Trusting Safety

Another day in the life with some of my inner processes. Again written for my future self. Who I imagine might read this with some degree of affectionate amusement about the aspects of life I get made afraid by. And who I imagine will be reading this from a fearless place. Yes. I’m going there. I am there. We all are. I just need to realise it. God, the paradoxes of enlightenment.

We are already enlightened. We think we are not because we believe the untruths our minds tell us. We obey habitual patterns of our nervous systems but they are just conditioned responses. Without the conditioning, we are happy, spontaneous free. See behind all that and relax deeply and see it is all very okay indeed.

A therapy client yesterday, then a 2 hours in the park, a walk and lunch outside with my old childhood friend P. A respectable 4 miles through the woods. Then spontaneously decided to go and lay out plants with the men and the client at one of our projects nearby. Glad I did that, had a great little chat and laugh with the guys and also saw the client. They are such lovely guys, all of them, I love them. Then shopping for flowers, hyacinths this time (see pic). Beauty and nature inside and outside is a soothing balm.

Still in bed at nearly 9am, long lie for me today. I have been listening again all night to these very old Dzogchen texts (this particular one is from Tilopa, born in the year 988). I have a whole playlist of these on YouTube read by a Buddhist nun who speaks so calmly and they play while I sleep. And gorgeous ambient, often Indian drone music in the background. I wake on and off during the night and register what is said. It goes in deeply with no fearful responses.

I can have amazing dreams of being in beautiful places with enlightened beings and sometimes being one of them myself. India or the Himalayas. It’s not for the dreams though, it’s part of my training, using every opportunity to remind myself and bathe deeply in this wisdom. I hope listening to it asleep it penetrates subconsciously to reassure my fearful parts that we are okay and safe.

I wake for longer periods as I surface in the morning from about 5 or 6. I lie and listen and feel into it. Body entirely and completely relaxed. I take in longer parts of the text and enter the truths and drift back to sleep for a few minutes and reawaken and do this on repeat for a few hours. This takes me into a sublime state of the deepest relaxation I ever feel. Reunited with and surrendered completely to the beautiful truth.

Utter complete bliss of just being for hours and I surface fully. Make tea and back in bed. I stay with the direct experience, and my mind starts to get restless. It want to stir and I see it looking for avenues of thought to go down. There’s nothing much for it to do. I don’t know what it is doing but it is looking for threats. It is not sure this level of total relaxing is safe for me.

I think it is maybe because there were so many experiences of being relaxed in the past when something bad or dangerous feeling has happened. My mum’s moods and tempter was so unpredictable, it could be from that. So it learned to stay a little on alert all the time. Ready to react.

So now I have the ironic situation that when it’s completely safe to relax fully and I do, but it doesn’t last because I start to feel in danger because I’ve let my guard down. I’m not used to it so it’s unknown territory.

I will persevere through and demonstrate to the nervous system that the sky won’t fall in when I completely surrender and let go and relax fully. I breathe steadily as waves of mild anxiety arise and dissolve.

I feel safe. I actually feel safe right now. Even with the mild waves of anxiety, I’m here underneath that.

It’s the weekend. Today I have 2 therapy clients at 11 and 12.30. Then the woods. Tomorrow another therapy client then a design client. That will be 9 therapy clients and 4 design clients for the week. Life is evolving and morphing as I do.

That is the most therapy clients I’ve seen in one week so far. I am noticing quietly how I am with dealing with the distress. I do not find it remotely a strain. Nor in conflict with the business, it’s a joy to me to work with people. I love them.

I communicate that the sense of deficiency they carry around and which brings so much suffering to them is not true. They are not deficient or unlovable. It’s a total lie. That’s where the art of it comes in, it is often not straightforward to convince them it is not true, and what to do with the truth that they aren’t deficient, how to be with that.