Part of the danger is that when you are languishing you might not see the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don't catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you're indifferent to your own indifference. ...The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus-and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.
Adam Grant
Languishing, as well as flourishing, was a psychological term that became popular when COVID was forcing the world to isolate. I heard and studied this phenonemna in a Psychology certificate course I took during my own isolation, offered by PhD psychologists (and Matthieu Ricard) from all over the world.
It isn't 2021 anymore, is it? Yet, here I am with an experience of languishing. Even though the pandemic is all over, I am observing this human I call "me" endure a "felt experience"(Annaka Harris) of a dulling of delight and a dwindling of drive. Hmm! I want to look at this languishing in very objective terms for I am sure I am not the only one out there experiencing post-pandemic languishing. Am I? I also want to relate it the awakening process for I know in my heart that my sense of languishing is aggravated or confused by a consciousness that is beginning to see itself, and at the same time my awakening process is being intensified and confused by this languishing... they are intermingled.
Yesterday, a poem came out of me with vivid imagery I didn't really see or understand until the words were on paper. In that piece, as imperfect as it was poetic wise, was a very strong visual message. I spoke to my artist daughter afterwards to clarify that image. The poem depicted a pocket watch( me as form, I guess) with a cracked and creased face (age and scars from the trials of life)bobbing up and down in a muddy puddle as many people above walked over it ...not seeing it...not hearing how it was malfunctioning with a second hand that could not keep up with the rest of the world. It had the experience of slowly becoming waterlogged (weighed down by life and the movement of other beings over it) with the fear of drowning. The subjective "felt experience" of the watch was that it was very aware that something was broken within it but was unsure what it was. It was also aware that it wasn't keeping up and that its "malfunction" (imperfect doing) was something no one else would notice. It was suffering.
It was also slowing down to experience this suffering and the rest of the world was still moving so fast. There was this great distancing between what it was now doing and what the rest of the world was doing that it felt like there must be something very wrong with it. (This happens alot when we begin the awakening process doesn't it? We don't know if or how we fit in.)
It was not quite sure how it got there in the muddy puddle (suffering) but it knows it must have fallen from the pocket comfort zone of one of those fast moving people above it, through a hole that was always there....meaning it was bound to happen at some point, there was bound to be a detachment from the comfortable idea of who it thought it was, from the "person". (The faster we move with this hole in us the more we will detach from what is important ... this watch is very, very important to a sense of being).
I visualized afterwards that most of the image was in monochrome with the exception of a butterfly and a lotus flower floating around in the puddle with it. The colorful butterfly represents a hopeful view of Life and a freedom that we cannot seem to keep up with when we are still focusing on body. The lotus flower represents a true freedom from suffering...a way to be here without the need to be "fixed" in the old ways and without the need of human rescue tendency. What is needed is not an escape from suffering, a return to old human habits. What is needed is awakening.
That is what came out through me yesterday when I felt the need to write a poem. I really didn't see these images until after the poem was written. It is so cool how that works. When the "me"we all identify with gets out of the way, a creativity can flow through us that is so amazingly wise and visual. There is always a message for this "me" in what I write, even if it takes days to understand it.
This little poem clarified the experience of languishing both pre-awakening and during awakening. In the busy world of fast moving people with their dirty boots...which I was a part of for most of my life...there is definitely a suffering but alot of that suffering is supressed and repressed as we stay busy out there and don't look down into the suffering self ( the samskaras etc). . There is definitely a feeling of discontent but we spend our lives trying to "escape" it....run from it, numb from it, deny it, or pretend it isn't there. The languishing is getting lost in that momentum. In the early awakening world experience...we slip down or make teh choice to go down into that suffering we were previously running from. There is no escape route. We admit to suffering. We slow down and it seems like we are malfunctioning but it through that slowing down, that settling into the suffering experience that we find the only way out which is through. This poem not only depicted the human experience of languishing to me, it showed the way out.
Your home base is what you identify with.
Michael A. Singer
I am languishing both up here in the busy world and being down here in the muddy puddle. Since these are still the early stages I, as consciousness, still go back and forth between these experiences, offering two different types of languishing. Life feels pretty crappy right now. This human I call me really doesn't like it. The world (and its events) is rainy, dark, and I have to splash through a lot of puddles. A lot of movement is required and nothing seems to be getting "done" and I am not going anywhere. This is languishing. Where I am when I slip back into awakening is not pleasant either. I go from being a person running around in my dirty boots to being a non-self within this clump of matter...a broken clock ( still in this form but aware that I am not this "me" and really not sure what I am suppose to do down here to contribute to the world). This too is languishing.
You are no longer identified with ego but you are identified with being the one that is watching the ego.
How did I get here?
There was always this hole in my so called comfort zone of "me". The "me" is this thing I worked so hard to create and maintain so I could keep up with the human momentum. Yet it was lined with holes. The more I moved and felt the struggle...the more likely something was going to slip through one of these holes. It did. The clock, which represents time of course, aging, and the vital life force (prana...beating of the heart) slipped through that hole and landed in the puddle. The focus of consciousness then was moved from being lost in the busy momentum of life to staring up and watching everything in a colorless way. I went from a "felt experience" of being conditionally up only because I was keeping up with the rest of the world-something that took so much of my energy and broke me a bit, to another "felt experience" of being down in the suffering that has always been there, recognizing a certain brokenness, a certain malfunction, as I look up at the world I was once blinded by. There is no colour in that world and I realize that I no longer want to be saved by it.
The lotus flower represents the true rescue. What is the true rescue? Awakening, of course. So what I am praying for is a little support while I awaken (the threads of the lotus roots cradling me to help me deal with this the suffering and the fear of drowning). I want to find peace where I am, as I languish until I heal.
This languishing down here in the muddy puddle of discontent, though it seems so awful...is actually not a bad thing. It is where I need to be to get the rescue I really need.
What practical thing did I get from all that?
I need to meditate more. Go figure.
All is well.
Adam Grant (Decemeber 3, 2021) There is a Name for the Blah You're Feeling:It's Called Languishing. New York Times.
Annaka Harris (2019) Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. Harper
Corey Keyes (2024 ) Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World that Lets Us Down. Crown.
Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( February 17th, 2025) The Mind is Not the Problem: Identifying With It Is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKv8ikOvstg&t=1374s
No comments:
Post a Comment