Do you ever get a little flutter of panic whenever you're doing something challenging?
It might be just me, but alarm bells start to sound off in my brain and I start to think I need to find a way out (there's more flight than fight in me, I think. Unless you're taking my bread away. Or making me lose sleep. Or telling my I'm being irrational when I'm deprived of both bread and bed... I digress).
It happened when I was in labor with Nadine. I was so panicked about how badly I knew things would hurt, that I was in complete denial about how I would actually do it. I focused on how quickly I could get pain medication and was so focused on getting that relief that I could not think of anything else. There was nowhere to run from the pain though, and so the panic just kind of built up inside me.
This is an extreme example. Labor is a herculean task for any person, and I do not berate myself at all for feeling like I was in a constant state of emergency. I kept on wanting help, wanting people to make it end, wanting to get out, to go home, to escape. With training, I probably could have learned to control the panic better, but then -- with so much stress and pain on your body, you never really know how well that training will sink in when push comes to literal shove.
I had a flashback to those panicky, emergency feelings today when I was at Sisu. I was rowing. We were doing more endurance rowing, so each person, when they rowed, had to row for at least five minutes. Five minutes on a rower is taxing. It's not the end of the world, but your body starts to hurt and your lungs start to wonder why you're even there and not at home meditating.
There were three minutes to go, and I was rowing for the third time. I felt the handle slip from my grasp, and for the first time that day, my split time jumped up as I regained control and tried to get my rhythm back. I felt panicked. How could I maintain my pace for three more minutes?
Then I literally told myself, "This is not an emergency. You don't need to slow down yet. You don't need a rest yet. Just be steady, keep the same pace."
A rower is not a hungry bear chasing you in the forest. It's not a dog trapped in a hot car. It's not a bank robbery. It's not life or death. You can keep going; same pace, same time.
Keeping the same pace is what kept me going. With every catch, I'd tell myself I get a break when I bring the handle to my chest. I'd exhale on each release, and breathe in again. Discomfort is not an emergency. Just breathe, and push back again. Keep the handle straight, make every stroke look the same.
It's interesting how time on the rower can become such a microcosm of existence. You don't know what anybody else is doing. You don't even really hear the music playing. Your world narrows until it is just you, on a seat, with the handle in your hands and the gentle pressure of the straps over your feet. Your existence becomes motion. Heels up. Heels down, push out, lean out, elbows back, wait, elbows straight, lean forward, bend knees, heels up.
Something so simple can be a metaphor for life. Nothing worthwhile ever comes without that little feeling of panic inside, that feeling that maybe you should stop or quit or slow down or take it easy. But, the things that bring the most joy (like the feeling of that moment when you hit your rhythm just right) are the things capable of bringing the most pain -- and the most panic.
That panic can be calmed by the reassurance that this is not an emergency, we know the technique and we've developed endurance, and we can continue rowing the boat, even when it hurts. Mistakes can be corrected, and you can (and will) find the rhythm again.
Parenting, religion, education, change, trials -- these things ask a lot of personal investment. They ask for perfection from imperfect people. They ask for endurance from people who are still training for the short race. Sometimes that panic sets in, and you think, this is too uncomfortable for me. At that moment, you're faced with a choice between something good and something better. Tell yourself that choosing better is what you're built for.
Tell yourself that you can keep a steady pace, that you can keep going. In that steadiness, you find yourself changing. You change into a better parent, a better person, a better friend.
