On Sometimes, I Sits and Thinks

I've spent a while now waiting for the inflammation to subside in my dominant arm golfer's elbow tendon. It's not gone, even yet, but it's much better.

I let go the compulsion to write, and just blew it off, to get the pressure off myself. I have vastly enjoyed the freedom of knowing I can refuse myself a compulsion. Just to tell my compulsive mind that I'm not going to do that, today, AND I'm not going to obsess about NOT doing it, TODAY. It's been a freeing sort of few weeks, just to feel that small lesson.

"Recovery" is such a powerful word, once one embraces and surrenders in one's own recovery process. It infiltrates the mind and powers the mindfulness of the way we live, and starts to tint all our thoughts. Even in the smallest ways.

For example, I now notice every time I turn on my computer that it flashes me the message "Press F11 for recovery" upon boot up. Did you ever notice that?

And I do other things, too. Like actually think about forgiving myself. Previously, I would have gone into an obsessive spiral of subconscious self-blame and judgement whenever a compulsion would arise and I would try to deal with its power. Now, that sucker gets thrown into the spotlight in my conscious thought, and I give it a good look, and start to talk back. I'm done with being mute. I'm in charge, in my recovery, and am no longer a slave to the quiet whispers of compulsions. They still have power, and still take up a lot of real estate in my head. But now I'm not alone. Or the bottom line, to dealing with them. Now I can punt: up-delegate to my HP and then just pull out the tools and focus on the next right thing, in this moment, and not get all paralyzed in a useless debate about a larger-than-life scenario that I can't hope to conquer.

And the thing about this that is surprising to me is that this whole process now results in comfort, instead of anxiety.

Whoa, what a difference.

Thing is, I never felt all that anxious, before recovery. But now that I feel the comfort, I can look back and see that I was anxious. Anxious, but disconnected from feeling it. I was stressed, and anxious, trying to solve the universe, trying to take on the whole enchilada in one bite.

I'm in an intense group that has been gnawing through the early stages of studying intimacy. It's a small group, usually only 4-5 people. We really get into it, and it's tiring and scary, and exhilirating at the same time. And it's mixed gender, too, which makes it extra-challenging. But we are finding that with each heave we give - opening up, and laying aside our fears and biases - we are growing much closer to each other, finding a core trust, and building a base to get to amazing places of growth. It's utterly fascinating to see this happen, weekly, like some sort of gel, or polymerization.

A bit of trust happens, we hear some risky revelation from one of us, we feel the weight of the responsibility of keeping that revelation private and protected within our group, then we grow closer and deepen our trust. We push ourselves to open up more, enter that danger zone of revelation, putting stuff out there that we never did, before, to anyone.

Talk about the ultimate rush. Rather like emotional bungee jumping.

That's where I've been, lately. Spending some quiet time, sitting and thinking, and doing a good bit of real-life F2F work.

Those above paragraphs are actually related, you see. Because we all want that fantasy intimacy Hollywood has painted into our minds. We want that wash of honeymoon euphoria, that intense rush of enmeshment with a soulmate. Or we think we do; we were taught to want this.

But in the end, what it is that we want is comfort from intimacy. See? My rambling paragraphs are related.

We want "intimacy" the way we want the Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments God. Big, loud, larger-than-life. Right out there, in front of us. Unmistakable. Grand. Theatrical.

But real intimacy, like our real HPs, is a still, small thing. It's very stillness and smallness accentuates the power, when it's finally experienced.

When we stop spinning and learn to calm ourselves and listen, and one day we don't hear, but rather feel God - perhaps by seeing His reflection in something we see or hear in another person, or perhaps by noticing something WE say or do or think that is fundamentally abnormal to our previous way of being - it's so much more powerful than if He had clobbered us over the head with the club, in judgement or commandment. Because He only interfaces with us in an intimate fashion, so it's still, and small, and when we FINALLY feel it, powerful. And comforting.

Likewise, when we settle ourselves and flay open our fears with our sharpened courage, and reveal ourselves to a person of importance in our life, and that person takes in the revelation and later reflects it in some small, understated act of love - it's a powerful, powerful thing. That's intimacy. And it's absolutely no mistake that it's totally analogous to how our HP interacts with us. Still. Small. Quiet. Powerful.

Feels good to get back to a bit of writing, but I can already feel the tendon burning, so this will have to do.

And you know what? I'm not feeling the need to look for a graphic to go with this, plain-Jane as this is.

And that's ok.

- The Traveler