Escaping from the need to escape

My wife and I have been without electricity for 11 days during the aftermath of the worst ice storm to hit Oregon in a long time. In fact, it might have been the worst ice storm ever to hit the state.

Today, while I was on a dog walk around our rural south Salem neighborhood, I heard someone scream in delight. Then I noticed lights on in houses. 

For the rest of my walk home I visualized coming back to a house with electricity. I pictured myself taking a hot bath for the first time in over a week and a half. I thought about the joy of turning our generator off.

Then I walked in our front door and flipped a switch in the entry way. Nothing happened. We still lacked power. After calling PGE, our utility company, it became clear that we were one of only a few houses whose electricity hadn't come back on.

On our neighborhood's Facebook page person after person was posting about how happy they were.

Me, I was astoundingly sad. After eleven days of worrying about when our power would be restored, now I had to start over -- worrying about when a repair crew would fix the small outage of ourselves and a couple of neighbors.

For much of tonight I felt listless, low energy, too despondent to write a blog post.

So I decided to make a transcript of a guided meditation by Jeff Warren I'd listened to this morning on my Calm iPhone app. It helped a lot to do this. 

You won't get the same feel from Warren's words as if you heard him speak them himself. And the pauses in the guided meditation aren't shown in the transcript.

But I hope you'll like what Warren says as much as I did. Enjoy.

The Great Escape

Do you ever find yourself plotting your escape? I do. My mind goes around and around, trying to figure how to get out of my situation. 

I think, maybe I can travel somewhere new. Nope. 

Maybe I can go see my friends. Nope.

Maybe I can just go outside and lay down in the sun, and just escape my responsibilities for one day. Nope.

Right now the pandemic has many of us confined. All our normal escape routes are blocked, all the usual ways we take care of ourselves. 

What to do? It's an ironclad rule of human existence, when there's nowhere else to go, when we can't escape from our life, then we have to learn to escape into our life.

The greatest escape actually isn't an escape at all. It's showing up in a new way.

So here's a practice for whenever you're having a hard time and feeling trapped. If you're feeling just fine, this is also a good practice to explore.

Because the skills you strengthen here are relevant to being human anytime. Let's go.

Close your eyes and then take in a few full deep breaths. As you inhale, stretch up the spine, find some dignity in the posture, like you're connecting to human nobility and fierceness in facing your life.

Then, as you breathe out, imagine you're breathing out an intention, or reservations, or worry. 

Some nice long exhales. Now find your equanimity. Equanimity is the muscle of staying open. Open to the full 360 surround of sensations and sounds and thoughts, open to what actually is here.

So let's start with some basic Humanity 101. 

Sometimes life is hard. Feeling like life is hard puts everyone of us in good company. So we can practice sending some kindness to ourselves, whether we're feeling just fine or whether we're not feeling so fine.

You can say something to yourself like, hey, I've got your back here. I'm the part that sends in the love. Here you go. 

So you're not after some big sentimental swell here, though that can happen. You're more after an acknowledgement of caring. 

Take a moment to just feel what you feel. Caring about yourself exactly as you care about a friend who is having a hard time. To you, it feels calm, patient. You're just being present.

Or maybe I feel strong and supportive. Maybe it feels warm and loving. All these are expressions of caring. You can say your phrase and send in your caring, in your way.

Try this for a bit.

OK, so keep that caring attitude going on in the background. Our next move is acceptance. Can you feel everything you're feeling without needing to change it?

This is how we make space. It's the beginning of escaping from the need to escape. 

If you want a bit of extra support, it can help to lightly pay attention to a home base. It may be the feeling of the breath at the nostrils, or some background sound. 

Keep going here.

OK, so maybe you are lightly paying attention to a home base, like the soft sensation of the breath. And all the while, you've got this attitude of caring, of accepting your situation. 

Letting go the problem solving, the scheming, of any attempts to avoid whatever it is you're feeling. You're just being where you are.

This is being human practice. Opening to how we are. And if the feelings are strong, remember your support. The breath, or your home base. 

Remember your caring acknowledgment that this can be hard.

And now, in this final stretch, just rest. 

No external freedom is forever, because life keeps mixing it up. That's just how it is. Fortunately, freedom also can come from the inside. 

It has to do with our capacity to make space, moment by moment, for exactly what's here. 

Instead of getting free from our life, we get free around it and with it. Sometimes this is easy. Sometimes this is ridiculously hard. We do it anyway. 

Because that's what humans do. 

When you're ready, open your eyes. Very good to be human with you.

Comments

[albert medina]

One of the great benefits of the global virus hysteria and lockdown narrative is the emergence of a new introspection within many folks of the civilized world. This may occur in an imperceptible way or a concrete and melodramatic way. Every grade of inward movement of consciousness, in between these extremes, has been seen since the early part of 2020. I believe this is a good thing, generally speaking. This post, Brian, shows the beauty and necessity of embracing one's current surroundings, home, family and basic needs. All too often the great escape is actually a diversion and distraction from life, itself. Pleasure seeking, socializing and overindulgence have been greatly curtailed in much of the civilized world. I have friends in the UK and NZ - they have been forced into a contracted world, to introspect and find a greater meaning in the basics of living, in very much a smaller space. Thanks for a superb article.

[Jen]

"Instead of getting free from our life, we get free around it and with it. Sometimes this is easy. Sometimes this is ridiculously hard. We do it anyway."

Still exploring my 'new lifestyle' living in an Aged Care Home and watching my reactions especially when I start to think about how independent I have always been for so many years.

I tell myself to look at the good side of having so much help as I'm getting older. Also, I remind myself that I don't have to do the cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, only have one bill taken from my pension. This really perks me up and I remind myself to be grateful, especially when so many people are having such difficult times.

[s*]

Very nice post from you Jen!
You are sweet and brave..
Take care
Love,
s*

[Jen]

Hi S*, thanks for your lovely reply and also thanks to Manjit and Appreciative Reader for their kind replies.

I've been very interested in the Staff Members where I am now, they are lovely people and because I am interested in the countries where they come from I ask them and have a chat and make notes on my iPhone and I'm enjoying the multicultural environment...

Four people from Nepal, one from Eritrea, one from Phillipines, also one from Qingdao China, one from Congo, another from Zimbabwe, and also one from New Deli, India.

[manjit]

Hi Jen,

I have to say it has been a genuine delight and joy reading your last few posts, thanks for sharing :)

I can only hope & pray I am able to show the same courage, positivity and good-humour to life's uncertainties that you embody here.

It sounds like you have a fascinating new social surroundings - personally I love variety, multi-culturalism, the good and the bad.....life would be so boring if we were all the same wouldn't it? ;)

PS - re your OBE, how interesting! What was you doing on the day and time it happened? If you wished, you could try and do it again using some simple techniques, you know....

Much love,

Manjit

[Spence Tepper]

If you must follow someone else's instructions on what to think and feel in order to feel better, that's ok. It's like reading poetry and escaping into someone else's thoughts for a while. And that's a fine way to feel better.

But it's all in you. Become your own poet. Find the poet inside you.

He's your Master. Give everything to Him, starting with your complaint. He will return peace and happiness.

In the heart of every difficulty is paradise

Because every tiny space of this creation carries the infinite. We lost connection for a moment, that is all.

And contemplation of that empty space, is that spirit, of that fullness of life reconnects us. And Life continues its thing flowing through us with all wisdom and compassion. We don't make it. It already is. We are each fragmented reflections of life from our fragment in this place. Reconnect with the whole that is actually alive.

The power is on all the time, 24x7.

[Jen]

Hi Manjit,

About the OBE, how it happened was unexpected and the fact that I felt so very calm and at peace looking down at my body and then waking up it felt so comforting in many ways. It also reminded me that being the 'observer' is a good way to keep one's balance when in difficult situations. Now, after my experience I think that the observer mode is actually one's own inner being, call it spirit or soul.

Hi Spence,

Lovely comment...
"Because every tiny space of this creation carries the infinite. We lost connection for a moment, that is all.
And contemplation of that empty space, is that spirit, of that fullness of life reconnects us. And Life continues its thing flowing through us with all wisdom and compassion."