The promise of spirituality is that when you find your practice, eventually your soul settles so you can see your own reflection clearly, like looking into the surface of still water. Right?
But what if stillness feels like sinking? What if, while you grow still, the fog around you grows too thick and you cannot find your way to the stream to look down?
When stillness of body unleashes torrents of fear and self doubt, and uncertainty erupts from your darkest depths, the air around you can seem more like volcanic ash than a morning fog. Everything external is obscured. Attempts at navigation fail when you cannot even see your own hands in front of your face. Stillness seems at once a fatal mistake and the only option when every alarm in your system screams “RUN” but your eyes burn until they weep and their lids fall tightly closed.
Texts go unanswered. Emails sit unopened for days. Friends reach out but engaging in small talk seems absurd when all you can see is the world on fire. The lump in your throat feels hot and tight. Shame tightens his grip, as you sense the momentum of your professional life slowing under the weight of this new inertia. Everyone is busy, you tell yourself. You won’t be missed. This will eventually pass and you’ll re-emerge optimistic and confident, showing up the way you are expected to. For now, you must simply sit.
Engaging the shadow self demands your stillness. You chose this work, this darkness, this facing of fears when you sat by the river and asked to see. Your body bruised from running into the same wall for years, you finally chose to tear it down. This wall inside you was built brick by heavy brick, and brick by brick is the only way it will be taken apart. Each one a pattern, an old story, a habit that once served you but now keeps you from the life waiting on the other side. You have grown accustomed to the feeling of this rough stone against your skin, calloused and toughened at every point of impact. You could carry on, here, in its shadow.
But something on the other side keeps calling. Quietly, at first, but each day it grows louder. There is something bright and bold and vibrant for you, where light breaks through ashy air and the water runs cool and clear. Your senses call on their memories: the tangy bite of fresh passion fruit ripened by the sun, the color of the ancient, endless sky over a campfire in the Kenyan wilderness- the sky you begged God never to let you forget, the sweet smell of tiny purple flowers mixed with ocean breeze, the texture of delicate handmade pasta filled with fresh ricotta, the sound of a dozen languages all around you on a train, the temperature of glacier water at the top of a mountain, the smell of old books lining a shelf, a glass of crisp, bright wine and crunchy baguettes on a Parisian balcony, the warmth of a long hug, the sound of light rain on a cobblestone street, the feeling of a cramp in the side from laughing until you cry… these sense memories remind you that all is not dull and damp. Even still, this moment asks you to notice your clinging.
Fog and ash. Brick and stone. Even this moment, even in stillness, there is texture. For a sensual human, this is grace. The heat in my throat reminds me I am alive. The tightness behind my collarbones invites deep breath. My stinging eyes call my attention back to the sensation of now. Over and over, come back. See this. Face this. Let this go.
The work of spiritual growth offers practices and tools for understanding, deconstructing, and ultimately breaking the patterns of the Ego. The Ego, with her addictions and compulsions, will fight with volcanic rage against this work. She will spew hot ash into the air all around you to frustrate and stall your work. Do it anyway. If rage fails she will use reason and logic to compel you to remain steadfast in old patterns, as they are designed for her to maintain control. She will entice you with all manner of numbing out, and she will make it exceedingly easy to quit. Do the work anyway. Find the tools, modalities, and practices that see through your Ego and begin.
For me, those tools are weekly therapy, Enneagram work, and mindfulness. It looks like stillness and sacrifice and creating discipline. It feels like sinking and transcending, all at once. Right now, it is mostly deeply unpleasant. It feels like anxiety, or like I’ve come down with something mysterious and should stay at the house until it passes. It feels like fatigue and, sometimes, deep sadness. And that’s how I know it’s working. Because I almost never let myself feel that.
So I come back to each feeling. Each sensation is examined. Each anxious thought gets to have a moment. And then, every time, each one passes. That is the work. See it appear, see it pass. Come back. Let go. Breathe. Again. See it appear, see it pass. Come back. Let go. Breathe. Again. See it appear, see it pass. Come back. Let go. Breathe. Again.
Today, for a few moments, I saw my Self again. It’s working.