Finding safety in the moment

With thanks to Tara Brach, and insomnia

I keep trying to write good Substack essays. Trying, and failing. I’ve started three in the past few weeks and not finished, or posted, any of them. I get disheartened. Decide they’re too meandering; not focused enough. I try to cram too many ideas in.

Then there’s the comparison and self-doubt. Often (against

Tamzin

’s sage advice) I start reading other people’s brilliant essays which triggers that familiar and oh-so-helpful line of thinking: I can’t write anything as good as that, therefore all my writing up til now has been shit, and anything I write in the future will be shit, therefore I should never write anything, ever again.

Also, someone posted a sarcastic comment underneath my On Loneliness post that I wish I could say didn’t hurt, but it did. To that person, or anyone in a similar mindset, please: be kind. I’m very, very tired.

I’m very tired because I have been in a state of overwhelm the past few weeks. I thought it was getting better after having a mini-epiphany thanks to one of Tara Brach’s recent podcast episodes, and I was able to sleep again, and had started to write a post about it, and then I somehow un-epiphanied myself yesterday and lay awake for hours last night with my brain racing. So today I’m surviving on a few hours sleep. Maybe not the best mental state to write something that can be seen by anyone on the internet… Or maybe it’s the best state because I’m kind of spaced out and on a slightly different plane of existence. I can already see I’ve sworn more than I usually do. Sorry about that.

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I’ve been having issues with my sleep for a few weeks now because I feel like I’m in a state of fear and not feeling safe, a lot of the time. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do. I am currently juggling a paid job, coursework for my life coaching course, pro bono coaching clients, and a business course, alongside all the usual housework and life admin. And trying to fit all this into about 15 hours a week when I have childcare for my son.

And this fear I’m holding shows up as tension and gripping in my body and obsessively trying to ‘solve’ things in my head. It shows up as the repetitive thought: there’s not enough time, there’s not enough time to get everything done.

This is an old, old thought that I think comes from when I was a kid and was pretty constantly overwhelmed with the amount of homework I had to do. And before anyone jumps to their keyboard to write to me ‘oh boo hoo, too much homework, cry me a river!’ – hold your horses. That’s too much homework alongside my mother slowly dying of cancer over two years and me desperately trying to use achievement as a way to win my parents’ love/save my mum from dying/create a sense of safety in the aftermath of reality splitting apart, leaving a permanent, jagged wound in the sky.

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It feels high stakes. It feels life or death. If only I can get control; if only I can fix everything that’s wrong, find what’s missing, then I will feel OK.

Tara Brach calls this seeking ‘a false refuge’. She says:

‘It’s natural that we move through life seeking belonging, seeking safety, seeking peace. And yet, rather than presence, rather than reality, what’s true in the moment, we habitually leave presence and go for what I call false refuge. And it’s not false because it’s bad, it’s not a good/bad thing, it’s false because it actually obscures the portals to true refuge. And it doesn’t deliver. In other words, it doesn’t give us the peace, the safety, the freedom we seek.’

In the past, my false refuges have been alcohol, drugs, self-harm, toxic relationships. Now my false refuges are trying to feel in control/solve things – by over-doing, planning, obsessive over-thinking… And she’s right: they don’t bring me the safety I seek. Even in those fleeting moments when I feel everything is ‘under control’ – my stomach muscles are clenched; my whole body is bracing. And my brain almost immediately goes on to trying to find the next thing that’s wrong, the next thing that’s missing. I’m always looking out for danger. I’m not feeling true safety, peace, open-heartedness, freedom. Instead I feel like I’m crouched in the dark, wild-eyed, clenching a sword. Waiting for attack.

It is not the safety I truly seek which is trusting that there is no danger. That right now, in this moment, I am safe. And if I felt that true safety, that true refuge – I could unclench. I could put down my sword. I could breathe fully into my lungs. Shake myself out of the trance. Let myself simply be.

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What Tara Brach offers is the invitation to remember reality, ‘the only true refuge’. And that awareness, truth and love are portals to this. ‘If we deepen our attention into any of these portals, we come into reality.’

She says that ‘awareness is the super power that undoes’ false refuges and suggest we ‘see if we can slow down and, with interest and care, just notice them. And notice how they take us from presence. And notice how they don’t actually give us what we want.’

To deepen presence there are many routes and she says ‘it’s an ongoing exploration and experiment to find what helps increase your presence with life.’ This might be meditation, or it might be communing with the natural world.

‘Presence with nature reveals our nature, reveals truth. It connects us with that life giving energy we share with the entire world. When we’re in the natural world we realise who we are beyond the separate self, which is the freedom of true refuge.’

And to find inner refuge, asking the questions:

‘What is happening inside me right now? And can I be with this? These two questions are the essence of mindfulness.’

She shares much more wisdom in this particular podcast episode, as she does in all her talks. I am so grateful for her wisdom and for helping me to remember: remember presence, remember truth, remember love - when I forget, which is often.

‘We can find homecoming in the midst of a changing world by learning to befriend what’s happening, moment to moment.’

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There is another part to all this. I am acutely, painfully aware that as I sit here, in my home in Lewes, complaining about tiredness and overwhelm, that compared to so many innocent people in the world right now I am in a position of enormous privilege. Total safety. And when I read the news… I feel flooded by the horror. The hopelessness. Part of me is ashamed for writing anything at all about my own experience when I should be taking to the streets, screaming from the rooftops, using every penny I have to create change in the world. And I’m not doing that. Sometimes those thoughts can open up a sinkhole beneath me. One I collapse into with shame and despair.

I fluctuate between thinking I’m so important and special that I can save the world, and therefore should be dedicating my life to doing just that –

To swinging back to believing that I’m so utterly unimportant and useless and small that writing down a few words about being overwhelmed and tired and sharing how I get through life when things feel a bit harder – I mean, does it matter? Can it hurt? Could it, maybe, even help? Even if it’s just helping me.

I don’t know.

Shit, I’ve written another meandering essay. Forgive me. I’ve posted it anyway.

‘We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.’

Eleanor Roosevelt