Is it a big deal?

Is it a big deal If I tell you that whatever is bothering you right now, whatever is scaring the shit out of you, or whatever keeps you up at night, will someday be gone and forgotten?

It’s not, right?

But it should be.

Let me tell you why.

We are so fucking lost.

Lost in the moment, lost in moods, in cravings, in anxiety, in daymares and judgments and predictions.

It just feels SO real.

As an alcoholic, I woke up every morning with a throbbing headache and the absolute certainty of being done with my destructive habit, of not drinking anymore, ever again.

It was a fact.

Until early in the afternoon, when the growing restlessness in my body made the brain look for answers, quick answers, alcoholic answers.

Which made looking for booze an absolutely important and necessary task.

Also a fact.

A new one.

Easy to see, right, when it’s about somebody else?

But do you really think you’re any different?

I’m not talking about the drinking, but about how all of our experiences always seem so important.

Facts.

They’re not.

You’re just cunningly fooled by the moment.

Now here’s what saved my life to begin with, and made it incredibly amazing after that:

I became very much aware of the facts.

That’s our absolute superpower.

I became more and more aware of the drama and the excitement and somehow made the awareness itself more important than the content of the moment.

We can experience all of life’s ups and downs, all of them, while knowing that we are simply having vivid experiences.

Still doesn’t sound like a big deal?

Well, it is, it really is.

Knowing that it just FEELS like you’re lost is different from feeling completely lost.

Knowing that your sadness just FEELS like something that will never ever go away, doesn’t cut out that feeling, but it softens up the hopelessness.

Knowing that whatever you are experiencing is temporary, REALLY knowing it and staying with that knowing instead of getting lost in the experience, sucks the absolute darkness out of whatever seems to be a fact.

Knowing that you’re lost in a mood doesn’t immediately change or delete it, but it can help you stay more open, more neutral, and more grounded.

Moods change, situations change, bodies change, opportunities appear and disappear, pain and misery and anxiety and anger flare up and die down, because it all comes and goes.

Except for the knowing itself.

The simple but crucial fact (a real one!) that you are aware of everything.

We know we’re suffering.

We know we’re craving.

We know every single one of our experiences, our emotions, our stories.

We know, we know, we know.

And that is really, really big.

We can stay with that knowing, instead of only BEING the mood, the emotion, the situation, the broken dream.

We can know that we are just deeply engaged in whatever is going on, even if it feels incredibly real and terrifying, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out.

We can know just enough to not fully believe it.

That is a big deal.

Really, really big.

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(Photo by @andrewtneel, for Unsplash)