"Whenever there’s a sense of threat, we harden. And so if we don’t harden, what happens? We’re left with that uneasiness, that feeling of threat. That’s when the real journey of courage begins. This is the real work of the peacemaker, to find the soft spot and the tenderness in that very uneasy place and stay with it. If we can stay with the soft spot and stay with the tender heart, then we are cultivating the seeds of peace."
~Pema Chodron
Note: this was written on August 30, 2023 and edited this morning.
Yeah, this is what I'm attempting. Not only to serve my relationships, but to save my life. Along with softening... listening, witnessing, practicing non-reactivity and attempting to discontinue the urge to make cases for and against.
The serenity prayer says, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one moment at a time. This is also part of the practice. Taking it one moment at a time, holding space for myself and others with loving kindness. These are my intentions along with accepting I am human, I make mistakes, there are missteps along the path, I am not perfect. We are hardwired to respond to threats, it's the oldest part of our nervous system. We are living in a time when almost everything feels like a threat so we often retreat into a hardened place. Pema is correct and her words become a daily, perhaps moment to moment challenge.
I found myself looking through old photographs last night. A lot of beautiful moments. A lot of memories of pain too. My daughter came into the bedroom to hang out with me and we worked on her audition monologue. This after she earlier told me she was on the edge of a bad mood. Yesterday she received an email saying that her driving lessons were canceled this week so I suggested she go to the office to get her certificate and try to reschedule. She took a nap instead and woke up too late to go. Her oncoming bad mood was likely emerging because I gently chastised her about this. That's all it took, the relational butterfly effect. However, since I'm aware of how her nervous system works, I immediately backed down and offered some loving support instead. Crisis narrowly averted and we had a really nice time working on the monologue together.
I could have held on to my annoyance that she fell asleep and didn't take care of her business. I might have in the past. I will definitely get annoyed by something else in the future. Yet in that moment, awareness bloomed and it made all the difference in the world. So many beautiful moments in our family. So many too where things turned dark and things fell apart.
For me, life comes down to the simple things. Writing a passage that resonates. A good cup of coffee, a delicious meal. An unexpectedly solid bottle of wine. Fresh baked bread. An embrace. A satisfying book. A walk with my dog. A long afternoon nap, a kiss. I think of Patti Smith, someone who cherishes the creative spirit and sees the divine in daily mundane activities. She finds poetry wherever she roams. Coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores, museums, churches, graveyards. These places all have essence and, in her musings, she elevates them to the divine. She cherishes the old, the relics, the ritual. All my old stuff, I hang on to like some kind of lifeline to the past. Like my anger toward my food-givers. I judge people for hanging on to shit but to be fair, I do the same thing. I love to beat a dead horse, it’s one of my filters that feels rigid and unyielding. I yearn to be done with the old, to watch everything float downstream. To vomit out everything I no longer need and say thank you and good-bye.
What's most resonant and meaningful are moments like working on a monologue with my daughter and other vulnerable open moments with those I love. Of course when I look deeply I can notice these moments, be grateful for them, but sometimes grief or fear or despair arises when the pain of loss emerges, especially while looking at family photographs! I’m so glad my daughter disrupted that rabbit hole. A friend recently sent me this gem, “grief can make you telepathic, follow it wherever it takes you”. Perhaps this is the courage that Pema refers to when we are tending to our broken hearts.
Polyvagal Theory is an understanding of the biology of safety and danger, based on the relationship between certain high-resolution experiences and how our nervous system responds to them. It posits we are constantly scanning for threat in our environment and we react to it in a three-part hierarchical way. To put it really simply, either we feel safe and secure, or we run or fight, or, in extreme situations, we freeze or pass out. The third option is generally the result of severe threat or danger. And it’s all autonomic nervous system function meaning it’s not a choice, it happens automatically, our natural security system. Obviously, some people are more sensitive than others so let me self-diagnose for a moment. I’m what you call a SAF person. Sensitive. As. Fuck. Things get to me. I feel things deeply. I crumble when criticized, made fun of, even chuckled at. When someone abandons me, I feel the end is nigh. My world falls apart on a regular basis. Then re-assembles.
I don't think I'm alone in this (being SAF). I see it all around me. And it's gotten more and more prolific and transparent due to systems breaking down both globally and in our personal spheres. Have we crossed a threshold where we are oversensitized? Walking down South Street in Philly when I was a teenager, I couldn't even make eye contact with strangers or there was a good chance I'd end up in a fistfight, or worse. Now we're extremely sensitive to so many more things than we might have been in the past. For example, the word trauma may quite possibly be overused.
Overall, I'm most interested in calming my nervous system and walking through life with more compassion. I carry a lot of negativity and it's my intention to shed the dark stuff. Fear has been arising again recently and I'm being with it, tracking it, welcoming it as a teacher. And there are other daily challenges that offer wisdom. One thing I notice over and over is I'm addicted to casemaking. Pointing fingers at others and proving myself right has served me well for so long but I'm realizing more and more that those thoughts were protectors and evolved into distortions. I'm much more interested in fostering precious moments shared and building on them.
As for the dark stuff that still arises Pema confirms, “most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape -- all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.” That's from Things Fall Apart which is a simple and profound read. I'm seeing more and more that we're all a process. My process now is to learn how to give different jobs to the parts of me that have protected me in the past so I can live more fully with grace. And grit. Because that's important too. My intention is finding a different relationship to crises and allowing joy and serenity to find me.
Lovely essay and I agree that SAF is on the increase -- perhaps in response to the harshness of the world on overdrive.