aiyaiyai

I live in a sea of anxiety. Overwhelmed continually. Unable to move when I need to be free.

I would literally pay you 50 dollars for a xanax right now. Okay so maybe I don't have 50 dollars. I would pay you like 50 cents and a greeting card. That would be awesome.

When I sit down to meditate so often now, one (or all) of three things happens. 1) I succeed in pushing aside my thoughts until the glowing hub of existence that is nothing and everything reveals itself, and glows within my heart. 2) More often, I do not succeed in barely slowing the flight of thoughts like bats that beat around within my head but it is okay for I have still gotten closer, and it all adds up.... or 3) I cry. A lot.

Meditation, I realize, has come to overlap with principles of therapy- as I declare them brazenly sans training- for I know "my mom was a therapist" doesn't mean that I get to inherit the title and claim to know the science, but well, I do. But really I should have a certificate or something by now for the hours of psychological consideration I've laid down. Really, like Tiresias who had the double sight of having lived both man and woman, I have lived on both sides of the river Styx. I've logged some real mental hours. Whatever.

So I know, from the intersection of realizations, readings, and all the other things life has thrown at me, that we must face our fears. Must face what is bothering us. Particularly, I should say, when it is "the uncomfortable emotions". Pain. Sorrow. Loss. Despair. Guilt. All of these we would rather flee from. Distract ourselves. And do if we can, generally without realizing it. That neurotic spin that keeps you so occupied you won't feel the stab of what you're feeling.

But what happens when there is so much of it you can't run anymore? When every side you turn to is another demon swinging down? What if you are out of options, of places to hide from the full brunt of the pain.

You start to take it. You let it process finally through you. That is the only way out of the dungeon of despair. You take that sadness for a waltz, weeping softly as you do. There is no other way to do it. That is the ONLY way out alive.

The meditation practice is a time to set aside the thoughts neurotically careening around your head. The anxious flittings and bashing of thoughts that slam about like drunken gorillas. (really it's awful). And you make space for your mind to be, as it is. Not trying to change the moments, but rather accepting them as they are, with compassion. And in that space something may well up from within.

You face what is there to face. Sometimes it is the glowing gestalt of an expansive heart. Or, perhaps more often, you come face to face with the pain you've sucked up for so many days or years and are forced to let it run out free like a river. To let it pass through your heart and out, so you won't drown in it. So this is what I try to do at least.

Surely if there were a crying credential, I would also have that by now. Certificate in sorrow. Good lord I feel old.

........

I am slightly calmer at this moment. Is it because the gray outside my window has been interrupted by the warm rays of the setting sun, it's final reminder of beauty before leaving us to wait until dawn for a return of it's radiance. Perhaps. Or perhaps it is this post. Perhaps I am finally relaxing. Relaxing. Relaxing into this thing again. I would very much like to live a life that isn't overwhelming and terrifying. Seriously, if any roving gods or wish-granting genies are swinging by overhead- I am asking nicely. Pulease!!!