8.27.15 The very best way we have to stop stumbling along the path out of a mess

Sometimes, day after day, it's so hard to see the way out of some stuck difficult struggling messy place where we feel like, if this continues, is going to come to no good. And we know it but nothing that we know or think or decide or try to figure out changes a thing. We simply can't see a way out of it.

We keep going around in circles, feeling badly, feeling weak, sometimes shameful, sometimes telling ourselves stories, about how something is wrong with us. Which just compounds things. It really is not true. Because we have challenges, but there's nothing wrong with us. 

That crap Is always someone else's voice, that we internalized. Swallowed it in a tough time, and we come to see it as our own. 

And it comes up, smooth and sneaky and malevolent, starting to accuse us of things, blaming, when the going gets tough.

When those old sneaky useless self accusations start coming up, we know things have gotten stirred up. We know to stand right up, at that moment, even if we can't figure anything else out, and say to ourselves "This is not me. These ideas. This self debasement. And I refuse to stand here and listen to this one more second.", If we don't have strength for one other thing, at least we do that. Whenever that crap begins again, like an old recording, we stand up and point at it and yell to ourselves "There it is! Forget it. None of that!"

In the meantime, we're going round and round and we don't see a way out. So often ,we make that mistake of trying to "think it out". When really? There is no thinking that's going to reveal anything. Clarify anything.

But sometimes, by hook or by crook, it comes to us. The real deal. And you remember what the real deal is, right? It's that simple arduous painstaking horribly difficult taking care of ourselves. 

Compassionately. It starts with one act, like struggling to provide ourselves with a good meal, on time. To get that food down our gullet. No matter whether we want to just forget about the meal, or eat some piece of crap. Instead? We rebel. We insist on making something good for ourselves, even boring. We sit down , while in our minds eye , we embrace our selves, as if a distressed child. And then we ear. Just eat the good-for-you meal.

And no matter how hopeless everything seems. No matter how horribly out of control any bad habits might be. No matter how undone the laundry is, how much pain there is, how many dirty dishes there are, no matter what mess our budget is in, no matter how hopeless figuring any of it out seems, we talk to ourselves. 

We say to ourselves "Now is not the time to think about these things. Now is the time to go outside, and stand, gazing at the almost full moon, coming up in the night sky. Watching the filigree of the pale clouds against the darkness. Feeling the cool end of summer air, on our skin. Inhaling deeply over and over again."

And so we do. We go outside for a little bit, or open a window and lean out. And we make our universe so much bigger than the room we were in , filling our lungs and brain and whole self with oxygen, with the bigger perspective.

And then we go in, and we brush our teeth carefully. We wash our face and hands, do the best we can with our bed, get everything settled, and find something nice and quiet to look at. An old book of simple places in the world. A magazine from somewhere with quiet calm things in it. A boring soothing book. 

To unwind ourselves, much like you ask a child to tell you the worst and best of their day. You ask for the worst first, so the best can be a happy ending. And then you read them a story, so that the whole self is imagining them selves off in this other situation. And everything that concerns them this day, whatever made them sad or was confusing or frustrating , is placed carefully on the shelf. Until the morning time.
We do something a little bit boring and simple, while the whole body, and the glands in our heads behind our eyes, adjust to the darkness, to the words or the pictures on the page, and everybody gets the message, that it is time to unwind and calm down, to stop focusing, and going to bed.

It's so funny that it's so difficult to remember : that the very best way we have to stop stumbling along the path out of a mess is to take care of ourselves. 
Without a plan. ( I love plans !) Without big ideas. ( I love big ideas!) No problem-solving or researching. Just taking step after step, take care of ourselves. Slowly and calmly and deliberately and thoughtfully. 

Feeding ourselves well while helping ourselves prepare ourselves for the demands of the day . Helping ourselves settle down well to get a good sleep. We keep doing all those things, and everything begins to settle.

Frantic and frustrating and shameful and sucky stuff begins to settle, and after a few days, we stop feeling like we're just going round and round and not being able to "think" up a solution.

You don't really have to call it mindfulness if you don't want to. Such a popular go-to phrase these days. You can just call it commonsense. Taking care of yourself. 
But when we settle ourselves, when we care for ourselves that way, everything slows down. The silt in the pond sinks to the bottom. And suddenly, the water is clear ; we can see all across the way. And it's then that we began to realize that all we need to do is settle ourselves, and start walking .