Some Days Must Be Dark and Dreary

 

Some days must be dark and dreary.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Rainy Day

I have been, what others described , as "off" the last few days. "You are not yourself." 

When they bring that to my attention  I smile and  think, "The last few days?  I have been off for the last few months and I have not been my 'self' for many, many years, if I ever was this "self"." 

But it is true...I have been especially off the last few days since I found out about  my sister. Even though she is comfortable and safe and well looked after despite the fact she is on a ventilator...I have been overcome with a dark heaviness. I have been feeling very negative and discontent in my moment...restless with a churning in my gut. I found myself tabulating all the hardships I have had over the years, (as if her situation was mine to add to 'my' collection of personal woes). 

I was reminded of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's words" Into each life, a little rain must fall.   And instead of being comforted by it, I found myself lamenting to my cat, who btw couldn't care less about what was going on in my life outside of feeding or patting her, "Well  someone better define how much a "little" is when they refer to Henry's take on precipitation. Is he  talking the odd shower, or this torrential down pour that has been pouring down on me for a bit too long?"  

 I couldn't seem to settle in the moment.  I was looking for something to "do" that would distract me but I was consumed by "sloth and torpor".  I didn't want to do anything. I was discontent with my environment, noticing every dust ball and thing needing cleaning or repair.  The more I noticed the more restless I got, the more my belly churned; the more my belly churned, the more  I felt I had to do something to fix it all  but I just couldn't get myself to do anything about any of it.  I was lazy with a capitol "L". 

The thoughts were negative . I spent my days expecting every thing else around me to go "wrong" or to "collapse" and ironically it seemed that it did...Every thing I touched, seemed to break (we are down to the minimum amount of plates right now) , the top of the air fryer popped off for no explicable reason hitting me in the face and I stubbed a toe or wiped out, I don't know how many times ( you know how that goes) . 

My mind kept going back to old habitual patterns of looking for escape, knowing full well there was no escape. I was stuck in a series of moments I preferred not to be in.  It was a very yucky experience. I felt like Longfellow lost in "The Rainy Day": My life is cold, and dark and dreary..."  

It wasn't until I went down to the studio last evening and did a full practice that I felt the heaviness lifting and something remotely positive emerging. There was a learning in all this. 

It seems, that as these challenging  circumstances come into my life, I am less resilient to get past them. And I feel stuck in them.  I do not "like" that feeling of being stuck in them. Why? I am starting to see, as I reflect back,  that what I am experiencing is a triggering of samskaras that are already starting to resurface on their own.  Seeing my sister in the situation she was in was definitely  a big trigger for past wounding and a lot came up at once. My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past....So much so I couldn't intellectually make sense of it.  I just felt it emotionally and physically. It was overwhelming.

 These samskaras have to come up . I know that.  I have been praying for them to come up and out of me but when they all come up at once, it is a lot to deal with at one time.  What was stored in pain comes up in pain. Still, in order to be "free" we have to get these blockages out of the way.  So though it  all feels like a big messy puddle of emotional energy emerging...and I cannot make sense of it and it feels dark and awful...it is a positive thing! Clouds are moving!  Behind the clouds is the sun still shining. We just need to get beyond the blockages to see and experience the sun. 

Another thing I realized, as I experienced this, was that I no longer use the defense mechanism of hope. That is a strange and abnormal experience to be "hopeless".  Contrary to what I have been taught during my time  nursing on the psychiatric unit, "hopelessness" is not a bad thing. Though it does feel uncomfortable. Without that shield hope provides, there is an even intenser sense of vulnerability to what is.  Hope is a mental  escape from what life offers us in this moment. It seems to serve a positive purpose but what it offers us is not real....just a future projection that does not serve the moment. 

So when people asked me, "Are you off because  you are not hopeful, she will get better." I just shrug my shoulders and answer, "I don't know".  I really don't know what the future will bring and how any of us will be in it.  I don't need to know.  That is not where my mind goes anymore...I no longer use hope to feel better. I see it as just another mind game that takes us from being fully present to what is.  

The hopes of youth fall thick in the blast....

I use to be a big hoper...and that hope used to buffer me when I was discontent with what was. Not anymore.  I do not want to be dragged from my moment and whatever shows up in by fear in the form of anxiety and worry or by hope.  What was going on with me over the last few days had little to do with the future.  It was simply that my moments...right there  and right then...were very challenging.  I had a hard time accepting them.  And  knowing (finally-after years of practice) that mentally running away from the now, was not the solution, I did my best to settle into what was and allow all of it: the resistance, the restlessness, the discontent,  the samskaras, the pain, the confusion etc. That is what we get without hope...the reality of the rain.  Sometimes it feels like a refreshing shower.  Other times it feels like a soul soaking down pour. I was just experiencing a down pour.

Now, I feel differently.  Thanks to my yoga practice, I feel something emerging from deep inside me to the surface.  I cannot explain why I feel lighter...less soaked by darkness and more aware of the sun that is there...but I do.  The circumstances have not changed, something inside me has. That is the only way this works, right?  You get that? It isn't about what comes into us from our lives but what comes up from us, is Life.   If we are getting uncomfortably wet, it is raining inside, not outside.   We are blocked. A change in things out there is not going to make us feel better.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I do want my sister to get better but what is more important is loving her and loving Life right now, the way she and it is. It is only a problem when I cannot do that. 

Thy fate is the common fate of all

Anyway, all is well in my world.