I am the kind of person who needs a lot of “psychological space” around me in order to stay balanced. I don’t do well when anything or anybody crashes into my emotional or mental space. I operate best coming from a place of stillness. I love quiet places. I love loud music, but a loud TV puts me right over the edge. I can’t tolerate loud voices or places ..... but I’m working on it. Unfortunately, my world is not still.I’m guessing many of us are this way, (although I do need a lot of space). We go through life consciously, or unconsciously trying to keep a bubble of calm around us .Then wham, life happens, and something or someone gets into your “space” and in come all of the feelings and all of the circumstances that upset your calm. I think this is why we turn to addictions. Not just addicts and alcoholics…...everybody. Everyone seems to have something they reach for when their calm is disturbed.
I like my bubble of stillness. I like to say “In stillness God speaks to Me.” This is true. But if I’m to be courageous on my spiritual journey, it is time to learn to listen to God while I am in the thick of the chaos in my head, not just in silence. I know for me, as a person in recovery, when I get those uncomfortable feelings like resentment, disappointment, embarrassment, fear, or shame, my head starts up this non stop running dialogue that is so harsh and so unrelenting that I lose all clarity. I get very raw, very wide open, and yet at the same time very shut down. It’s a confusing out of control mind-fuck. This dialogue can run for hours or days. It runs in my sleep. Half the time I don’t even know it’s there, until someone says “Relax, you’re thinking too much.” Oh. Ok.
I am starting to understand (just a little) that when I am franticly thinking, I’m not feeling. And until I can turn and face all of my feelings, the good, the bad, the ugly, in their full glory I cannot learn from them and move on.
Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors – people who have a certain hunger to know what is true – feelings like disappointment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is we are holding back. They teach us to lean in when we feel we would rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher.
Pema Chodron
