Speed of Life
Burst into the world shining light! Moving robustly, expansively, Full Speed Ahead Humans Doing veryimportantactivitiesachievinggreataccomplishmentsaccumulatingstuff [break!] Something stops me. Question everything. Question Every Thing My self, purpose, plan, people. Me, you, them, us, him, her, they, we, that, this... What if? Quiet? No, thank you. I insist. And the more I resist, the darker and longer those breaks persist. This is the lesson of an age. To slow then stop and be with yourself. Go low when you need to, Let the ground of this earth hold hold hold you. Uncertainty is Not failure. Cocooned in tears, confusion, blindness, Imagine shelter enveloping you, quieting demands from the outside. Stay until you know Enough. I've had Enough. I have Enough. I am Enough.
In this image, I see an illustration of life, the speed and brightness at which we live. So round and robust and brilliantly bright in the beginning and for many years. Interspersed are the moments that give us pause, the little patches of darkness, shadows that we get through at first. Then something brings us to a full stop. It could be a simple awareness of incongruity with ourselves and the world, or a full-blown death sentence. No matter the size of the situation, it is significant. And I believe it is a gift — whether it is a choice or a forceful stop of that life path and finding ourselves sinking into darkness.
I’ve heard this called a velocity problem — where we are on the move so intensely, outrunning a call to our soul home or exhausting ourselves meeting the world’s needs, that we get to point where our brains and bodies cannot continue operating in conflict between us and the world and we must stop.
Sure, we can avoid change with distractions and diversions, some societies are constructed enable it. Name your vice — drinking, drugs, technology, binge television, care-taking others, eating, volunteering, gaming, overworking, perfectionism, etc. I, too, am guilty of disassociating from internal/self work. Even now as I draft this, I’ve picked up my phone to check Instagram because that is easy and writing this covers my skin in tiny pinpricks of fear. I am consciously telling myself to stick with it, just a few more words… then find myself in front of the refrigerator. Apple! For crunch and energy. I like gnashing teeth when facing fears and stress.
Back to the idea of going deep in darkness. This new pace is necessary to find self outside the action.
It can be hard to accept the stillness, so be curious.
What is the me inside here, in the quiet?
Courage. Courage to keep digging in, see truth, feel pain, resist the entreating numbness.
And as we get older, the aches and struggles deepen. Or we deepen and need to go away from the action to be with ourselves. Uncertain, untethered moments are necessary. In our later life, maybe more. Depth is born of tragedy, pain, curiosity, and stretching ourselves and our experiences into a new form.
Sometimes we feel like we won’t or can’t come out of our darkness, we feel so low. And that is where I’ve discovered that it is ok for me to be flat out, to let this solid earth (or a warm blanket, or a friend’s voice) hold me until I have the strength to move.
What if knowing that this balance of light/dark, action/inaction, happy/sad and the myriad of emotions and experiences in between that take us on a ride through mountain peaks and broad valleys is so completely normal that we can befriend our depressions, just as we learn to love our indentations in the grooves of our skin on these human bodies?
It is ok to not be ok, to be in pain and uncomfortable. I feel lucky to have had support from friends and professionals who didn’t try to quick-fix me or insist that I needed anything more than myself and time and introspection, and to let me feel what is real.
I no longer believe that going still or low, or having experiences other than happy (or numb), is something to be repaired; it is a journey that we must go through if we accept the challenge to learn from our experiences, grow out of our comfort zone, and change. We are not stuck, but processing; healing inwardly, in quiet.
Recalibrating. Becoming. Humans being.
A miracle, if we choose to see it, of life and spirit.
Quiet? No, thank you. I insist. And the more I resist, the darker and longer those breaks persist. This is the lesson of an age. To slow then stop and be with yourself. Go low when you need to, Let the ground of this earth hold hold hold you. Uncertainty is Not failure. Cocooned in tears, confusion, blindness, Imagine shelter enveloping you, quieting demands from the outside. Stay until you know. You know.