Lessons taken to heart
It's still a record, of some kind, from this to now: a whopping FOUR DAYS from finally stopping being so goddamned busy all the time, to trying to throw myself into the deep end of something that would have had a fairly intensive time and effort investment for the next several months of my life, provided me lots of distraction and "instant community" within a shared project with a shared goal and finite milestones. I know... for most people, four days doesn't sound like a long time. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long to break.
Then I listened to what I was doing, listened to the places where the incongruencies were rubbing and grating against stated intentions... and backed myself off the precipice of that commitment, with apologies to its director. The final decision has everything to do with realizing that running out to fill my schedule with a potentially large show commitment runs directly counter to my belief that right now is a time to be doing nothing. Running to fill the quietness with Something is to miss the point of being where I am. Practicing Stillness is going to be very, very difficult, and very, very important. It was important four days ago; I'd like to hang on to the goal of Stillness for longer than that if I can.
But it was a very fascinating exercise in self-awareness to know what I was doing in the moment of the incongruity, to pull all of my desires, needs, and stated intentions into focus for re-examination, to choose congruence and Stillness, and to let the Desire go. It will morph into something with a much smaller, and later, commitment (hopefully), and as I wrote to dicea later when she asked how I was feeling in the wake of that conscious choosing, about that choice I feel "calm. a little disappointed in the "I Want" department, but willing to concede that a smaller role will still meet some of the want, while the deeper need for Stillness is worth fighting for, even against myself." She promptly told me I was sounding "very well balanced and quite grounded", so I guess I'm doing something right.
I *do* like the Stillness, but I am exceptionally aware of how hard it is to stay here, especially right now when brushing shoulders against all the unresolved and unresolvable things that still hurt just keeps that pain ignited and fresh. Part of the reversal of my decision to get involved in the project stemmed from knowing I'd only just stated that I was going to stop doing for a while, even if I expected it to be difficult (for so long with Matthew, there was a catch-phrase that "just because something is hard, isn't sufficient reason to NOT do that thing"). After work this afternoon, I read in Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance the chapter on "The Sacred Pause",
"In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can't control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we we frantically try and manage what is happening. [...] Someone says something hurtful to us, and we strike back quickly or retreat. We make a mistake [...] and we scramble to cover it up or go out of our way to make up for it. We head into emotionally charged confrontations nervously rehearsing and strategizing. The more we fear failure the more frenetically our bodies and minds work. We fill our days with continual movement: mental planning and worrying, habitual talking, fixing, scratching, adjusting, phoning, snacking, discarding, buying, looking in the mirror.
"What would it be like if, right in the middle of this busyness, we were to consciously take our hands off the controls? [...] what if we were to intentionally stop our mental computations and our rushing around and, for a minute or two, simply pause and notice our inner experience? [...] A Pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. [W]e stop asking, "What do I do next?" [...]
"Taking our hands off the controls and pausing is an opportunity to clearly see the wants and fears that are driving us. During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way to somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance. [...]
"Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so. Pausing in a fit of anger, or when overwhelmed by sorrow or filled with desire, may be the last thing we want to do... [L]etting go of the controls seems to run counter to our basic and instinctual ways of getting what we want. Pausing can feel like falling helplessly through space - we have no idea what will happen. We fear we might be engulfed by the rawness of our rage or grief or desire. Yet without opening to the actual experience of the moment, Radical Acceptance is not possible."
It was that chapter that really drove home the lesson that I shaped for myself only four days ago. The author starts this same chapter with the story of Siddhartha Gautama sitting under his tree the night before his enlightenment, being visited by Mara (Sanskrit for delusions) who, in several guises through the night, challenges him in his act of pausing in stillness under his bodhi tree. I read this with a certain forehead-slapping sense of familiarity. Then I came and emailed my withdrawal to Jonathan. I could see the distraction of the show for the temptation that it is, something to draw me out and away from this place of stillness, this pause in which what I hope to experience is an opening to the world and a chance to listen to what's going on in the world outside the sound of my own constantly-edited Narrative.
I see you, Mara.
Now sit down, shut the fuck up, and drink your tea before that shit gets cold.
Then I listened to what I was doing, listened to the places where the incongruencies were rubbing and grating against stated intentions... and backed myself off the precipice of that commitment, with apologies to its director. The final decision has everything to do with realizing that running out to fill my schedule with a potentially large show commitment runs directly counter to my belief that right now is a time to be doing nothing. Running to fill the quietness with Something is to miss the point of being where I am. Practicing Stillness is going to be very, very difficult, and very, very important. It was important four days ago; I'd like to hang on to the goal of Stillness for longer than that if I can.
But it was a very fascinating exercise in self-awareness to know what I was doing in the moment of the incongruity, to pull all of my desires, needs, and stated intentions into focus for re-examination, to choose congruence and Stillness, and to let the Desire go. It will morph into something with a much smaller, and later, commitment (hopefully), and as I wrote to dicea later when she asked how I was feeling in the wake of that conscious choosing, about that choice I feel "calm. a little disappointed in the "I Want" department, but willing to concede that a smaller role will still meet some of the want, while the deeper need for Stillness is worth fighting for, even against myself." She promptly told me I was sounding "very well balanced and quite grounded", so I guess I'm doing something right.
I *do* like the Stillness, but I am exceptionally aware of how hard it is to stay here, especially right now when brushing shoulders against all the unresolved and unresolvable things that still hurt just keeps that pain ignited and fresh. Part of the reversal of my decision to get involved in the project stemmed from knowing I'd only just stated that I was going to stop doing for a while, even if I expected it to be difficult (for so long with Matthew, there was a catch-phrase that "just because something is hard, isn't sufficient reason to NOT do that thing"). After work this afternoon, I read in Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance the chapter on "The Sacred Pause",
"In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can't control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we we frantically try and manage what is happening. [...] Someone says something hurtful to us, and we strike back quickly or retreat. We make a mistake [...] and we scramble to cover it up or go out of our way to make up for it. We head into emotionally charged confrontations nervously rehearsing and strategizing. The more we fear failure the more frenetically our bodies and minds work. We fill our days with continual movement: mental planning and worrying, habitual talking, fixing, scratching, adjusting, phoning, snacking, discarding, buying, looking in the mirror.
"What would it be like if, right in the middle of this busyness, we were to consciously take our hands off the controls? [...] what if we were to intentionally stop our mental computations and our rushing around and, for a minute or two, simply pause and notice our inner experience? [...] A Pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. [W]e stop asking, "What do I do next?" [...]
"Taking our hands off the controls and pausing is an opportunity to clearly see the wants and fears that are driving us. During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way to somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance. [...]
"Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so. Pausing in a fit of anger, or when overwhelmed by sorrow or filled with desire, may be the last thing we want to do... [L]etting go of the controls seems to run counter to our basic and instinctual ways of getting what we want. Pausing can feel like falling helplessly through space - we have no idea what will happen. We fear we might be engulfed by the rawness of our rage or grief or desire. Yet without opening to the actual experience of the moment, Radical Acceptance is not possible."
It was that chapter that really drove home the lesson that I shaped for myself only four days ago. The author starts this same chapter with the story of Siddhartha Gautama sitting under his tree the night before his enlightenment, being visited by Mara (Sanskrit for delusions) who, in several guises through the night, challenges him in his act of pausing in stillness under his bodhi tree. I read this with a certain forehead-slapping sense of familiarity. Then I came and emailed my withdrawal to Jonathan. I could see the distraction of the show for the temptation that it is, something to draw me out and away from this place of stillness, this pause in which what I hope to experience is an opening to the world and a chance to listen to what's going on in the world outside the sound of my own constantly-edited Narrative.
I see you, Mara.
Now sit down, shut the fuck up, and drink your tea before that shit gets cold.