On the Art of feeling safe.
Objective safety, subjective safety... What qualifies and who gets to decide?
I wanted to share an experience and an insight that dawned on me recently.
Equally to remind myself, as I am under no illusions that this will elude me again in due time, and most probably when I need to remember it the most, because, well: Murthy's law.
I have been going through a particularly intense phase of struggles with my emotional pain this last couple of months, and a core theme of this experience is the pervasive, visceral and constant feeling that I am in mortal danger, accompanied by the most paradoxical blank when it comes to the likely origin of that feeling.
No lion in a bush, no pressing deadline, no distressing memory nor future projection stepping forth to claim the doom, just an undeniable knowing that somehow, I am just utterly and already totally f*cked.
A doom with no respect for protocol, unashamedly taking residence without even bothering to attach itself to a worry, like any respectable doom knows you are supposed to do.
It's like being in pain without knowing where. It's non-sensical and adds slightly irritating insult to excruciating injury.
It feels as ridiculous as it is distressing, even though I know it's actually pretty common along chronic stress or trauma.
So, here we go, I have been hanging out with that pain for a while.
Meanwhile, the mental worries, the stories of everything that is wrong, has been wrong, is potentially still wrong, and could definitely might be wrong again in the future, those don't like to be left out.
So if the feeling doesn't point to them, they like to point to it, in a deceptive game of who is who.
They whisper plans of action and sell at high-interest credit rates a future peace they don't own.
They try and hitch a ride from a feeling of anguish that was there long before they came around and will be happy to stay long after their expiration date.
“Hi, I am tales of terror, but panic not, for if you just solve my puzzle, mobilising great mental resources, seconds of life span and burnt calories, enacting grand schemes to become safe, worthy and loved, it's all gonna be fine. So go on, chop chop!”
But it's never fine. Because it was never really not fine to begin with. Not outside anyways, not for a long time now. It's inside. My insides are not fine. And they don't need an excuse. They are done trying to justify themselves.
Good, now we have context.
I know this is a remanence. An echo of ancient sanity-crushing impacts. The soul sepsis from a thousand unhealed emotional cuts. A “scar in my vibration” (this one is for my hippy dippies out there, you are my people).
But semi-consciously, I have given up on healing it, because I don't know how.
I can still smother it with symbolic anti-inflammatory gel though, seeking ego-soothing achievements to wrap my ackes into, and it's easy to get lost chasing pain-killing life goals.
If I just get what I need, I will be ok. Just need to figure out what that is... or do we?
So here is what happened (I know, I am getting there):
I like to pray. Surprise. I am woo-woo. If you hadn't noticed so far. Buddhist prayers. Nichiren Daishonin's mantra if you must know. And when I pray, I like to pray for things I want. No shit? How original.
Well, not just selfish stuff like resources and lots of amazing sex (although, obviously), but you know, things for the good of all beings.
Like peace throughout the land (I would really appreciate it if Putin didn't drop a bomb on London, for example, not just because I live there, but so do my friends, and some of the architecture is actually alright), happiness and wellbeing for all, for the friends, the strangers, and especially for assholes so they feel less compelled to spread misery. For the ancestors, good stuff.
Also things that combine the two: like, getting my career in order so I can have a positive impact on as many people as possible and make money for example. Or meeting my soul mate and having a family.
Well, there you go, here are some nice pieces of “if I achieve enough I will be worthy, finally feel ok about myself and up my chances for amazing sex”.
Isn't that how it works? No? Anyways. One is allowed to dream.
Recently though, I have been struggling to pray because I always end up in tears... It just reminds me of stuff I don't have and how not ok I feel about it. So I don't pray so much and I miss it, and it's yet another inconvenience from being a malfunctioning emotional mess.
Yet, today, I felt the urge to go sit at my altar and feel the soothing vibrations of the chanting buzz throughout my body. (No I am not being woo, I mean, I am woo, but I am not talking about the woo-woo vibrations, although you can also have those if you want them, but I am talking about the actual sensory vibrations from the sound. I see you irritated sceptic).
And bang on the clock, would you believe, I started to feel teary.
And I thought I don't wanna stop though, I like this, I mean, not the distress part, but you know, the chanting part.
What can I pray for that is not gonna send me spiralling? What is one thing that... if I could get it, I would finally feel safe? What do I need to feel safe?
And there I realised. Nothing. Nothing will be strong enough. I am just not safe, as a matter of fact, as a state of affairs, as the core operating system of my being.
I realised, no matter how many wonderful things may come my way, that I could be in the safest situation imaginable, and I would actually still never truly believe it was the case. That this nagging all-encompassing terror would always be there, non-plussed, thoroughly unimpressed, and certainly not taking any successes personally.
So I gave up on the means... and just surrendered to the ends. I prayed to believe I was safe.
I didn't pray to be safe, because I knew that wouldn't do the trick. For all I know I might even be, honestly I can't even tell these days.
No, I prayed to believe it.
So that if it came true, that if I was truly safe somehow, that I would be able to notice and take it in. I prayed to believe I was safe.
And I started to feel the taste of it. Maybe not quite a taste, but maybe a scent. A subtle waft swirling around a corner of my imagination, somehow able to step in some ethereal "what if" shoes... What might it feel like?
Not to be safe. But to believe it. Not to know it rationally. But to feel it in my tummy.
And I realised, I could even feel safe when shit hits the fan. Because the assessment that I can't handle something is subjective. And in some alternative reality I was daring to look at, I could stand in turmoil with a peaceful belly.
And that felt good. So I just kept praying. And I could just put down the burden of making it happen with strategies and currently unavailable life changes. I could just ask for it to come, not for me to go anywhere.
So this is it. I wanted you to know: you can do that too.
You don't have to pray, although you can if you want to, still I have done it for us today, you can just have the insight for free, you are welcome.
That feeling safe isn't just about being safe (and even then, who gets to decide what threshold qualifies?) but being able to believe it.
I chuckled as I remembered a quote from some spiritual thought leader I can't place (this is why this isn't a dissertation paper, to hell references):
“Pain and death are perfectly safe experiences. Fairly unpleasant, but safe.”
Not that the quote was objectively true nor false, but more importantly pointing to the fact that the perception of safety was subjective, and could potentially become a decision.
That a choice point could be recognised amidst the dizzying speed of perception.
A sliding threshold, of what we allow in our experience.
Safety, as a feeling. Not a fact. And for that to be enough.
I also remembered a teaching from Irene Lyon, my favourite somatic experiencing therapy teacher:
“I never tell a patient that they are safe, because even if it might be relatively true of the environment, if it doesn't feel that way in their body, that is still gaslighting”
(See I can also remember some people, but brace yourselves for paraphrasing).
So I am not enlightened tonight.
I am not healed tonight.
I haven't let go of my desires, not that I would want to.
But I feel like I can finally give myself permission to believe. From time to time. That I am safe. Not objectively, because there is no such thing anyways, but subjectively, in our bodies, which is all we will ever experience.
I hope you can also give yourself permission. From time to time. To believe in that mythological beast: safety.
As a walking bundle of nerve endings, standing on a rock hurdling through space at high speeds.
With love
Kat