven days are done and I want you to tell me what magic happens. Because trust me when I say—and I'm going to record another podcast episode around this—but some of my most beautiful growth has actually happened at times when I have been ballsy enough to take a shit ton of messy action. And I want that for you. I want that growth for you, I want that excitement from life for you, and I want you to actually have all of your desires and all of your dreams. But they're not going to come to you unless you go ahead and take some messy action.

Closing and Contact Info

[22:45] Shalvika: All right, that is me signing off. I cannot wait to hear back stories from you. You can either send me an email at admin@shalvikapatil.com—I'm going to put this in the show notes. You can follow me on Substack—again, the link is in the show notes. Or you can drop me a DM on Instagram, though I don't check Instagram as often. But I hope you really enjoyed listening to today's episode and I cannot wait to hear back from you and see what the clenching butthole technique actually gave you after seven days of practice. All right, that's all that is from me today. Ciao!

[23:30] Outro Music Shalvika: Thank you so much for tuning in today's episode. If you absolutely loved what you heard today, be sure to share it with me by leaving a review on iTunes so that I can keep the good stuff coming. And if you aren't already following me on social media, come soak up some extra, extra inspiration and send me a hello on Instagram by searching @ShalvikaP—also tagged in the show notes. I love and adore you so much and I will talk to you super, super soon. In the meantime, continue building your most authentic and aligned as f*ck life. Ciao!