The quagmire
I was struggling and I was scared.
My heart was racing and the panic was rising. Every time I moved I sank a little further. I sank a tiny amount; it was almost undetectable.
Sometimes I thought it was an illusion and that I wasn’t slowly sinking. My heart rate slowed down a little. I could see and pay attention to my surroundings more easily. When I was panicking I couldn’t really see what was around me. I was practically blind.
So I would look around. I would become more aware of my other senses. I could sense words almost forming in my mind. I sensed answers to my predicament just out of grasp. Grasp! Perhaps there was something I could hold onto which would save me and I could haul myself out. No. Too easy. Looking for one answer that would save me was probably naive.
I had tried to pull myself out before when my grasping fingers had found a root. The feeling of relief was almost overwhelming. As I got a better purchase I slowly started to pull myself out. I focussed now on the job in hand as the initial joy started to subside. I got a better grip and pulled harder. There was something about finding the root that seemed important. The answer would come in going back to the roots.
I dismissed this thought as I focussed more and pulled harder. I lost grip and the root ran through my fingers. I flailed desparately to find the root again. It had disappeared! How could it have gone so easily? As my futile efforts subsided the hope disappeared again and was replaced with a kind of numbness. This feeling of hope followed by despair was exhausting. My body was telling me to stop. This effort was being wasted. It was futile. Stop feeling.
I had stopped sinking at least. I was neither sinking or escaping. I was just being. For a while there was some pleasure to be had in this. Simply being, not being overwhelmed by emotion. This had happened to me before. It could go one of two ways. Withdrawing completely from the world and my predicament into my head. Or, an opportunity to sense and feel in a more calm state of mind. The latter was better but it it was easy to get stuck in my own head. Into a doom loop of thought. It made a lot of sense in some ways. I kept trying to escape but it never seemed to work. What was the point in doing anything? I thought that I had to do something. That was the only way to escape.
Perhaps I could just be?
Where did that thought come from? The voices in my head queued up to laugh at the ridiculous idea.
If you’re not doing anything, how will anything get done? How do you escape from here?
You’re an idiot (some of the voices were very direct!)
Just go up a mountain and meditate then!
Some voices were a little kinder and more encouraging
Trees seem to be very good at being and not doing and they’ve been pretty successful!
Trees do get stuff done! You just can’t see it. Look at how many 100’s of litres of water that is taken out of the ground and shared with their branches and leaves when they are growing.
I was a little confused. This wasn’t helping me. Unless stopping visible acivity and simply sensing and feeling was a type of doing.
As I emerged from this daydream, I noticed that I wasn’t sinking at in a quagmire at all. It had disappeared! And then it was back. For a moment the quagmire had gone.
Rather than panic I was in awe. The power of the mind is awesome. It seemed that the quagmire didn’t really exist. It was a creation of my own mind. But I couldn’t let go of it somehow. Maybe the truth was somewhere imbetween. I was stuck in a quagmire and yet I wasn’t. Sometimes it was useful to see how I was stuck so that I could see how I could escape from my own beliefs. And at other times it was useful to see that it was my own creation and I had a choice whether to see it or not.
I relaxed and took stock. I felt the quagmire and I calmly assessed my surroundings again. I stayed still and allowed the answers to come to me.
