We're Open

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easily we (I) close up. It is pretty sad, how quick we are to flee, shut down, clench, and tighten. This is a reflexive, protective mechanism designed to brace us for impact. Even if there is no present and immediate threat of pain, we are so conditioned to expect some kind of hurt, that our bodies shut down. Like armadillos, we squeeze and shrink out of self protection and preservation. Feelings of fear will show up in the body in so many different ways. I talked to a friend yesterday who recently went back on the anti depressants he swore off a few months ago. He was afraid of how they eliminated all emotion. Yesterday this person admitted that facing the flood of feelings and fears was too draining, and required too much effort to contend with. So, he’s back on the pills and now “everything is great”. I was really taken aback at that decision. It’s surely not mine to make. To be able to articulate that taking a pill is so much easier than facing reality, that sounded like someone giving up on themselves. It’s basically admitting you cannot tolerate your reality as is, and so you’ll keep renewing whatever prescription gets you the hell out of there. There are so many reasons why, and ways how, we close down in order to protect ourselves and our stories. A child expresses something that’s tough and inconvenient for a parent to hear; the mother’s stomach clenches. A spouse is in a bad mood so we pretend we have an errand to do NOW. One suspects a friend is angry at them, so she avoids her texts. Trapped fears will always seek an escape route via the body.
 

The three most common reactions to stress and pain are fight, flight, or freeze. It’s important to learn your own chief reactive reflex. Awareness is the key to unlearning, and beginning to face anything that has us stuck. All our interactions and interpersonal dynamics will remain as stuck as we ourselves are. It’s really unfair to drag others into our own need for reflexive protection. By no means am I talking about taking any sort of abuse. Absolutely remove yourself. It’s like that saying, “Do no harm, but take no shit”. My reaction is flight. I’m sure I hid plenty in my room as a kid when I was afraid of getting in trouble. When we learn that hiding works, we do it again and again. I used to have a tendency to hang up the phone in a conversation I just couldn’t tolerate. It’s really only words; but I had so much fear and discomfort wrapped up in them, and had to check out. Again, do not remain in a verbally abusive situation, but also please know that words alone cannot hurt you. It’s how we relate to them that can. It’s the part of us that agrees or disagrees with them that determines our response. Slamming down the phone, leaving the room, checking out of a difficult discussion, looking at the phone while someone is trying to talk to us, clenching our stomach muscles, or launching into the silent treatment, are just of the ways we shut down. It never fixes anything or makes us feel better long term. It’s an understandable reflex, but it has to be compassionately monitored. We have to know that we can feel safe without it. We have to know we don’t have to bounce in order to self preserve. Staying open in life is so crucial. A close mind is an unhappy one, same with a closed heart. A closed, stiff body physically hurts. So many people I know speak of waking up in the morning with clenched fists. Prying open their innocent fingers is the first thing they do upon waking. I woke up like that for many years. Even in sleep, the conditioning to shut down takes over.

Last week, someone important to me said something that wounded me. My reflex was to ignore this person. I am an expert at ignoring, blocking, and deleting, sometimes to a fault. That decision has served me well many times, but I can be rash. I noticed the physical sensations in my body from a purely observational standpoint, as I have been taught to do in meditation. No opinions, just noticing. Stomach is tight, heart feels closed, feeling sad, feeling misunderstood. Just noticing and making a mental list. Exploring the sad feeling of being misunderstood, which goes back forever. Acknowledging the pain in that. Validating it. Realizing that this particular person seems to generally see me clearly, so perhaps my reflexes to ignore are coming from the past. Knowing that my goal is to be closer to this person, not get further away, and that shutting down will not support that goal. Breathing through the clenching, telling myself it’s all ok, it is all part of this experience. Since the dawn of time, humans have misunderstood each other. This is just one of those times. It can pass if handled skillfully. Human interactions are often far less personal than we jump to assume they are. It’s an opportunity for me to fight to stay open, to override the shut down reflexes that have protected me in the past. I don’t need that sort of protection anymore. I can handle it, whatever it is. It was hard for me, but I was honest about all of this. We talked, it led to a deeper emotional intimacy, as is often the outcome. We can’t let people in if we are closed off to our own experience. To shut down might protect, but it will also rob you of the chance to allow the right stuff in. The right people will want you to stay open, and support you in your struggle for presence. Never fear honesty; see it as a litmus test for who can handle your stuff. Above all, know your stuff isn’t you. It’s passing phenomena. Stay open so that in can come out the other end of the way it entered. Stay open, even if you have to claw yourself apart. Create space, send breath through that space, and unclench. Pause. Don’t run, don’t check out. Your thoughts can’t hurt you. Let whatever it is wash over you and then through you. It is one of the great human battles, to remain spacious. And it leads to the greatest emotional victories. It’s always worth the commitment and effort.