I feel the doubt, last three days. I feel the down, the low, the doubt, the damp, the I don’t know, the why, the nobody cares, the what am I doing. It all comes rushing in, through some secret leak that I didn’t see. Seeping into my mind, the thought stream takes over, and soon I am flooded, treading to save myself. If I had seen the leak, could I have plugged it up sooner? Soon I am heavy in my mind and it is dark, laying in the dirt, I feel chained to the floor of a dungeon, and all I feel is low.
One difference this time, reflecting on the the last two lows. I see it. I see you. I feel you, and I am practicing feeling unattached. I just slow down and breathe, feeling the small downward turn to the corners of my mouth, and let wonder join the party. Instead of “Ugh” I let a curious “Hmm” in. Beats crashing. Beats drowning. Beats being buried alive. Can I let go in it? Can I see the sky?
I feel you…and what are you here to teach me? Can I count on you to be a path to something better? Can I count on you at all this time? Past tells me so, but learning this lesson is so hard, after being so attached to the elevation of the high wave. The breeze from the cool, crisp, sparkling air at the top feels so good, fills me up with inspiration and drive. I can do good things from there. Help people. Help myself. The low is dark. No connection. I feel alone, pressed into the dirt by some heavy hand that I can’t see, and I feel it is personal. I can’t breathe here. I am stuck. I don’t see a window. I can’t find the sky.
But something shakes me awake, and I do rest my head back on a pillow of cool dirt, for a moment. The dirt doesn’t cover my eyes, it just provides a cool place for me to rest. It forms around my bones, like the sand on the beach, giving me a cool grounding hammock that intensifies my feeling senses. The dirt has nutrients that seep into that same secret leak, and fill me up, help me center, strengthen my core. This low place slows me way down, a forced stop. Stuck in the cool, nourishing dirt, eyes open to the sky, centered core, reboot.
The low is a rebooting fuel, the darker, the cooler, the damper, the more my cells recharge. My mission has been to be unattached, but what if I could be “attached” to both high and low, in the sense of what they do for me, both with purpose. Both with purpose. Both. With purpose. I never saw the low with purpose before, as much as I have thought about, talked about, and written about the low. The low was just some dungeon that God threw me in when he needed to lock me up for a while. No rhyme. No reason. And since I took it as punishment, I failed to see the sky. There was a window in the dungeon. I never saw it. The dirt was cool, and I could rest in the dungeon, but instead, I paced, wearing a worried, hopeless path in the dirt, never slowing to feel its cool nourishment. Just wondering when I would be let out.
When my soul shifts from the high wave to the floor of the dungeon, what I recognize follows her in, is my dragon. The dragon’s voice becomes so loud in the dungeon, echoing off the walls, ringing in my ears, that I don’t even pay attention to the sky through the window, let alone the dirt or its nourishment. That voice makes me blind.
Today, I hear you dragon. The feelings are just sensations in my body. If I allow your voice to accompany them in my mind, I am stuck in the dungeon, pacing for a while. Maybe now, I will lay back in that dirt, silence the voice, and just let the cool, soft dirt infuse me, with a breath, I will lift my gaze to the window, see the sky, and sink in a bit deeper.
COMMENTS
My sweet, dear baby. I love you so much and my heart feels so sad when I hear about that dang dragon! Send her over here and I’ll set her straight — or perhaps stamp on her big, fat foot! I want you to know that God does not throw you into the dungeon. He is not a punishing God. He loves you so much and He sits at your side when you find yourself in that place and lifts your face so that you can see that beautiful sky.
Let that dragon yell all she wants. Wear ear plugs. Breathe and know that you are so much stronger than she. So much wiser. Let your heart fill up again with your healing spirit and BIG LOVE.
I love you,
Mom
Thanks mom, I love you too.
I do not believe that God punishes or puts me in the dungeon. The point of this writing was waking up to the fact that my mind does all that. My own mind. And my own mind can bring me out. Really, the dungeon is a gift. So no matter how I get there, if I recognize it as such, I don’t have to feel trapped. Quite the opposite actually.
So, rest easy mom. This was about coming alive, feeling that the highs and lows each give us an opportunity. It is all how we look at it, and what thoughts we choose to believe.
