Future Medicine - Mindfulness

It starts with an innocuous post on social media.

And I react because I think the author sounds like he's seething with buried anger.

My friend replies and we discuss. We both know anger but in different ways.

I begin to notice over the next day that this post really is sticking in my gullet.

And I notice from other moments that it's not the post that's really driving the anger, I am the common denominator. Something is rising to the surface from deep within me, something which has been buried, deemed unfaceable.

In other words my rising blanket of energy in these days is seething bitterness and anger.

Now that I have become conscious of it the old fears begin to rise to the surface too, to make a familiar pattern on this blanket of energy.

I have seen myself in action when I am angry, there is often little control and no mitigation. It is a terrifying and powerful force to be emanating from someone such as myself that possesses the ability to look right into your soul, find your deepest wound, stick a salty finger into it whilst pushing and twisting nastily. Little wonder I have expended much energy keeping my anger hidden and constrained.

Although there have only be a couple of times that I have released such dark magic in this lifetime it goes against all that I hold myself to. It breaks the other and it breaks me. Clearly not a wise nor nurturing force.

But I have been training myself, preparing myself for this moment!

Running, fasting and dancing to strengthen and flex my body that it may not only withstand the hurricane but also bend with it without fear of snapping.

I've climbed mountains in tears as I reconnected myself with myself, to learn that I CAN DO, to learn that I will hold me, that I will no longer try to skirt around my anger by controlling all aspects of my life! That controlling only left me weak and exhausted, completely unable to support myself in times of darkness and effectively creating the very conditions that I had sought to avoid (fear, fear born of my seeming total lack of abilities). Lessons learned: you cannot escape the Universe (there is nowhere else) and you cannot escape yourself (for that kind of magic creates an abomination). Run all you like but when you stop, you are always going to be there with you....plus running only creates a lifetime wherein you are always being chased......

And so back to my preparations for this moment. I enjoyed my photoshoot, I released myself from the chains of what me having my photo taken in lingerie means. I no longer seek to stop anyone from calling me whichever names they deem suitable to construct their own realm, they have no jurisdiction here in my heart (as I have none in theirs) I am merely interested in rescuing all aspects of myself from oppression. And do not imagine for one moment I have mistaken the name callers as oppressors for I know my enemy, and she is me.

Having found, strengthened and felt my connection to self I faced my next “challenge” Jumping into the lake, the lake where I was found unconscious, floating face down just below the surface when I was a toddler. Still to this day I cannot put my face into that piece of water.....and so to jumping in! Backwards and forwards on the pier I went, like an invisible disco dance until finally my mind gave up and in I plunged (holding my nose!)

For the first time the voice which came directly to my mind without thought, as if someone had whispered over my shoulder, said “You're ok” (previously it had been a harsh voice driving me through the complicated construct born of the whole right and wrong model)

And I trusted it, for it was me.

That is not to say that the panic wasn't also rising rapidly to the surface but the warm, all encompassing blanket of “you're ok” nurtured all at once.

I could feel as much fear as I was able to embody but without losing myself in THAT place. You know the one, that swirling blackness that seems to stick to your mind like tar and drag you down into a pit of despair from which few escape unscathed, if at all)

And so armed with this new nurturing and hand holding ability I took to the skies for the ultimate test! The tandem parachute jump from 4000m and if you watch the video, my expressions, my voice, my coping mechanisms are all there as a hotchpot of stuff but I keep moving forward through all of the stuff and all of the moments because something deep down in me but also present in every strand of my being knows that gateways always feel like this.

I have given assent that I am stepping through a gateway (mine own gateway). The very things which are my gateway are also the very things which I gain through my gateway. (To use what I have, I must know that I have it and to know that I have it, I must use it)

The realisation is there, I don't need to conquer my fears, after all that would mean engaging with them and that gets complicated. Once you have stepped through the gateway and into your power the last thing you want to direct your manifestations towards are your own personal version of hell fears! I may be an idiot but I'm not that kind of idiot!

We do not conquer fears, instead we find that aspect of self which allows us to be afraid and walk through fear anyway

And so back to this moment, here I am with my anger and my fears of what I might do with that anger. So what is that teaching me?

I am more aware of tiredness, which gives me a greater insight into how much my chattering monkey mind that thinks it's protecting me is in fact the very thing responsible for my exhaustion! It's not that I hadn't realised that on an intellectual level before, it's just that right now I am experiencing it in real time so to speak. And it cuts in all directions.

I may be aware of how blissful I feel after a day out in the garden to be snuggled up by the blazing fire watching an entertaining film and slurping a huge cup of tea but I am also aware of how I immediately try and reproduce that feeling the very next day by bullying myself out into the garden or sitting down to watch a film....but these forced actions only produce agitation, restlessness and frustration, despair and so on.....

My poor mind is stuck in the wisdom of, if 2 vitamin C tablets make me feel better then I'll take 20 and feel awesome!

All of this adds up to mindfulness, this is holistic mindfulness, the ability to live my life whilst simultaneously observing myself within it. A soft observation with no agenda.

I have the ability to observe myself

I have the ability to observe myself without getting sucked in (mostly!)

I have observed myself enough to know how I work

How I can mitigate myself.

I have learned to recognise how all aspects of me work together in an ever changing form, one would probably call it “my flow”

I have learned to trust myself

I have recognised my mind is always doing its best to keep me warm and safe (that would be the warmth of love and nurture)

I have learned that my mind is a fucking idiot at times because ironically it doesn't stop to really think, to really tune into the important question.

That's because the mind gets blown by the fact that the important question cannot be spoken, can't even be put into words....but it can be answered!

Sit quietly and tune into your life and your body.

Any question can be answered if we sit still long enough and train ourselves to allow the unfolding to unfold without jumping into it.

But few are interested in that, just as a few are interested in making jam, i.e. all things are equally worthy and unworthy, for worth is something only relevant to us as individuals.....and do not mistake that for thinking we must judge worthiness in any way, seek only that which is appropriate to the important unspoken question burning in YOUR soul.

Intense pain can drive us in that direction.

Make of that what you will......