Unshakeable Me: Scaring Myself Awake in the Middle of the Night
By Jennifer Paros
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
I’ve had numerous middle-of-the-night scares recently, some sparked by medical type issues and symptoms, and some not. Between the physical experiences and my mental/emotional reactions to them, I felt like both a building being shaken by an earthquake and the earthquake itself – a system on overload. And though doctors have been employed and tests run, this story is not so much about medical conditions, it’s about the mental and emotional climate that can bring a person to her knees – but for a good reason.
When I awaken in the middle of the night, distressed to any degree, it’s a result of having left myself during the day. I may have abandoned myself to diagnoses, car problems, a work project, or a lost loved one, object, or position. Essentially, I may have been consumed by thoughts of vulnerability, victimhood, or loss. My energy and attention became absorbed in my reaction to something - even perhaps to a concept I hold of myself that is also not me. And being lost to myself feels unsafe, which wakes me just as an alarm would.
From focusing so much on problems lately, I find I am starving for me, missing myself, preoccupied as I’ve been (and still am) with the drama and story part of my life. I am now keenly aware that who I am is not the condition of my body, or any conditions – or my reaction to anything. I know this because I am looking for me and not finding me in any of that. In fact, the more I look at that, the more insecure, frightened, and lost I feel, and the less like myself.
Sometimes, we confuse engagement with life with management. But management of our households, our kids, our work, our bodies, and our relationships can lead us to lose track of ourselves. Engagement means we’re both connected to ourselves and to life, whereas management is about handling and dealing with things only. In the Where’s Waldo books, we are to look for Waldo, not become consumed with the Ferris wheel, beach umbrella, Viking ship, coliseum, trolley, swimming pool, or the thousands of other people depicted. When artist Martin Hanford wanted to create a picture book featuring large, busy crowd scenes, his editors suggested a singular character in each to create focus and a point. Waldo was actually an afterthought. We too provide the point and meaning to our own experiences.
“There is an amazing power getting to know your inner self and learning how to use it and not fight with the world.”
Years ago, Oprah spoke with author and spiritual teacher Gary Zukav, who described the soul as like the mother ship of a fleet of smaller boats. We are one of those small boats. Our job is to learn how to sail in the same direction as the mother ship. We can sail in any direction we want, but not following the mother ship (our soul) takes us into rough waters. He called meaning our “inner compass.” When we follow our personal feelings of meaning and purpose, we sail in the direction of what makes us excited to be alive. From this position, we “find” ourselves, now aligned with the deepest aspect of who we are.
When I write and draw, I tune to what has meaning for me, what I most want to express, and I do everything I can to make it the heartbeat and guiding force of what I create. So, when I am making a picture or writing a story, I am (mostly) found to myself. And in that resolve, in that decision, I become unshakeable. There are other aspects of my life in which I become almost fixated on conditions and forget I am still creating. I am still steering my boat but if my attention is on everything that’s not at the heart of who I am, I become temporarily compass-less, I get shaky, and life gets harder.
To be still in the middle of feeling shaken is not an easy thing. But just as the eye of a storm exists, that same center of calm lives in our ability to focus on and follow the essential power of what is most authentic and compelling to us. Living inside of problems, in reaction to conditions and circumstances, can overwhelm us. We often think stress is a byproduct of life coming at us, but we are actually shaken by the insecurity of not using our internal guidance. When we are in step with our deeper self, our richest sense of meaning, there is no need for life to wake us up – we are already awake and unshakeable.
Jennifer Paros is a writer, illustrator, and author of Violet Bing and the Grand House (Viking, 2007). She lives in Seattle. Please visit her website.