Dysautonomia of the Mind

With mental health issues becoming more and more common and concerning, how the mind functions requires our fullest attention. 

Just as your heart beats without you and your lungs pull air on their own, though you can take control of your breathing as you wish, your brain is always producing thought whether you are consciously thinking or not. 

Your dreams don’t feel like you thought them up because you didn’t — your brain was thinking on its own. Your brain is a shark, swimming for a living; in sensory deprivation the brain quickly creates hallucinations in order to continue to experience stimulation where none exists. Your brain is always thinking in the background, even if you cannot perceive those thoughts. 

What your brain thinks all on its own is undoubtedly crucial to understanding one’s mental health. But how do we learn to hear our brain’s automatic thoughts, or at least shift them in the right direction?

Dysautonomia, a physical condition affecting the things your body is supposed to do on its own, such as breathing, digesting, and maintaining blood pressure, has been found to be linked to several mental health conditions, such as autism and ADHD. I myself happen to have dysautonomia and ADHD with suspected autism. It occurs to me that perhaps some symptoms of mental health problems are in fact a kind of dysautonomia of the mind. When you are depressed or anxious, your brain appears to be producing negative thoughts on its own, without being caused by outside circumstances. Could this model of thought and mental health be the key to finding new modalities of healing? I think it’s worth looking into. 

There is no creed that makes pain less painful

All that exists owes its life to all that is no more. Each passing moment is a martyr for the next, just as pain is our debt to joy. There’s no wisdom or faith that makes pain less painful. It must hurt if anything is to matter: your life depends on it.

So stop. Your sorrow chases you: turn toward it. Watch it catch up. It will not pounce and end you. You will not lose more than you already have.

Grief is your mother. Let her feed you, for grief is the food your soul was made to eat. It digests pain into life itself. Your soul knows how to break pain down into its parts, which are the same nutrients that combine to make purpose and awe and laughter. You don’t have to do anything, just as your stomach knows what to do with meat and potatoes. Turnips have birthed poetry — consciousness — war crimes — human drama. Pain birthed the chance at eking out a living at all.

Stop starving yourself. This hunger strike never prevented the bad things from happening, and your numbness slips into dissolution as you cease to exist.

So greet your sorrow. Make room for it at your table. Accept the dish it offers and break bread for you both.

Grief is here. Grief, your mother who loved you. Eat, weep, and see tomorrow. Nourished, you will survive; one day you will have enough strength to give as thanks.

A Letter From The Universe

To An Old Soul;

You are not being punished. Admittedly this place will hurt you. However, we expect you will find ways to make it better — not just for your own comfort’s sake, but to help others who also live here. 

Time is still precious, of course, but here you must give nearly all of yours as dues for daring to exist in the first place. Breathing is still free but very little else in terms of your bodily requirements. Do you begin to understand? Here, you will feel you ought not to exist. The one thing you are surely innocent of causing — the fact you have a body and mind — will be considered suspect. You are leasing your life, in a sense, and you will likely have to leverage most of your life’s hours just to afford it. 

You will be taught much — oh, so much! — but not how to cope with the strain and pain of your labour; not how to feel as though you and everyone else deserve to be here. It will be tempting to sleep or otherwise distract your mind from the absurdity of this place. It will get into you like a chill at night. If you remember this message, you must reject everything this place has ever told you and hold fast to what feels only obvious in your heart. 

You may come to feel that nothing matters at all, since life is treated like a crime. People all around you will feel this too, even if they do not know that the world at large is a parody of worthwhile existence. We cannot guarantee you will remember this message, dear soul. We pray you will seek meaning, and perhaps even come to realize that by seeking “meaning” you are asking for a reason to go on living instead of finding a way out. 

You want a reason for going through the effort and the pain. Pet possibilities — like gods and mystical answers — may not satisfy you. In this case you must choose to create your own feeling that life is worth it, because you know it is. You know that if life were valued here the way you feel it ought to be, it would be beautiful, remarkable, perfect. 

That means you know that life is worth it. 

We hope you will go forth on a mission of life-cherishing. There will be no shortage of other souls who need help cherishing their own lives, and we hope you will be moved to aid them. You may try to change the world if you wish. But your own mind’s freedom is your utmost responsibility. Do not be deceived and do not behave as if you believe the absurdities of a worthless life. Stand out in radical devotion to your worth, and the worth of all Being. 

We will meet again. Be brave — in this life and the eternal thereafters.

Of Meaning and Existential Crisis

Meaning has no place in thoughts of the future, but only in how you think of the now.

This is my answer to all you existentially-minded souls, all who just seek a reason… All who have feared an empty, bleak future.

Care about something and feel the meaning of that, here in the now.

That’s all there is to it. You can only feel meaning in the present moment. So reflect on what you do care about, let yourself truly feel, and go from there.

On Suicide and Self-Destruction

[This could be triggering — but that’s the last thing I intend. If you are suicidal, please reach out. And if you have no one you can talk to, please talk to me.]

So you want to die. Maybe you’ve already opened your skin a little, to see blood and feel alive. I’m not going to tell you how to live — I’m going to tell you how to kill your Self, your ego that hurts so much. And maybe it’s the weirdest advice you’ll ever hear, but life is fucked up sometimes, so hear me out.

You can be free from yourself, and it’s just as thrilling as jumping into traffic. It’s as hardcore as cutting and the risks are high.

Imagine you’re already dead — your Self doesn’t matter — life doesn’t matter — you’re a ghost. Kill yourself in your mind, now, and cut your soul so deep you might never be the same.

You’re already dead; so you have nothing to fear. No responsibilities to worry about.

Have you ever dreamed of throwing yourself in front of an 18-wheeler? With all the thrill of pain and terror and meeting the unknown? I have a different way, and I won’t tell you it’s any better, but why not try? You’re already dead, so what have you got to lose?

Throw yourself in front of a lonely stranger and ask them if they’re okay. Then just listen, like the ghost you are.

I don’t know what will happen. No one does. But you’re dead, so don’t take things so seriously. Laugh like it’s all a joke, this life, and give up all the fear you have left.

Be free from yourself for a little while. It’s a terrifying and thrilling thing. You might find it more exciting than opening your skin or getting high. Instead of giving up your blood and pain, give up energy and time. It’s as risky a sacrifice as physical destruction.

Try something just as exhilarating as standing on the very edge of a bridge. Jump off the edge of your Self and its fears. If you’re into risky behaviour, take risks with your heart and soul.

It may not feel better. And I know you just want to feel better, at the heart of it all. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a reason to stay out of traffic and get in front of other people’s rushing souls instead. Maybe if you kill yourself and your fears in your mind, you’ll find the freedom to be yourself in life.

Spiritual Crisis

Recently I fell into a depression, to the point of being suicidal. I would like to reach out to those that have emailed me and apologize for my absence. I need some time to catch up, so please be patient just a little longer and I’ll write as soon as I can.

I have come out of this crisis, fully and completely, but when this happens to me I know that a big transformation is needed in my life. These phases are lessons — brutal as they may be, I always come out of them with renewed vigour and deep gratitude.

If you are experiencing a physical or mental health issue that seems to defy all reason and doesn’t respond to modern medicine, know that spirit may be calling you towards a course correction in your life. Often the answer is to change your perspective in a big way — even a paradigm shift — and commit with passion to express your soul’s unique set of gifts.

For me, a spirit guide brought me to a pit of water from which there was no easy escape. The first way out that I came up with involved waiting for the water to rise high enough so I could climb out. But the better answer was to use my shamanic skills and shapeshift into a bird, and simply fly away.

Shapeshifting is exactly what I need right now, and I think it is often the answer to our spiritual problems. Growth, change, and transformation can happen in a beautiful explosion when we are desperately pushed.

 

Honour the Emptiness

I was doing a shamanic reading for someone today when the following thought stole into my mind, spirit-sent and magical:

All empty places, be they barren wombs or chasms ripped from our souls, are also places of infinite potential, for nothing yet exists within them, and thus these places represent an infinite hope.

I have, in my life, experienced the debilitating emptiness of depression and pain. The best thing I could do at the time was to find the agonizing beauty in this pretty sorrow and honour that fiercely. This got me through nearly impossible things, but now I have a different perspective. Places of emptiness and sadness can be conversely defined as places of desperate hope. Realize that you are not merely feeling empty, but in fact desperately hoping to feel something, because you truly care that much about at least one thing in this life. Realize that you are not merely feeling sad, but desperately hoping for change and transformation of a sort, because you recognize and care so deeply about at least one thing that is wrong in this life. If you can see this even while you are seemingly trapped in an endless nothingness, you will be brought back to how much you are full rather than empty. You are full of values, desires, hope, and potential even when you feel the most devoid of all. Especially when you are walking in that dark void of soul.

How to Be in Pain

Let yourself hurt.

Explore it, know it, come to understand it, as if your pain was a soul unto itself.

Then sit softly with it, as would a friend. Offer no advice, only the hope that comes from companionship. For you are in pain, but you are not pain itself. Pain is Other.

The existence of you, in fact, offers hope to the creature called Pain.

Sit, breathe, and perceive the world with two minds — yours, and that of hurt. Distinguish both. Understand them separately.

Imagine you are a spirit guide to the soul of pain inside you. Speak softly, but urgently. Keep speaking to your pain, as you would hope your spirit guide would keep reaching out to you.

Sit with your pain and keep speaking.

Self-Care

I have the most supportive partner possible — she is willing to “do therapy” 24 hours a day, even though she herself has poor health and is disabled. She takes care of me in a multitude of ways.

I understand that dealing with the emotional part of healing is hard for her. Emotions aren’t really her thing, and I don’t want to put more on her plate by demanding that she makes a super-human effort for me.

So, to put it simply, I cry alone. Not often, but I will sneak off to the bedroom and curl up when I need to, and let the emotions out. Usually only if my whole body is screaming to cry, not just my emotions. When I can no longer hold it in.

I used to have the sweetest cats. My orange tabby in particular would cuddle forever. He’s the type of cat to actually give even more love than he gets in return. He hugs with his paws. I used to lie down with him and cry, and he would somehow make it better.

But I had to give him to friends who live far away when we moved. I can’t have cats here, and I don’t know when I’ll be in a pet-friendly situation. My living situation is less than ideal…actually, it’s pretty difficult. (I do have dwarf hamsters, but…they just run around and eat, not being sensitive to emotions.)

I really, really miss my cat.

I need to figure out something equally comforting when I’m upset, because crying alone is kind of awful…but I have very few options. I never use the phone, for instance. I don’t have real-life friends around.

So I’m wondering, what do YOU do, when you’re upset?

Honouring Pain Through a Pretty Sorrow

I strongly believe that what kept me going through most of my life, until I finally came to a place of healing, was my experience of beautiful sadness. I carried deep sorrow and was able to honour it and make peace with it by finding it both exquisitely painful and exquisitely beautiful.

In this way I grew friendly with my sadness. I knew nothing of beautiful joy, and that pure happiness simply did not exist for me. But I was strong in my beautiful sorrow. It was not “dwelling on my pain”, nor was it “moping”. No, it was a deeper and more complicated thing than that.

I hardly thought of myself at all. Instead, I would obsess over the beautiful sadness of endings, and the idea that all journeys would come to a conclusion. I found myself crying over seagulls, who always seemed to be flying home. I watched Autumn leaves falling to the Earth and felt this piercing, but gorgeous, pain in my soul.

I have to tell you, at my worst I was not eating at all and as I grew thinner I expected to completely dissolve into the Universe. This was some years ago now and at the time I decided I would experience my last summer. I threw myself into the experience of finality and leaving. I watched sunsets and listened to music that made me ache. This was the only thing making me feel alive and making the depression bearable.

And after a time I realized that another summer was coming around. It was a gift instead of a burden. Even though I had not experienced the ending I was looking forward to, I still had my pretty sorrow to uphold me, and in time I needed it less.

Eventually some remarkable things happened in my life and I was able to put the beautiful sadness behind me and feel beautiful joy instead. But I will never look at my pretty sorrow as being the wrong perspective. It was all I had, and it gave me meaning and a kind of contentment amidst great pain.

So I would suggest trying to see the pretty sorrow in things, if you find yourself in a long dark night of the soul. Music and art and nature are full of this beauty. If you can connect with it, then you are not alone, for you have found some edge of Spirit to cling to.