Sometimes knowing there’s no remedy for how things are, is the remedy. It takes away all the effort of trying to solve, fix, heal or prove and throws it out the window. What a relief.
You can just be bested. Bested by all. No exceptions.
Bested by the family. The hurt, the grief, the sadness, the fear. All of it. Say it out loud. You guys bested me. You win. Here’s my white flag.
Bested by the body. I don’t know what to do to regulate or make any of this better. I’m exhausted. Bested.
Bested by the trauma. My heart is broken, my body aches, and I’m tired as fuck.
Slow down. Notice the hurry. Not enough time, not enough space. Lots to do.
This premise is not real. It’s like a mirage. This sense of urgency has no validity to it once it’s really looked at and inspected. It’s a sense of urgency that is inherited from the outside world, from those around you as well as a deeply held trauma and conditioning. It can be released. It can be let go of.
Come back to simplicity. To the simplicity of this moment. Unencumbered by anything else. Forget all the should do, must do, have to do... and come back here to the simple fact of being here. With no responsibility. Nothing to take care of. Nothing to fulfill. Just simple being.
When we interact with the world, with others, with family, there’s a lot that can get touched in us. Triggered in us. And so it’s important to slow down and allow whatever has been touched to percolate and reveal itself by slowing down.
The hurry, the inability to sit, the sense of activation, the sense of urgency is both a trauma in itself and a reaction to a trauma bubbling up to the surface. One of it’s symptoms is a wanting not to be activated or triggered. And is often the top layer that needs to be recognized for what it is and acknowledged for it’s right to be here too.
When something is being digested, it needs space. It needs permission to be activated, triggered. It needs an inner permission to be uncomfortable. Otherwise, it’s really uncomfortable. Double whammy.
Running from the activation further agitates the trauma. It tires and exhausts the body. And it disorients and overwhelms the mind. So slowing down and dropping everything is the most important step.
Ground is what it’s all about here. Earth. Ground. Breath. Birds. Cat. Slowing down even more. Moving fast is fuel for the fire of trauma.
Slowing down is like drenching this fire with water. It stops raging and starts being quenched. Not by suppressing it but by moving slow and sinking deeper into it. Giving space for it. Allowing it to be here to show itself. Not saying, no this shouldn’t be here.
Allowing it means, letting in the exhaustion. The exhaustion of trying to fight it. The exhaustion of not allowing it. Allowing it means feeling as shitty as we really feel. Feeling as tired as we really feel. Acknowledging that something is triggered and activated and that that’s okay. Not trying to override it by going back to ‘normal’ to the routine of everyday life.
Allowing it also means minimizing further triggers when the body is already in a state of overwhelm. So forgetting the narrative and creating a safe space for processing the felt-sense of what’s going on in the moment. Resting, sitting, napping, walking. Staying hydrated. Dropping out of what I think is going on, into what’s actually going on.
What gets in the way of allowing is often this sense of urgency which is really a defense mechanism in the form of escape. The sense of urgency or escape is also further fueled by the world. The collective conditioning of living at super speed. Where getting things done and fast is top priority. Not moving slow, not checking in, not meeting what’s coming up.
So there has to be an understanding and accepting of that discrepancy. And the willingness to fall behind so to speak. Not trying to keep up with anyone. And not heeding to the sense of urgency that is demanded from you by the world. Not buying into the premise of urgency and falling out of that wavelength completely by noticing the symptoms of it.
These symptoms can be external like rushing through chores, moving from this to that without pause, not tuning into the body, checking your phone compulsively, not acknowledging your boundaries for personal space when it’s needed, feeling like there’s something you’ve got to do and you’re not sure what it even is. Trying to get to the end of the day. Feeling like you have homework or something.
The sense of urgency can also be internal like an intense spiritual seeking as a means to avoid the trauma. Wanting to reach an end point. A place or state where you’re no longer at the mercy of being triggered.
Noticing the triggered sense of urgency and escape is key to unwinding this spell. So noticing the doer rushing through chores and recognizing that this is a symptom of a trauma. Recognizing the behavioral mechanism of escaping, running, rushing.
And noticing the spiritual seeker’ sense of urgency includes seeing the strategies it uses to try to cope with trauma. So the spiritual seeker sees trauma as an indication of failure on the path or as something to avoid. And knowing that this seeker is a symptom of the trauma itself.
It’s a protective mechanism that comes in spiritual clothing to say this is too much, I don’t want to be here. Or I need to be on high alert so that I’m not triggeredanymore. It’s a subtle inner critic of our internal state as meditative or not meditative. It’s an inner violence acting out toward the trauma by trying to avoid it or keep it contained.
It may seem “unspiritual” but the most spiritual thing you can do for yourself when trauma is activated is to drop spirituality completely and come back down to earth. No existential questions, no self inquiry, no spiritual tricks or states to bypass trauma. No having to meditate so that I am not triggered.
And it’s okay to be all over the place. Kind of floating about. There are no requirements here. You don’t have to feel a certain way or live in accordance to what last week looked like. You can relax in knowing that everything is as it should be and you’re doing the best you can. That in itself opens the way for relaxation to happen and for whatever is lurking beneath to reveal itself.
Maybe sadness is here. Just be sad. Maybe a certain sense of numbness or despair is here. Blasé. Let that be here too. Be blasé. Maybe fear is here. Disappointment. Disillusionment. Shallow breathing and a sense of being disembodied. None of it is wrong. None of it is bad. Not even the sense of urgency is bad. It’s all welcome here. Nobody is judging your ‘performance’, your ability to stay centered except your own mind.
You don’t need to keep questioning yourself. You’ve seen enough.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
This is the hundredth, thousandth time. You need not question yourself anymore. Enough is enough.
There is nothing, nothing, nothing in this world worth this clarity. It is worth way more than any money, any inheritance, any crumbs of belonging or acceptance.
This is the real inheritance. The real inheritance your father left you is not the money. It’s the gift of his death. The gift of his experience with death and experience in life. His true gift. True Love. Honor that. Bow to that.
It doesn’t matter what they’re all doing. It doesn’t matter. Look at who you’re looking to for guidance. Look. Don’t forget what you saw at the hour of death, at the lead up to death. Don’t forget. Clear as day.
You’re on your own path now. And it may be lonesome at times. But this is it. You can’t argue with your Heart. You just can’t. You feel peace, don’t you? You feel love. You feel your Heart widen with rest. With reassurance. You feel him here. You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything.
Not like this. Not with these lost souls. Bless them. They’re on their own now.
Rest here. Rest here.
There’s nothing to get. Nothing to do. Nothing to run around for anymore. What a gift. What a blessing. The simplicity. The rest. The real belonging.
It may seem like they are the ones dealing with what’s “real”. The paperwork, the bank, the official this and official that. How real was all this when he died? How real was it? What significance did it have, if any?
So, what’s real here… What’s true?
Stay with that. And trust that. Rely on that.
It may seem naive, simple-minded. Too little even.
But it is everything. It’s everything.
This is where Dad is. Not in the grave, not at the burial site, not in the paperwork, not in the inheritance.
You don’t have to try so hard. You don’t have to brace yourself. You can relax. Put a smile on your face. Breathe. Aaaaahhhh…..
Cough out the holding in. Trying to be prepared. The bracing mechanism. It’s so serious! It makes everything so serious.
Relaxation is where it’s at. Relaxing, relaxing and relaxing. Who would’ve known? It’s not what we were taught. When you’re triggered, you clench up even more. You get tighter and tighter. Nobody ever mentioned anything about relaxing, it wasn’t even in their vocabulary.
No. This is the time to relax even more. Relax even deeper. How sweet! How tender. How gentle. It’s counterintuitive. It’s not what the mind is used to but it’s what the body loves and needs.
And let the clenching mechanism do it’s thing. It clenches on it’s own. And you notice. Breathe into that. Breathe into the clench. Let the clench have some air. Give it some oxygen.
The clench is the past. It’s unprocessed energy. Undigested information. It needs the softening. It needs the relaxation, the sinking in. It needs no jobs. No chores. But space. Breathing room. Here-ness. Now-ness. Love.
Simple things. Stay hydrated. Put yourself first. Body movement. Stretches. Yoga. Naps. Baths. Touch. Quiet. Laughter. Garden. Walks. Cats.
Stay on the same wavelength as the cats. On the ground. On the earth.
You’re not on a mission here. You don’t need to operate in the ‘go, go, go’ mindset or matrix of being ahead of things. You can be behind. Really far far behind. Very very slow. The last one. The forgotten one. The useless one.
There is so much beauty and simplicity in being useless. Like a cat.
Resting. Foraging. Playful. Precise. No bullshit. No catering. Almost demonic hissing. Soft purring. Alert. But relaxed. Graceful. Truth-full eyes. Majestic. Embodied. Slow. But also really fast. Nimble. Unenthused. Fiercely protective of it’s own. Not exactly a welcomer.
And completely useless.
I’m like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody and nobody belongs to us. We don’t even belong to each other.
Something is resolving itself in you. Give it space. Let it be what it is for now. Jumbled, messy, painful. Gut wrenching. Gut squeezing.
True humility is not inserting yourself in the story of another. Putting yourself in their shoes by recollecting their story. Their past. Their circumstances from your perspective.
Your perspective is skewed. It’s not clean. There’s a lot at play there. Sentimentality. Guilt. Unmet trauma. A belief in suffering. A belief in taking in the pain of others. It’s tampered with.
This kind of empathy and humility requires you to enter the field of suffering. To suffer because others are suffering. It’s diluted with conditioning. Familial conditioning, cultural conditioning and collective conditioning. And it only brings pain and confusion.
It’s no good. No good for you. And no good for others. But you can stop at no good for you. That’s all you need to know.
Beneath this ‘humility’, this ’empathy’ is a fear of aloneness. It’s really an unmet childhood need of trying to seek comfort where comfort can’t be found. From family, from strangers. Outside yourself.
By comforting family at a time of need, you’ll be comforted. By showing kindness to a stranger in need, you’ll be shown kindness. By denying the judgement and even hatred in you toward them because these are not “virtuous” qualities, there’ll be hope.
By being the good one, that’s somehow comforting. For yourself. Because it sure as hell isn’t comforting for anybody else. If I’m good, maybe they’ll be good. Maybe they won’t judge or hate me. Maybe they’ll be there for me. Come to their senses.
By over-extending yourself, crossing your own boundaries, saying what “needs” to be said, doing what needs to be done etc. etc.
All this…
This is a deep, deep unmet pain.
It’s a misconstrued idea of what goodness is, what help is, what empathy is. It’s the road to hell paved with good intentions. And it comes from fear. A gut fear. A gut fear to see what you don’t want to see.
To see the raw naked barrenness of the landscape of your environment. It might not be like this for everyone. But it is the case for you. And it needs to be addressed. Otherwise, it’s like a leaking gasket.
You need to clean up your own mess. You can’t come to the rescue of others. You simply can’t without an unwavering sense of clarity and precision within yourself.
And you might need to accept that you might never be able to rescue them. That maybe just maybe, they don’t need to be rescued. They just don’t. It’s not your job and most importantly, you can’t.
Something in you is calling out for rescue.
Something in you doesn’t want to face the coldness, the aloneness, the barrenness of the landscape of where you found yourself. And so tries to find the warmth by creating the warmth.
Lighting fires in Antartica and telling eskimos to come gather round it. You’re the one who’s cold, you’re the one that can’t handle the cold of Antartica. Not the eskimos.
The futility of the effort to create warmth has to bring you to your knees. Pretty much like everything else. And the futility of this one is a big one. It’s an impossible task that you’ve undertaken since childhood. And it plays itself out in everything.
It’s the over-extended empathy, the saccharine sentimentality, the rancid guilt and projection of the suffering of others. The idealizing of others and of yourself and of what it’s supposed to look like. What it’s supposed to be like. The potential of it.
Maybe it’s time to see clearly.
Oh, these guys are fucking eskimos. I’m the one who’s freezing my ass off here. I’m the one who’s left out in the cold. They’re packing their gear, living in their igloo’s, eating blubber or whatever, and I’m starving, freezing, butt naked.
Maybe I need to realize, I am in Antartica.
This isn’t an invitation for escape. No. It’s an invitation to stop and look around and really take in the fact of Antartica.
The fact of I’m trying and have been trying my whole life to make Antarctica warm. And notice the self compassion that comes in. Like seeing it in the eyes of a lost innocent child, that fear, that despair, that aloneness.
Notice the mercy you would have on that child. Bring that mercy to yourself. Really love yourself for even trying. And just comfort that one.
You’ve been trying so hard little one. You’ve really been up against it. With this impossible task. Aw, I love you. You don’t need to do this anymore. This isn’t your job anymore. Let’s take you out of here and bring you the warmth of the sun. No more little fires, no more. Sit here under the sun and I’ll sit with you. Closer than close. Leave the eskimos be. All they know is Antarctica. And it is no longer your concern. Your concern is sitting under the sun. Regardless of everyone else.
And maybe one day you’ll realize you’re actually in Hawaii. And there’s a bunch of crazies walking around in Eskimo clothing all over the place. How odd.
Maybe not…
But start with breathing into your gut. Literally. Breathing into that clench. That somatic sense of the tight fist. That squeeze. Breathe into that again and again. And again and again.
And notice the projections when they come up. Notice the projections of other’s suffering. Notice and come back to yourself. Sit under the sun.
Something will want to leave and go back into the barren landscape of Antartica on a “heroic” journey to save an eskimo. Or to come to the aid of an eskimo that’s starting to feel the landscape of Antartica. None of your business. You don’t need to save anyone, nor come to the aid of anyone.
Attend to yourself.
Keep coming back. Under the sun. Bask under the warmth and light of the sun.
That is your one and only responsibility regardless of what anyone around you is doing, thinking or believing. About themselves or about you.
A lot of people are going to try to waste your time with nonsense.
But you stay laser-focused on that which gives any meaning to this thing we call life.
It’s not about niceties and formalities. It’s not about social obligations or familial duties. None of this matters. None of this has any meaning.
What does matter is the integrity with which you’ve lived. How hard you tried to live in Love. How hard you tried to overcome your own obstacles to Love.
And it might not look the way you expected it too. It might not be agreeable to others. But it doesn’t matter.
All the stuff that pretends to matter doesn’t matter in the end.
Not one iota.
So what does matter?
What matters is inexplicable.
It’s knowing everything that doesn’t matter. And not getting lost in it.
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.
Rumi
It’s a devotion to all the little things.
The way your Dad’s hands look when they’re laying on his lap.
The sigh and the breath of relief when we stop talking.
It’s the catching of the glimpse of Truth in the eyes of another.
Everything else and I mean everything can be cut and thrashed with the laser-focus samurai sword of Truth.
To the love that won’t explain itself, but will just keep on giving.
Even in the most dire of circumstances, life doesn’t have to be dreary, gloomy, heavy, depressing, or a load to bear.
It can be a time to lean in even more. Soften even more.
Into resourcing, rest, simplicity, vulnerability, gentleness, slowness, self-care.
Not as a spiritual bypass but in the sense of life not being a problem.
And you can choose not to re-traumatize yourself.
You can choose to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before reaching out for the other. That’s true help. True love.
For it is not your job to protect others from their own pain.
But to give time and space for everything to reveal itself to you.
That’s not arrogance.
Living in your own integrity is not arrogance.
Processing in whatever way is healing for you is not arrogance.
Being supported and feeling supported is not arrogance.
Don’t let others’ behavior dictate how you live your own life.
Freedom includes not letting the limitations of others hold you back from your fullest expression of Love.
Not the love of sweetness but the love of Truth.
For it takes true courage, true strength to remain kind and soft even with the most unruly of them all. Something inside you won’t like that. It will fight that. Say it’s a weakness to show kindness when kindness is not shown to me! It will struggle.
But the struggle will pass. And in greater kindness and in greater strength you will remain.
That’s where you’ll find yourself and everybody else.
Don’t try to come to conclusions. There are none.
For in the end, we’re put back in the earth and it concludes it all for us.
The final conclusion that puts an end to all the messes. All the grievances. All that was ‘hanging in the air’ – unresolved. Goes to rest.
So live like this now.
That’s what it means to stay open.
To be available.
To not take a stance.
But be stance-less.
For rest assured every stance will be put to rest from the most heinous to the most noble.
Be stupid. Be desperate. Say the wrong thing and get it over with. Not everything has to be just so. Be clumsy. Be needy. Feel the space that offers.
Instead of the 5 cm² of breathing space you give yourself when you’re trying to be what you think ‘spiritual’ looks like. Or the 2 cm² of space of trying not to look like a fool or God forbid human.
These are all defense mechanisms. From years and years of self-consciousness. Of feeling like you’re under a magnifying glass and then having that magnifying glass internalized.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Feeling somehow suspect… just by being here. By speaking, by getting involved, by putting yourself out there, even by belonging. The feeling of being some weirdo who just popped in unannounced.
So what is that?
Genuinely be curious. Where did I learn that?
Maybe it’s a deep-seated feeling of not belonging. Never being welcomed into the world by your family. That you somehow arrived by mistake. Not having the right to be here. Let alone be seen, be heard.
If you weren’t seen at home, weren’t heard, then maybe it felt odd even phoney to be seen or heard anywhere else. Like it’s unreal somehow. What’s real is what happens at home. With the people who are “supposed to” love me, know me, see me, hear me… who supposedly know me better than I know myself. Or so they say.
Notice the arrogance in that. The bullying. The gaslighting.
Others might “know” events that happened to you as they heard or saw them. And as they remember them from their perspective.
But does that mean they know you?
Let alone… better than you know yourself.
What does that even mean?
It means they’ve decided who you are. They’ve made ‘you’ into an idea and fed you that idea on a daily basis. They’ve decided what you deserve and what you don’t deserve. What you can do and what you can’t do. What you can say and what you can’t say. And stepping outside the 5cm² of permitted space makes you…
Sensitive
Spoilt
Selfish
Irresponsible
Naive
Rude
Difficult
Crazy
And you soaked that in like a sponge. So it goes with you where you go. It’s called conditioning. A more insidious form of conditioning from a more troubled family lineage.
So when you’re putting yourself out there, (especially with family), and you’re not received, it triggers this old pain. And this is where the self-berating mechanism comes in.
I’m not good enough.
Why did I say that?
I shouldn’t have said that!
They’re gonna think I’m an idiot!
Noticing and seeing the systematic way in which that was and is fed to you is part of the waking up out of that. Out of the family lineage. Out of the hypnosis. But you have to see it. The raw, ugly, insidious nature of it. Without covering it up. Without the spiritual bypass of yeah but they’re unconscious. That’s a true statement but it’s not real for you, not yet. It’s a spiritual bypass. A coat of paint over the raw, ugly, bitter Truth of it.
And don’t be surprised if family doesn’t receive you with open arms when you do step outside the 5cm² of permitted space. When you do voice yourself, when you are seen. Or when you’re seeing yourself. When you’re challenging this preconceived idea of who ‘you’ are (in their eyes or even in your eyes). Because that is a threat to who they want you to be in their world. So it’s overlooked, ignored, gaslit, bypassed.
But you have to see that your impulse is innocent. Your impulse to belong in the family, to be seen, heard and supported in the family is innocent. And in turn to see, hear and support them. It’s innocent and natural. It’s human.
But when a whole family lives in the trance of sweeping things under the rug. Of denying all that is human. All that is natural. Bottling things up and never addressing them. It becomes unnatural for them and not within their capacity to see, hear, support or be seen, heard or supported. It’s very sad. Heartbreaking.
So we all have to move in this 5cm² arena in order to be able to “get along”. Be kosher. And in stepping outside that, the agreeable comfort zone of 5cm², you’re popping that bubble.
Am I speaking to the many or am I speaking to the One?
Speaking to the One doesn’t require much. Just a settling back into yourself.
Speaking to the many is noisy, confusing, busy, hectic. It requires you to leave yourself. To accommodate. To to talk to not talk with.
Speaking to the one bypasses any shenanigans. It brings you back to the simplicity of the breath. Simplicity of the quiet. The audible silence.
This is an art. A practice. You cannot ‘do’ it. You be it and it does you.
And it requires a great slowing down. A great turning around. From the hectic to the still. From the confusing to the direct.
And it requires an acceptance or a letting be of the unresolved. Of the mess of it. This requires a willingness to be with the raw, undiluted truth of the moment. Whatever it may be. No matter how painful.
And there’ll be struggle there. Sometimes.
And you will mess up. But how will you clean up your mess?
