being still

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is sit still. I don't mean sit down and watch TV, or sit down and play video games, or sit down and have anything to do, really, I mean to actually sit and be still. To be present, be aware of yourself, be aware of your feelings, be aware of your thoughts and, without getting distracted by any of it, just know yourself in a valuable, meaningful way. Good work happens when you know yourself.

I've never been particularly good at it. There are far too many distractions available for me to do it very well. Too many things to do, and see, and search for on the internet, a true cornucopia of miscellanea. In a world full of distractions we too easily allow ourselves to be anything but distracted. 

Eventually, if you're lucky, you find out the reason why you allow yourself to be distracted. I am so uncomfortable with dealing with my feelings and the thoughts associated that I would rather be distracted than feel and think and do something about them. I think my eventually came about because of two things: 1) I spent so much time by myself that I ran out of distractions, I ran out of ways of pushing aside and ignoring them. I didn't have new and interesting ways to distract because I didn't have anyone around the help me find them. 2) Everything that I was thinking and feeling was being pushed into a place that could hold no more. That cup overflowith. Maybe as a result of therapy finally kicking in. 

When your world is closing in, when your coping mechanisms are failing, when you can't even sit in your apartment without bouncing off of the walls because you're so upset and frustrated with yourself and with the world, you're kinda forced to learn to be still. At some point you actually have to deal with the stuff that's going on.

This is appropriate now because I've been sitting here all day distracting myself. I noticed because I got up and walked around and forgot where I was going and then remembered and then promptly forgot again. I was actually walking around in circles. I've been fidgety and uncomfortable all day. With everything that's been going on and everything that's up in the air and everything that I have little control over its really no wonder. These problems and issues and trials and feelings and thoughts aren't just going away.

So now I have to be still again, and I hate it.