Fractals

Daily Calm: July 2nd
Fractals

"Don't worry if you can't feel everything at once. Just keep trying to sense the whole breath and accept whatever comes into your awareness."

Feeling everything at once just set me off into a fun moment of hyperventilation. Right now I wish I didn't feel anything at all. I am very aware of everything in this moment that I am forced to accept, and it's too much all at once. I am exceptionally overwhelmed in this moment.

"As we watch the breath moving through our whole bodies, it can make us aware of the natural rhythm, like the movement of the ocean tides, a pattern of rain, or the swaying of tree branches. Learning to sense the breath in this way is like discovering we have a beach front view, right in front of us. Now, gently relax your attention. Today we'll explore the idea of fractals. To start, lets bring to mind an image together. Imagine you are flying in a helicopter, high above a rugged coast line on a clear day. Cruising at 3,000 feet, you can see for miles. And the coast is a jagged line where earth meets ocean. As the helicopter descends to lower altitudes, the zoomed in coast line looks quite smaller to the wider view from higher up. It has a similar pattern of sweeping bays, dented inlets, curling coves. As you descend towards the ground, the smaller pieces of coastline have much the same shape as the larger whole. Scientists have a word to describe this kind of shape or pattern, where a basic motif is repeated again and again, in different scales. It's called a fractal. And the concept helps scientists understand everything from trees to mountains to the neural networks of your brain. It can be helpful to see our mindfulness practice as kind of a fractal. Like the coast line, we can zoom in or zoom out, when thinking about our practice, and find similarities across different scales. Within a single sit, you'll likely forget to watch the breath many times, and return to it, many times. If you zoom out and look at your practice over a few weeks, you will see there are days when you remember to sit, or days when you forget or can't find the time. If you zoom out even further, thinking of your practice over months or even years, you'll see seasons within your practice. Times when months go by and you're lost in the busyness of life, unable to prioritize meditation. This doesn't mean you've abandoned your practice. One day, when the time is right, you'll return to the cushion. And it's like meeting an old friend after a long time apart. These patterns, where we stray from the breath and come back, where we stray from our practice and come back, are like a fractal. As natural in their own way as the jagged coast line. This realization can help you feel less self blaming during those periods when your mind wanders. Or when you struggle to practice consistently, just remember it's all part of the fractal. As Sharon Salsburg said, 'I've often thought of meditation as being like a fractal. Where one small part of something is a tiny, perfect replica of the whole.'"

I listened to this meditation with a great heaviness in my heart. My inability to calm down was reaching a fever pitch and I was feeling completely alone and afraid. I called my brother to come stay with me, as I was starting to really panic. Then I called him back. Told him to go home. He asked if I would be okay. I said I would be fine. I decided to listen to a meditation instead of listening to him gush on and on about how he has an over abundance of love in his life - so much so he doesn't know what to do with it. I sent him away and I am sitting in the dark alone.

I listened to the meditation and I realized that I have found myself in familiar waters yet again. Waters I swore I would never be in again. I had put my faith and trust in another, and in response, I have been passed over for the potential in someone else. How horrible a feeling, to be essentially dumped over a "maybe..." in another person. I cracked myself open. I was vulnerable and honest and I was myself. I was all these things and it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. This wasn't the first time this has happened.

But it will be the last.

I can't do this anymore. This hurts, and I'm overwhelmingly sad. How am I supposed to just carry on and pretend like it doesn't matter? That it didn't matter to me? IT DID MATTER. All of it.

And you know what? Even though I feel like I can't breathe and the thought of eating ever again makes me want to fling myself out a window, I won't. 

Even though I'm absolutely dying inside in this moment, I'm also proud of myself. I loved someone unconditionally. I opened up. I was vulnerable. I communicated my needs in a really healthy way. I spoke my truth. So did they. Their truth just included a future with someone else. I wasn't what they needed or wanted. That hurts. But they also respected me enough to tell me. I'm grateful for that, and I'll appreciate it more... later. All I wanted was to be there for them, but to be wanted in return. That isn't how this tends to pan out for me.

I'm so... Disappointed.

The worst part in this moment? I feel like I have to mourn the loss of a man I love... while he's still alive. I'm off the list. I'm terrified I'll forever remain "the secret" that doesn't deserve reassurance, recognition, or acknowledgement. That nightmare I kept having about not belonging? Yeah, that just came true. That is my reality now.

Is this my role? Is this my fractal? What am I supposed to do here? "Keep doing what you've been doing." Okay, but then what? How do I avoid this in the future? How do I stop being the lesser choice?

It's been a hard day.

I have no choice.

I'm too tired to pick up all those bricks I've shed along the way in the last 6 months of this journey. I don't have anything left in me to build new walls. I don't want to hate and fume and say cruel things (true or otherwise).

Everything hurts. Everything.