From the confusion and uncertainty of my last post, came some surprising turns and new directions. Mostly unexpected.
I suffered a sudden financial loss, started working long hours in a new job, and had a brush with cancer. My creativity took a nosedive, although I have completed writing my book and am in the process of publishing it.
I thought I was finally coming out of the liminal space in which I’d found myself, where nothing was working and there were no clear steps forward. I discovered a new area of interest, and began writing a blog post on it. But every time I returned to complete it, it was as if I’d lost the point of what I was trying to say.
It felt irrelevant. Forced. Inauthentic.
It was on the subject of nervous system dysregulation caused by stress stored in the body. Without exaggerating, it felt that every issue and challenge I had faced in my life could have been the result of this. I enrolled on a course to learn more and even though I discovered that change wouldn’t happen overnight (no surprise there!), whenever I encountered any life challenge I would simply tell myself that if I kept doing the exercises I had no need to worry. I projected everything on to it as a ‘solution’, an answer to all my problems.
One thing did result from my repeated attempts at trying to force-finish the blog-post however.
It was the coming to mind of a statement, written by Deepak Chopra, that when I first read it moved me to tears. I had resonated with it so strongly that I had a visceral reaction to it without really understanding it intellectually.
The sentence was, ‘Let your body take care of you.’ (my italics).
Although I was moved by the words, I still wasn’t sure how to allow that.
I continued doing my course exercises. I had an increasingly strong craving for being in the natural world, alone. Although I dreamed of finding a field in which I could build a studio and spend all my time in nature, I didn’t find a way to make it happen.
So when I knew that there was a possibility of lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic, a part of me was relieved. I’ve been self-isolating for years, and now I didn’t have to justify it!
Yet.
I knew that I was still intellectualising rather than actually changing the way I live my life. I was more intent in showing off my newfound ‘solution’ to the world than doing the work.
I was using the course and my new obsession to distract myself, to stay in control.
My wanting to hide away in a remote field was simply another avoidance tactic. To avoid people. To avoid participating in the world. To avoid listening to myself. I was trying to get away from, rather than facing up to.
Now I am being forced, like most of us, to face Fear and Uncertainty.
Whatever potential scenario scares us the most, the fear that we experience will be the same. We might be scared of losing our income, our homes, our families; of no longer being able to use food or drink or socialising or work to feed our addictions; of facing any form of illness, Corona or otherwise, physical, mental or emotional, that can’t be addressed immediately; of shining a light on our relationships, our ways of being together, our dependent and dysfunctional partnerships.
We may have to meet with boredom, frustration, loneliness; lack of control over our environment; continued uncertainty, anxiety and apprehension about the future.
We will roller coaster through emotions, think we’re on top of things but have disturbing dreams that might indicate otherwise. All the things we were running from will catch us up.
We can either surrender fully to all of this or suffer for longer by resisting. We can welcome all opportunities to see things in a different light – individually, collectively, globally – or we can be dragged kicking and screaming.
We can loosen our grip, stop clinging to old ways of being, let go of how we think things should be and forego any idea of what the future will hold.
I now have a clearer understanding of Deepak’s message. And in this current climate his advice seems to be more important than ever and the only valid choice left open to us.
We can keep bringing ourselves back to this moment, right now, where we have all that we need. By acknowledging how we are feeling, by staying with what arises, we can start asking what our hearts truly desire. By listening to our bodies we can follow our instinctual impulses and begin to collectively create a new world more in harmony with nature and for the greater good of us all.
Of course it isn’t going to be easy! Especially for those on the front line facing the most excruciating challenges of all. But for many of us we now have the time and the space to slow down, return to ourselves and wait for whatever is next, knowing that we will come out of this as more caring, more compassionate, more connected.
PS: For anyone interested in finding out more about the fascinating subject of nervous system regulation there are books and much free material online from some wonderful pioneers in this field – Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Irene Lyon, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, Kathy Kain.
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