FALLING INTO BLACK HOLE.
I already know that talking about stressful situations as "everything is shit because of this, and if this happened, then that would happen" doesn't help much. It just spins the tornado of anxiety in my mind faster. So when I'm in the middle of a hard transition, I try something different. I stop explaining the situation and start writing my way into what it actually feels for me and my body. This is what came out during a recent one, and what I noticed once I'd written it.
That moment again, when the universe pulls a soft carpet from under my feet, then a floor and then the ground, and now I am falling into a black hole. Just a free fall, in the dark, with no idea when or how it will end, and it feels infinite... I fall and fall, waiting for the moment I will crash hard, or some miracle will happen; suddenly, some safety net and soft blanket will catch me, or maybe this will be a passage to some other world, where there is light, green grass, water flowing and an abundance of everything.
But right now I am falling, grasping for air, hands and legs stretched, tense, desperately trying to find some grip… You know that baby startle reflex, when they are lowered a bit suddenly, head first... they gasp for breath and throw their limbs apart. A moment later, they pull their arms and legs back in close to their chest in a hugging or grasping motion, often followed by crying.
So am I now.
And even if I found some tangible bit in the tunnel walls to grasp onto - what would it give me? A moment of grip, but still stuckness, still in the black hole. An opportunity to scream for help. But I would still be exhaustingly grasping in some transition hole, in the dark, where I can't return either to the entry point or see the exit light yet.
So I am left only with the option to relax my limbs, because it is exhausting to hold this tense, braced position. And I use this time to contemplate two things.
I can imagine all kinds of worse and better scenarios. The worst ones - would that help? Nah. The better ones? Still hope. And hope is so ethereal, so hard to hold onto.
There is another option: remember all the previous falls. Oh yes, I've had many of them in my life. And it was always just a dark transition tunnel to some place with a different kind of light and abundance. A new level, I'd say. I don't even like comparing it as better or worse. But it was always more liberating and easier for me once I landed.
So, all I need here is TRUST and a reminder - this is just another one of these transition tunnels. All I can do now is relax my limbs first, take notice of the fall, and maybe do some somersaults on the way, or flip my hands like a bird and pretend I am flying, not falling. If only for a moment. Because trust is something that has to be practised, because our nervous system is built to search for survival methods, and to worry about whether we'll manage.
Writing this didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about my situation. What it did was land the feeling in my body - the tense, grasping, bracing posture - instead of in my head, where it usually turns into a loop of everything is falling apart because of this and that.
This is what the ART THERAPY approach offers. Instead of endlessly talking about why life is hard, noticing what hard actually feels like for you. What shape it has. What posture your body has taken without you even realising it. We can't always stop the free fall through those dark transition tunnels. We can't always climb out or make it end sooner. But we can learn how to fall differently. Soften the body a little. Notice the bracing. Relax the grip. Or just for a moment, flap our hands like birds and pretend we are flying instead of falling.
Illustration of David Hall, 1939