Blankness

Lately, a lot has been coming up about allowing feelings. It’s not coming in the traditional psychological ways I am used to. Its not empty  philosophies based in helplessness that say “there’s no way out of the pain. It’s coming in more like a spiritual path in which allowing the feelings to be exactly as they are, with no attempt to shift them or close the door on them through the distraction of busy work or avoidance, is actually the very door that opens to life itself. Perhaps the worst feeling of all for me is that of stagnancy, where the pain is at a simmer and a dreaded feeling of dullness and inability to move takes place in the extremes.

We refer to it in our culture as depression. The place where life has lost its meaning and nothing sparks the energy needed to re-engage, leaving a flatness that settles all the way down to the bones. Restlessness to take over and discontent is the storyline.

The teachings I am hearing right now are referring to this "depression" as a resting place. They are saying that it’s not depression at all, but a time of deep descent into quietness where creativity and ones true gift begins to generate. Depression occurs when someone in the "waiting state" becomes fearful that perhaps this state of dullness is all they will ever feel. Compounding the fear on top of the retreat from the ability to feel vitality, creates a secondary issue where the actual retreat becomes a torture chamber one locks themselves into (true depression). Note: it is said that nothing can bring someone out of depression. Only oneself can remedy it.

Why do I give such enormous resistance to the blankness I feel right now? This purgatory doesn’t feel restful to me. Instead, I feel I am wasting away. I want action. I want fireworks and joy. Have I not suffered enough?

I am gestating in every way. Pregnant, dull, and only able to sleep, eat and show up waiting. To the outside world I appear to function, but it’s only out of habit that my body continues to move at all.  I hate this life! Its so full of challenge and unanswered questions.

I will now start to do ‘nothing’ more gracefully. I set my focus towards withdraw so that I can allow what inspires me to enter, and move me from that deep well within. The issues that arise around the hours of wanting something to happen will inform me of where to even rest deeper.

I name the fear without allowing it to swallow me. I’m afraid nothing will come for me and I will just fade away, deeply into the mist of life- wasted, heartbroken, depressed mother two who lost her stride. I will never feel anything other than this. I will waste away in the eyes of the world. Oh, what she could have been.

Ceremony...I will set up ceremony and altars to remind me of my connection. Ritual, nature and symbolism will help bring me back if I go too far away to remember! To far to remember that I want to be here. To far to remember that I have love in my heart for this mysterious, crazy ass existence.