Day 24

2:00 a.m. I emerged from a cloud of sleep, becoming increasingly aware of a low, pulsating electronic alarm. It was somewhere in my bedroom. I finally identified the annoyance emanating from my partner's wristwatch right before it subsided. Unfortunately, I was wide awake at this point. It wasn't long before my thoughts were teeming. I laid in bed for another hour toying with a variety of ideas. At 3:00 a.m. it was clear that there would be no more sleep for me. They say that 3:00 a.m. is the witching hour. I know that it is the time when it is most difficult to quiet my thoughts. The great thing about a blog is that it gives you a tidy place to store those thoughts.

I woke up thinking about a phone conversation I had yesterday. A close friend called and said: "I'm feeling kind of down today." I said: "What's going on?" He went on to describe some recent thoughts about himself and life in general, some of which he found disturbing.

This got me thinking...

When he says, "I'm feeling down" what does he mean?

I think he means I am sad. Feelings are, in many ways, a sensory experience, just like seeing or smelling. However, our egos try to convince us that feelings are something else. We begin to try to interpret our feelings, tie them to events and circumstances, instead of merely experiencing them as they arise and fall away.

So my friend says, "I am feeling down, because..." Interesting. We never say: I see clouds in the sky because...Instead we merely see. Images come into our range of sight and pass through. We don't ask why.

Another thing about feelings...I have noticed that there is a pattern to my friend's feelings. He often feels "down." I, on the other hand, often feel scared. I describe these feelings as worried, nervous, anxious. But they are all fear. My friend's most prevalent feeling seems to be sadness.

Perhaps we feel certain ways because of patterns that are established early on. I had an insecure, unstable childhood. Did I learn to be afraid? Did my friend have a childhood filled with grief? How do we break these patterns?

For me, there is an antidote to fear. It is present moment awareness. I often have to remind myself that in this moment I am safe. I may not know what the future holds, but for right now I have nothing to fear. I sometimes even say to myself: I am safe.

What about my sad friend? Is there an antidote to sadness? I think that sadness must come from unresolved grief. When a person is given the space and support for grieving perhaps the sadness dissipates like clouds passing through consciousness.

It is 4:51 am and these are my ramblings. Please don't judge, lest you wake at 3:00 am bewitched by strange thoughts. And now for breakfast...