Conversations & Stillness.

This first blog post of 2013 is inspired by a conversation that I had on Facebook earlier today. The friend i was in conversation with pointedly told me that I am too much in my own head, asked if i ever let other people finish a conversation and told me that I need to find the stillness in my life. Although the posts were self-evidently written in a loving and kind manner, they brought about an immediate and visceral reaction, which included some tears on my part. It bears emphasizing that the tears were not due to the tone of the comments at all, but due to the fact that they spoke to a deep inner combination of insecurity and fear that still exists in me. 

A huge part of my life has been very dark. There are long periods of my life (specifically my childhood) that i have no memory of ( those of you who are scientifically inclined will know that the brain's memory centre can shut out traumatic periods for protection)
and for the last few years, i have grappled on and off, with serious depression. 

My depression was, in part, triggered by what i refer to as my "Matrix" moment.
Those of you who have seen the film will recall the scene in which Morpheus offers Neo a red pill, and a blue pill. "You take the blue pill," he says, "and the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and i show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." 

Taking the red pill has for me, meant many things. It has meant life-changing decisions. It has meant finding a new career in Yoga and sports massage. It meant finding Yoga in the first place. It meant finding a few new people in my life whom i trust deeply and value deeply.

 It has also meant acknowledging harsh realities about certain people--people whom it would have been easier to keep seeing as i saw them before--with all that such a change entails, and it has meant 5 years of struggle to deal with that new reality. 

A part of what came out of the "Matrix moment," was the realization that for much of my life, I have not really been seen--the real Fabian--has not been seen, heard, or acknowledged by all bar a small group of people...10 of them at maximum. Whether in Boston, Melbourne or London, those people know who they are, and they mean the world to me. Around those people--some of whom were in my life before the "Matrix moment," some of whom came into it, after--i can find stillness, and I have been told that I am more Zen than i ever was before. 

It is with new people that i struggle....

I struggle because the insecurities are ingrained in my psyche so deeply, through years of conditioning, that they come to the surface. A demon pops up on a shoulder...it asks, "are you sure this person sees you? I think they don't. That schmuck is just faking it!" And often, that voice is louder than the better angel of my nature that sits on the other shoulder. 

I don't mean disrespect or rudeness when i talk over someone--or don't let them finish the conversation...i come from a place of insecurity of being unable to quite trust that they have heard or seen me. I know that can make me difficult to chat to, for people who don't yet know me well, and it is something that I am working on....

The struggle for stillness is equally difficult. I often can't sleep at night because my brain won't shut up. The demon and the angel chatter away in very loud voices. I find yoga classes without music very difficult for the same reason, and I can't meditate without having a classical adagio or self-hypnosis playlist going on, to distract and quiet my mind. 

At times...and the last half of 2012 and early 2013 are one of those times...this struggle is overwhelming. Seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes, and the struggle that comes with it is physically and emotionally draining in ways that are impossible to put into words. 

That said, two of my goals for 2013 are to overcome further those insecurities, and to be able to find what TS Eliot wrote of as "the stillness the dancing."