We were warned. Coming out of retreat can be a charged experience. Megan, one of our genius instructors, shared that she had bawled in many an airport. We were instructed not to make any rash decisions in the first week...not to look too closely at our partners, our jobs, our lives. Spending a lot of time internally heightens your sensitivity. You notice subtle shifts in your body, hear each gurgle as your stomach (and your neighbor's) settles after a meal, feel each heart flutter and chest compression from momentary anxieties, and smell the lavender and cypress lightly wafting through the air. In the context of a hilly retreat center in northern California, shared with 90 people who have similar intentions, this can feel expansive and profound. There, even coffee, a staple in my daily existence, began to feel too intense. I had to sit with my pounding heartbeat after drinking it with breakfast, and found myself cutting down on intake. I truly felt like someone had given me a new glasses prescription, as each yellowing blade of dried grass and clump of green Spanish moss stood out so crisply for me to consider.
But that level of atunement has a shadow side. When I had to go through security a second time in the airport on my flight out, after forgetting to dump out my water bottle, the embarrassment and annoyance nearly broke me. I felt my chest swell and throat tighten. Thoughts of the injustice, "Seriously, do I look like a terrorist? And I really have to go back around again!" and humiliation, "I ALWAYS remember to do this. Now I have to cut the line on the other side, and other people will be annoyed with me for bumping them back for my carelessness," flooded my mind. It was like all the safeguards against these sorts of slights were temporarily unavailable to me, and I felt all of the emotions in vivid technicolor. I pulled myself together and made it to the other side without further incident, my first introduction back into the real world in my semi-altered state having been a less than ideal experience.
You can imagine what coming back into the city was like. There are moments of potential stress loaded into every second outside of the door. Grown men yelling at each other across the square, bus horns honking, cars drifting dangerously close to my fragile body on two wheels. I had formerly built up defense mechanisms to manage this, so much so that I didn't even recognize them. Until my forcefield was gone. There is a low grade stress tolerance that we all must learn to live with in order to survive without breaking down at each corner. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the bigger life experiences that dominate many waking hours. Relationship woes, job pressures, money matters, etc. Everything I felt so deeply. So intensely.
I felt like a kid who had gone into a one week intensive ninja training. I emerged with all the skills that I had honed so carefully in the safe haven of ninja training camp, but then had no idea how to apply them to my life. When I would try to sit with my emotions, to breath, to notice, I was finding myself knocked over by the force of it all. Too many enemies attacking all at once. Not just a dummy trainer with soft fists. It was all I could do not to curl into a fetal position for that first day back in the city.
The first night, completely overwhelmed by an emotionally hyper-charged day, I did not attend the sangha sit that I had promised myself I would attend from the safety of ninja training camp. Instead, I drank two gin and tonics while playing french fry jenga at a local dive bar. I sat in the company of close friends and laughed until my sides hurt. I didn't try to sit with the experience, I just had it. And it was blissful and normalizing.
Part of the skill, I think, is going to be finding the ebb and flow. The times for discipline, and the times to relax about it. When I finally let go of the idea that I HAD to sit Sunday night, I felt a wave of relief wash over my entire body. Sometimes I sit with my pain, and sometimes I drink my gin and tonic and give it all some space to air out. Until I reach true Ninja Master status, this is going to have to be The Way.
No comments:
Post a Comment