Weathering the Storms

Part of me wishes I was the cool, calm, collected guru who could tell you that in times of trouble you’re not alone, that you have so many tools and resources around you and inside you, all the time, to help you.

While that’s true, I can’t say that to anyone else. It would be totally and unforgivably hypocritical of me.

Why?

Because when I’m hit with something that hurts, something that feels big and scary, something I find overwhelming, something that matters hugely to me, I lose my shit.

I do.

I completely lose my shit.

I start a blame game, blaming myself for all sorts of things of which I am not guilty and for which I am not responsible. And some of the accusations are just patently false, with absolutely nothing to prove them anyway.

It doesn’t stop me. I run full-tilt into a Negative Nancy Meltdown, I become somber, serious, even extremely depressed.

I feel like I can’t “do life right” at all, like I am an epic failure at being a person.

It’s too hard, I want out. WTF is this back on my radar for, I thought I was done with this!? I’m enlightened, Goddammit, why I am still confronted with shit like this?

I weep, I sob, I ache, I throb. I shake my fist at myself, at the Universe. I curse existence. I curse myself.

I journal for pages and pages, asking questions, making statements, dissecting and analyzing.

I go to one or two trusted confidants whom I love so, so dearly and trust with my life.

But at the end of the day, I have to come back to me. It’s just me here.

How do I get through these storms that pop up?

I wish I had something incredibly inspiring to say. I wish I had something warm, something soul-changing, something life-affirming and totally miraculous to share here.

I don’t.

The fact is, I can only make it minute to minute when these things pop up for me. I have to rage. I have to storm. Because I refuse to not feel. What I mean by that is there’s a concept in New Age philosophy and also in Eastern religious traditions like Buddhism called the witness, or the observer. Basically, this concept is about realizing you are NOT your thoughts, you are NOT your feelings; the “real you” is the entity, the consciousness that is NOTICING and AWARE of those thoughts and feelings.

I understand this concept very well. I employ it from time to time, especially with particularly unpleasant people and family members. It can be a life saver in some situations, and I won’t deny there’s a certain peace and wisdom that comes with “cultivating the witness” as these philosophies call it.

But I also find that cultivating the witness makes me feel disconnected from my feelings and my body.

I went through a period of many, many years where I was numb inside – I didn’t feel much on the emotional scale and I was totally dissociated from my body – this was all a survival mechanism from being molested as a child.

Healing from that trauma brought me back to myself but one thing has always stuck with me – I want to feel everything.

I suppose it’s an extreme over-reaction from being numbed and shut down inside, but I don’t care. I don’t want to be the detached observer, the neutral witness to my feelings. I want to fucking FEEL them!! I want to feel every bit of it. And if it rips me in half, if it tears me to shreds, if it brings me to my knees – then SO BE IT.

But I don’t ever want to NOT FEEL.

Never again.

And the price of that desire in me is that these times of trouble really take their toll on me. I go home and cry after work. I withdraw from friends and loved ones – even from my two confidants that I trust with my life.

And in the interest of honesty, integrity, and full disclosure I have to tell you, gentle reader, that I also sometimes think about what it would be like to just not be here anymore. To just not feel, to just not live, to not have to be a person. To not have to learn anything else. To not have to struggle anymore. To just lie down in the peace and limitless love of God and just sleep. To be nothing.

I know that sounds suicidal. But I never actually go about planning to end my life. It’s just a depression that sinks over me when I feel very low, when I feel exhausted in every single way a human can, when I lose sight of everything else.

I’ve come through countless episodes of feeling like this, thinking this way, before. Because I’ve never reached a genuine quitting place, I suppose. I’ve never been 100% ready to truly throw in the towel, to quit this life. Some days, honestly, it seems very attractive.

Seductive.

But I never do anything toward that endgame.

How do I get through it?

One minute at a time.

One hour at a time.

One day at a time.

One journal entry at a time.

And a metric shit-ton of self-inquiry.

I assume I’ll snap out of this storm that’s hit me over the last few days, the one that’s swirling inside me about my beliefs and practices about God. I always snap out of it.

But I have to tell you, it hurts so much. It feels so heavy. I feel so disoriented.

I try to remember that this, too, shall pass. It’s true, for the most part.

I guess I have to sit back and wait for it to prove true again this time.