💘I’m A Navy SEAL of Not Feeling Things.

So I’m in the shower.
(I know. Imagery. Settle down)

Water’s hot.
Brain’s doing that thing where it tries to solve all of existence before everyone wakes up, like, don’t worry guys… I got this.

And suddenly… bam.
​Meditation.

Gross, I know.
I’ve avoided it for years.

I get it. I do. I just don’t wanna.

Sit still?
With your own thoughts?
​On purpose?​
What am I, five?
Back in the naughty corner for melting crayons on the heater?
No thanks, Ms Banks.
(I may have mildly suppressed teacher issues 🫣🤪)

Much easier to pile on a crisis, a task list, and a triple-shot flat white than deal with whatever that feeling is.

Which explains why I froze up like a roo in the headlights when it hit me:

I might be wrong.

Like, eat-my-hat levels of wrong.
(Still deciding on a recipe)

See, it turns out the thing I’ve been avoiding…
that awkward, “there’s-stuff-in-there-I-don’t-wanna-deal-with” void between distractions…

Might actually be the thing.

Like, the trick.

Well… the other trick.
(The first being that whole language-built self and introspective awareness thing, obviously.)

Not gonna lie though…

What I realised still makes my insides squiggle a bit:

Meditation isn’t about feeling good.

It’s about noticing how hard you try to avoid feeling anything.

To watch yourself run from your own thoughts.

Sitting still just long enough to realise…
you can’t sit still.

And it shows up in the day-to-day stuff too.

Like how you suddenly become the funniest person alive the second things get awkward.

Sure, it helps. Nobody likes that feeling.

So…

Charismatic Chris to the rescue!
Cracking jokes and deflecting the tension…

Because when their discomfort is echoing yours…

oBvIOUSLy it’s best to drown both out with charisma and a joke about blue cheese.

Right?

Totally normal behaviour.
Nothing to see here…
Carry on.

Anyway. Back to the shower.

There I was, frozen in the steam, realising this whole “sit still and feel stuff” thing might actually have something to it.

And now.
Here I am.
Saying it out loud.

Which is annoying.
Because now I can’t un-know it.

…

So yeah, just a confession, I guess.

Sometimes the upgrade isn’t adding more.​
​It’s subtracting to reveal what’s left.

And sitting with that.
Not till enlightenment.
Just long enough to realise it can’t actually kill you.

Even if you’re waterlogged, pruning up, and forgot you were shaving.

~ C