The past couple of days I’ve been making a concious effort to allow myself to fall apart. I mean it so instinctual of me to just snap back into attention if I allow the day-to-day things of life enter my life.  I’m referring to things like making sure you pay off bills, filing for reimbursements, finding out that your auto registration expired 6 months ago or getting an email from your workplace requesting you come in for an emergency meeting. The best I can describe it is that I start existing in two dimensions.  One dimension is the outside Wilson that is always OK no matter what.  The other dimension is the inner Wilson that during evenings and early mornings shows the real signs of any wear and tear.  I can be truly exhausted and disillusioned but you hit me with “Wilson Wilson you need to fix a computer system at work ASAP, now URGENT, pronto, my body snaps back into action and I’m back to the always OK Wilson even if something inside really feels tired.  So there’s always this disconnect between the “outside Wilson” and “inside Wilson” and so I think how things start to fall apart is that “outside Wilson” starts to make mistakes, lose attention, and just appear only when it’s necessary for public interactions. So long as the public interactions are a small percentage of my life then I can be in these two dimensions.

There’s a movie called “Mrs. Doubtfire” starring Robin Williams who plays a man who has lost custody of his kids after a divorce and tries to get more time with his kids by disguising himself as an older lady “Mrs Doubtfire” in order to fool his ex-wife into letting him be the Nanny for his kids. In this movie he often has to switch back and forth between the two disguises.  I guess it’s a bit like that with the two dimensions of me.  But I guess it’s probably like that for all of us who put on masks for the public.

In the end you can’t keep it up.  Life has a way of cornering and you pushing you to just let down that mask and let things fall.  I remember about 4 years ago entering clinical depression.  It’s that state when the “inner part” of you has been so neglected for so long that you can no longer hide it under the “outer part”  You’re past things like stress, fear, and any sadness.  You enter deep apathy.  You no longer have the strength to hold up the mask.  You’re just plain so tired you just want to sit and stare at a wall for a long time.  Then I remember about 2 years relapsing once again, but this time I had to take time off.  And what was odd was when I started to really take time off I initially sank into a the deepest depression of my life.  I think what happened is that these pockets of fatigue over some 20 years of my life had been skillfully tucked away in places hard to find and when I was given the time alone to just sit, and sit and sit for hours and days the pockets were slowly allowed to open up and I really felt the full force of the neglect in my inner self.  In this deepest state of depression it was like being hit with the worst case of the flu only no fever and it will last much longer than a flu.   But what I remember was I did lots and lots of sleeping and lying around in bed absolutely motionless for long spans, no desire to get up, to eat, or drink.

Looking back to that state I recognize the “healing” perspective of going to this deeply depressed state.  In a way it’s like going thru a genuinely deep meditation.  When you normally think of meditation it’s a concerted decision and effort to be still, to breath, clear thoughts and to notice physical sensations.  But if you’re lets say completely exhausted it’s a completely natural act to just collapse and be still, breath, clear thoughts and notice physical sensations (at least until you fall asleep). There is an inner part of you that needs attention and you can make a conscious effort to honor your inner needs by doing something like meditation.  If you continually neglect yourself though and don’t do anything to address this, something will give and life will make you stop in your tracks whether it be a physical health problem or clinical depression.

So invoking that “healing” aspect of my deepest depression days these past couple of days I’ve been trying to allow myself to “fall apart” and do so under my control.  I sleep longer.  I sink into deep motionlessness.  It’s been good for me.  It’s a turning point in me to embrace this state.

Because it was this state that I had first made contacts with the Source.  Just let it go.  Just don’t care anymore.  Then just be.

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