When Peace Feels Scarier Than Fighting
If you only feel worthy for slaying beasts, you're always going to be looking for more to kill before they find you.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about why I have long lived in such polarity- either deeply happy or deeply sad, bursting with pride or drowning in self hatred, at ease or ready to bolt. I started to pick this apart in group therapy last year.
I think I pinpointed that all the “highs” of my life have come alongside triumphs of pain, chaos, poverty, trauma.
Group therapy is something I feel everyone could benefit from, which is not at all the opinion I had of it before I checked into a partial hospitalization program.
The list of reasons why is long, and I hope to write more about all of it. Today, though, I am telling you that group therapy taught me to sit in the middle- the gray- the uncomfortable and unknown- with no promise of extreme reward, but also the comfort that I was safe and only needed to show up.
I would not have to run from danger, nor would I be applauded for doing so.
And it’s here, in this middle, where I’ve tried to live as much as possible since my program.
It’s a completely new way of living for me- to find contentment and peace more fulfilling than achievements and overcoming obstacles. And to sit in peace and the present without letting fear of the future and shame of the past intrude.
When I don’t have things like pain, chaos, poverty, and trauma to battle against, I must consciously choose to live in the middle, and not create & attract those beasts to slay.
When I am safe, I must consciously choose to acknowledge that, instead of telling myself stories of why I don’t deserve to feel safe.
After a lifetime of seeking the high that comes from slaying beasts, and running from the fear of them slaying me, it feels risky and lazy to embrace the middle- the stillness- the peace.
A nervous system that only knows extremes will feel threatened by the middle. Keeping myself here & grounded will be some of the hardest, most important work of my life.
I am re-teaching my brain that the high of survival is not superior to the peace of maintaining stasis.
Thanks to all of my new readers and subscribers! All my posts have been public and free to access, but I’m about to jump back in and write some subscriber-only content. I plan to share more openly about divorce and mental health behind that paywall.