Muddy Water

There's a quote by the philosopher Alan Watts that goes "Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone," and it beautifully captures what my last month has been like since being laid off. The quote is often interpreted as an endorsement of meditation-- meditating isn't a waste of time, it is an opportunity to see reality as it is so one can act with intention.

It's been a wonky 30-ish days. Scary, hopeful, confusing, stressed, extremely uncomfortable, serenely relaxed. If I felt like investing in more words right here, I would. I been all over the place. But what's gotten me through this has been something akin to mental discipline. BLECH. I hate that term, I hate that idea. BARF. Gross. Strike that from the record.

If you Google "mental discipline," you'll see that it's like consistently engaging in practices or activities to achieve your goals. It's not totally clinical, I just have a huge problem with the label. If I struggle to consistently engage in these practices, does that make me UNdisciplined?

Rather, what has helped me navigate these past few weeks doesn't feel like discipline even though it is a skill I've had to learn to develop.  It feels like acceptance of and softening into what is. It's not a rigid practice of forcing my mind to reject discomfort or confusion. It's not the strict adherence to positivity or problem solving. It is allowing the muddy water to clear. Releasing the discomfort isn't in the doing, but in the BEING. It's in the presence.

When pain flares up as it inevitably will, how I navigate it determines the amount of suffering I'll endure. This is my belief. And the surest way to lessening that suffering, I've discovered, is through somatic attention: what is my body telling me? Where do I feel these sensations? Get really good at describing them, my therapist advised. Is there an emotion attached to this? A thought or idea?

This practice of paying attention, sitting with the pain? Is clearing the muddy water. And it's not exclusively meditation. In fact, I wouldn't even characterize what I do as meditative. It is resisting resistance. It is anti-self-gaslighting. It is listening to what little Kanani is afraid of. It is holding my own hand through the roughest bits of the darkness and fear. It is NOT running away or covering up or pretending or distracting or plotting, problem solving, diagnosing, explaining, or justifying.

None of that is easy. It is terrifying. When I first began this practice, it felt like my body was being torn apart. Good news is that I haven't felt that way in a really long time. The GREAT news is that the skills I've been developing over the past 7 years means that I've navigated this scary time with joy and confidence and a strong sense of purpose and alignment. It's craziness, I tell you. Fucking CRAZINESS.