Dear Friends,
I am in the middle of a personal crisis and had the thought today that if I blogged about it, it might be beneficial in getting me through it, and also might be beneficial to others going through similar difficulties. Right now I am not sure, because I am gravitating in and out of fear, sometimes an extreme fear that seems to be hearkening back to my childhood.
I will say right now that my past experiences, especially the past 30-35 years, gave no indication that such a crisis would ever occur in my life. The fear began with my sudden inability to fall asleep one day in October, about ten days after returning from a trip to Korea where we visited a monastery in the mountains. My panic of staying wide awake the second night in a row led me to get my wife to drive me to Emergency, where I though and hoped they might be able to hook me up to some kind of breathing machine. Yet, after waiting for hours, the doctor simply concluded I had some anxiety that was causing me to be awake, and gave me a prescription for sleeping pills. I was averse to sleeping pills (I hadn’t used prescription medication in decades) but in my panic felt like it was the only way. It was too late to fill my prescription but the nurse was willing to provide me with one pill for that night. The pill did put me to sleep.
Without getting into the details, which may come out later, I have been on an emotional roller-coaster ride ever since, one that has involved not only sleeping pills but also using cannabis, getting a sleep apnea diagnosis (mild) and rushing out to buy and attempting to use a CPAP machine. I have also sought out and worked with osteopaths/healers and a therapist (which is ongoing).
The picture above represents me this morning, taking a look at myself in the mirror (one of our living room walls is all reflective glass) while doing my morning yoga, and realizing this is all up to me. I saw a bit of resoluteness in my face. A full six weeks into the crisis and I am finally understanding deeply that these fears are my own creation, and only I can confront them. Yes, perhaps these are old suppressed fears that will one day be visited more deeply but first there is work I need to do in the present. Working with my therapist I have come to realize that one of my long-standing coping mechanisms is to express my fears to others with the hope that they can somehow save me. While expressing oneself is appropriate in some measure, I realize that it mine is like that of an helpless child, and it has put a tremendous burden on my wife.
With the help of affirmations from Louise Hay and discussions about God by the likes of C. S. Lewis on Youtube, I’m starting to get a picture of what I need to do. I have to take ownership of the fact that I am letting these fears consume me rather than growing my faith in a loving God/source that is with us on our path every step of the way, and only requires our faith and our willingness to hand over our fears. I have long believed in God’s benevolence and (his) role in the manifesting of our lives, but with my heart and emotions now wide open it is essential that I learn about this at a deeper level, not just as a helpful intellectual concept.
This is my work in progress. And I hope to use this ongoing blog to encourage myself to do the work and take the right steps to heal this condition, and in a larger sense enhance my perception about how life really works. I am really writing this for myself but if there is anyone out in cyberspace who is along for the ride, I welcome you.