The Derealization of Freedom
“Give yourself what you need today. Coffee. Patience. Kindness. A timeout so you don’t bust a vein in your forehead. It’s called self-love.” – Nanea Hoffman
I just got home from Amsterdam. We had the best time with our dear friends. These are my “Safe People”, as Micky Atkins says, and we are connected soul to soul. And though I thought I left the tension of the elections behind me as I mailed in my ballot, the violence that erupted after the Ajax-Maccabi game the night before we left reminded me that we did not.
There was no denying that we are inter-connected to this web of conflict in so many seen and unseen ways - that there is no plane, no idea, no belief or model or reason which can disengage us from this reality and responsibility. In the same breath, I was encouraged to recognize that the problem is in seeking a solution rather than being open to finding the truth, even if it exists outside our own beliefs.
And so, somewhere within the canals of Delft and the bastion of Naardan - between glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and Borrelplank and within the raucous retelling of how we met and why we love each other - there was, simultaneously, a deep welling of conflicting emotion.
… sadness and joy awakened by dimmed memories of freedom and wellbeing that seemed untenable under these circumstances of great stress and uncertainty.
“Either way, we are divided.” I reasoned, “and so, fundamentalism was destined to win.” This, I was sure is what is shared.
But what was mine?
My mind scanned the silent moment after the Ajax Rally at Dam Square; a bastion of garbage and irreverence was left behind by fans that knew someone or something was going to clean it away. There was freedom in that, but free from what?
“Mine” was the garbage “I” left behind in rallying for my team and beliefs. The result of those beliefs was already done and over, however the debris of that fear remained.
The only thing I could control at this point was my response:
I had to put down what I feared - stop talking about why it happened, how I feel and what I believe this means - and pause. That meant vowing not to engage in any sort of discourse or media for a few days, including the judge and jury inside my head. This wasn’t avoidance, I needed to put my attention on something that connected me to my inherent wellbeing. “Chair, cut, phone, bell,” I scanned out loud around the room of despair and disengaged my focus from the doomsday scenario.
Then I checked in with my self, and when I did, the emotions came. They felt safe and heard, and these feelings found freedom and growth in the arms of this compassion (shared suffering). It was as if holding my breath (in anticipation of what might happen) kept me from inhabiting this life completely, kept me from a sense of freedom in contrast to the suffering of this uncertainty, made the world bearable because it was unreal.
Then, I felt sadness - a grieving connected to an inner-net of derealized moments seeking comfort and care. And, when I leaned in closer, I recognized a wound and, that’s when I noticed,
How I feel is not a response, it is a message from the past.
What I believe is not a response, it is a map into the future.
But these tears that are happening now, that rise without a reason Why, they are a response to how it feels when I ignore the wisdom of the past in favor of some certainty in the future.
The way my dad couldn’t recognize the wisdom and foretelling freedom in our plan to keep him safe and independent when we asked him to stop driving after his wake up call with AFIB. Denial and fear (of what he believed might happen) sent him crashing into another car.
Seven fractured ribs later, his shallow breath tries to avoid the pain of those fractured states. His Nurse tells him to breathe deeper into the Incentive Spirometer, and he is pushed to exercise these beliefs - to respond to the wound through a greater capacity to tolerate the discomfort of his unbound, broken heart. He had to forgive himself.
It is the tension between breaths that protects him.
However, when there is no tension, when there is no challenge to the breath of our beliefs - there is no fire, no purification for the system. Everything coming into the system/family has toxic potentiality - can spark, can harm us - and so our sympathetic nervous system is taxed and stressed without relief, and that’s when we do and say things that may surprise us and the ones we love.
“I was going to give you my keys on my 89th birthday,” was my dad’s reasoning and soulful apology. In postponing our fear, we only create dangerous, maladaptive behaviors that excuse us from the response of our beliefs.
Even in light of his recent diagnosis with AFIB, in how his heart was indicating that the pace of his thoughts conflicted with his physical ability - my dad told me that this accident is what really woke him up — the violent reality of fearful thoughts maligning the virtues of love and freedom!
The thought maddened me into submitting to the fear of everything that I still did not know, like if anyone else was hurt during the accident - which caused my shoulders to rise in tension toward my ears and seek relief in the motion of taking down my halloween decorations.
Up and down and back and forth … there was catharsis and temporary relief in removing the cobwebs, deflating the spiders and letting the light stream freely through the house in the morning, like it did when I woke up at 5 am this morning to write this all down - the rays streamed memories of all the times I shared both vision and reality with my father — sometimes firm and without judgment, others compassionate and caring for what must feel like the end for my dad, something dying again … another form of grieving, and the derealization of what he believed freedom to be.
None of this made sense to a mind accounting for all the ways his choices made us NOT free, and the feeling of that allowed something inside of me recognized the same feeling, observed how much we were alike;
how much what we believed about freedom was fueled by motives that drove perceptions often tainted with fearful misinformation: and, how, in our haste to declare our freedom, we might have gotten it wrong.
how our inability to see this playing out was what kept us from the wisdom of good health and a healthy sense of Self - a compassionate heart, calm mind and conscious gut; and how kindness heals.
It seems so promising to know that we can see each other through the wisdom of these limiting beliefs - notice how they are entangled with responsibility, and often churned by intentions that seek to disengage us from our Safe People, seek to make us believe that we cannot trust what we feel.
That’s when life hurts and when we start to take shallow breaths to avoid the pain.
That’s when I know to pay attention, “Book, ball, cup, earbuds, doorknob!” and remember,
“Ah! I was free all along.”🙏
Rest, dear friends. Let your bodies restore. Connect with nature. Listen to the leaves in the wind. Be with people you love. All will be well.