Escaping to Now

 

Listen to the recording at the beginning of the post on my website during your next walk or commute or follow along with this 10-minute read. Enjoy!

 

Three years ago this Fall, I packed my car with everything I owned and drove away from my communal home, away from my position as a spiritual teacher, and away from my last boyfriend with his hood pulled down over his face and his head in his hands. On my way out of town, I met with a friend who had agreed to buy my iPad. I knew her just well enough to be honest when she asked me how I was doing. I was aching. I was frightened. And I was relieved to be free of months of agony trying to get love and security from people who just didn’t seem to get me.

“You’re running away,” she said, in a matter-of-fact way. I suddenly felt as though I had made a terrible mistake – one I couldn’t take back and one that would haunt me. I felt profoundly exposed, and a sense of shame and despair rose up in me. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be doing it,” she added, “I’m just saying that whatever you are trying to escape, you are taking with you.”

She was right. In a matter of months, I could see myself starting down that same road in my new life. The next attempt at a relationship felt even more crazy. The next job was even more demanding with even less satisfaction. And while I explored community after community, I found them all disappointing and myself increasingly hopeless that there was anything better anywhere. I was already pushing people away, antagonizing them, feeling entitled, and feeling overwhelmed, and I felt powerless to stop it.

When I lost the will to live, what brought me back was knowing, deep in my sinews and bones, that there was no escape. Not in this life or the next. I had already jumped off the cliff, several times in succession, and was thoroughly shattered on the valley floor. I literally didn’t have the energy, health, imagination, stamina, or hope to run anymore. I had two choices: face this now or face this later. And if I could turn towards the mess my life had become and find a way to get through it, I would have something of real substance to offer all the others who were also trapped in impossible situations.

The question I was left with was: “How?” My friend had been right. I wasn’t wrong to have left a community in which I had become unable to function and had been instigating a humiliating and accelerating degree of drama. But many, many choices had led up to that final entirely toxic and unmanageable situation. And most of them were tied to my attempts to cope with an overwhelming flood of difficult feelings by numbing out on food, Facebook, and fantasizing about dream homes, jobs, and relationships. The reality of my situation seemed too much to handle, but how could I learn to navigate everything if I was so committed to avoiding reality?

“Power comes from clarity and honesty,” a new friend told me a few short weeks ago. “If you are feeling anxious, if you are bargaining, if you are resenting yourself or blaming your circumstances, if you are trying to fix everything, you aren’t yet clear about what you really need and what you are willing to sacrifice. Once you are clear, you can be honest with yourself and others and let go of the outcome, because being aligned with Good Orderly Direction means all will be well.”

After six months of working remotely during shelter in place, my boss has asked me to return to the office. I have spent months in anxiety about what to do when this happened, how to protect myself from almost daily triggers of my fight/flight response from working near him, how to face the prospect of being without work during a global pandemic and my irrationally intense fear of the job hunt. I had already planned to quit over the summer, to leave town and live on a farm while building my spiritual offerings, but my sponsor pointed out that this is just my addiction weaving fantasies to avoid facing reality and taking responsibility for myself.  Fortunately, I was willing to listen to her.

Everything in my body is telling me it isn’t safe for me to return to the office, while everything I’ve been practicing is telling me not to run away from it. I know that the trauma that lives in my body can twist minor mishaps into recaps of past life-threatening situations. And I also know that my recovery depends on learning to discern and trust the voice of wisdom inside myself. If I can’t stay or leave, and I’m unsure what my body is telling me, how do I know what to do?

The one thing that remains to me is prayer; a concept that has stuck awkward and jagged in my heart and throat for so many years. But my prayer today isn’t the sort that asks that my troubles be removed or that I get everything I want. It’s the sort of prayer that understands that whatever is listening sees more broadly than I can, loves me more infinitely than I can imagine, can orchestrate the impossible, and is also limited by the laws of physics and the free will of everyone around me.

“Show me what is mine to do, what is the right thing for everyone in this situation. Let me and my boss be filled with the grace and groundedness and thoughtfulness and foresight and trust and well-being I am seeking. Help us turn away from looking for answers in each other to seeking clarity inside. Help me trust whatever serves the greater good is also in my own interest, even if I am confused or frightened. If you want me to go back to the office, I will. If you want me to quit, I will. Please just help me discern your guidance.”

The first thing that happened was that I sat in meditation, imagining myself returning to the office and seeing my boss for the first time in six months, and I felt no agitation, no recoiling, no need to defend myself. The next day I had a number of beautiful interactions with our clients and felt how much I would miss knowing them and supporting them. The following day was my weekly off-hours visit to check the mail and inventory, and I happened to receive two deliveries while phoning in our supplement order, and felt my whole body tense up and go into overwhelm. The day after that, I spoke with my sponsor and she reminded me of the lingering and very real risk of COVID given my auto-immunity and of the chronic health issues that can linger even after the initial infection fades.

All of these bits wove together into a deep sense of ease in my body, and a simple knowing. I can’t return to the office. This isn’t about unraveling the epic drama my boss and I are engaged in. It’s about these tasks not being the right fit for me. It’s about protecting my health. It’s about distilling what I love and am naturally good at, and knowing that someone else needs me, someone I would serve with genuine generosity and admiration, and who would provide me a deeper sense of ease and satisfaction. And it’s about creating space for the person who can better meet his needs, and is eager for the opportunity, to join us.

Clarity doesn’t come with a road map. It simply comes with a sense of conviction and boldness, unveiling one-by-one the right words, the right tone, the right timing for what needs doing next. It requires a willingness to stop and survey the landscape for the real threats and opportunities instead of bolting from a rustling in the bushes straight into the jaws of another predator. It enables me to act in a way that is clean, honest, and direct, free of hidden motives, and in service to more than just my own self-interest. That is the energy that opens up space for everyone involved – my boss, our clients, and myself – to receive what is trying to reach us. As long as I am clinging to my idea of how things should go, what he should do, how I should feel, what I am supposed to be learning, I am blocking the flow of greater goodness to everyone.

I may be beginning the process of transitioning out of my job, but I am not running away. I am standing still in the center of my knowing. Speaking my clarity with honesty allows things to shift around me. I have no idea how he will respond to my decision – whether he will honor my request, lay me off, or negotiate reduced hours – but that is out of my control. I have no idea how I will adapt to the new life that finds me, but I know that the same presence that gives me clarity today will be with me then, as long as I continue to pray for genuine clarity. That gives me both courage and hope.

Last night, I dreamed I was in a vast gymnasium hung with arial silks. I had one twisted around my left wrist in a perfect knot – strong and gentle. I was trying to wrap a second silk around my right wrist in exactly the same way, but time was running out and I had to launch. I held on as best I could, and glided through the air with effortless grace to everyone’s surprise and amazement, including mine. I felt deliciously liberated and exhilarated. It might also be worth noting that I wasn’t wearing any pants, but I’ll have to leave that one for next time.

Nancy