Oh my. It's getting close to April. And my classes and internship end right around the first week of May, which means I have only around 6 weeks left of this semester and this internship. This is both a relief, and a bit terrifying. It's a relief, because, well, it's really stressful. Large homework load, learning all this new stuff on the job, being responsible for all these little people, and feeling like I have neither enough expertise, experience, or time, to do them justice. To do justice to anything I need to do.
I'm really a fan of quality over quantity. But that's not an option here. Thus is the nature of grad school, at least for the majority.
And the terrifying bit of how soon the end is coming: how many things there are left undone. Oh my. Quite a lot. Quite a lot indeed.
On a different note, I've been practicing feeling into all these negative emotions: fear, loneliness, not being good enough. It's a practice where I am just very present and aware of what's going on in me, in a non-judgmental, curious, kind way.
It's as if I take this monster that is eating me, let's say anxiety about an upcoming class I'm going to be teaching, and I grow big enough to hold it in my hands. It's no longer eating me, surrounding me. There is a certain objective distance from it, and in that distance, that perspective, there is enough comfort in the discomfort to just sit with the feelings that are going on and be acutely aware. In that awareness, and in that detachment, and in that acceptance... well, it's like the monster I'm holding melts away to nothing, or transforms into a cute little animal, that's just frightened and needs love. And I'm now in the position where I can pet it and give it that love, which was not the case when it was right up in my face, eating me. And sometimes it just kind of dissolves, and if the situation comes up again, it comes up less intense, and is more quickly recognized and held. The eaten has become the eater. I'm integrating these... like jagged shards of a broken mirror, being smoothed and combined back into a single mirror again, that doesn't cut and hurt me, that doesn't show a distorted image of life, but just reflects back what is. Which is love, God, truth, reality. Whatever you choose to call it, the experience is peaceful, joyful, loving, beautiful.
Part of getting that distance is the recognition that I am not the emotion, feeling, thoughts, that I'm experiencing. They are an experience that I'm having, ultimately separate from me, like a movie screen I'm watching is separate from me.
The emotions can still be quite intense. They can feel like a phisical hit to the solar plexus, or someone squeezing my heart, for example. I still feel them, like I still see the movie screen. But... it's hard to explain.
It's kind of like, maybe I believe I'm a bad person for watching Netflix all Saturday instead of working. And I think it's right that I should feel bad about it. And I'm worried about whether the people I interact with will still like and respect me, knowing this about me.
But if I can take a step back, I see that these thoughts are just... clouds passing by. Some of them may end up being true, perhaps someone will be angry with me for not doing enough work. Though that's not generally my experience. And the other stuff, that I'm a bad person, that I should feel bad about it... there's no fundamental truth to it. Just mind stuff. It could be someone else whispering the words into my ears. It could be someone else poking my body, making it feel the physical sensations. The emotions could be based on totally incorrect data, like feeling totally alone, even though my best friend is reading quietly in the next room, and I've just forgotten that.
I still feel everything, in fact I'd say I feel it more. But I feel it from a stable place. like I'm feeling the tides and waves coming in and out, as I hold onto a big rock sticking out of the water, head comfortably above water, rather than being tossed about by the waves, feeling the current and direction much less, getting disoriented, exhausted, drowned.
And I feel, as I hold whatever negative stuff is going on like this, that it is getting less negative. The fear and anger and such are dissolving like the morning dew under the rising sun. And it would be much harder to find all these pockets of negativity and fear etc., without my life circumstances bringing them up, in my face, day after day. So in that way, all this unpleasantness is highly useful. My weaknesses, fears, wounds, are all being poked, being thrown up in my face, where it's hard to ignore them.
How convenient, for someone who is looking to grow and make whole all these shattered fragments of myself. If life was easy, It might take years and years for me to find all these things. To find even a few of them.
So, in that way, this is one of the most useful times of my life, and I owe much to the stressful and anxiety-producing circumstances I'm in, especially since I also have wonderful teachers reminding me over and over to do this gentle holding with the various darknesses that are coming up.
Even so, I don't always remember to do it. Or it doesn't seem to work right away. Or perhaps I'm not quite able to get that distance with some of them. But progress is happening. Things are opening, and as more and more light comes into the hurt, scared, dark places, I feel myself opening and becoming more soft, more sturdy and stable. But it is very challenging work.
That is certainly all for this week. I have much and more to do. But it really is wonderful, how perfectly the universe guides me to what I need, even when it's not what I would have chosen or asked for, short term. It is what I need, to get to my goal, long-term.
With gratitude for all of life, even the uncomfortable stuff.
-Isaac
No comments:
Post a Comment