Remaining Open When You're Feeling Overwhelmed — Rupert Spira

Um I was referred actually to come here from my therapist. Um I think he I think he really wants to lose me as a client. >> He even wrote books and referring to you. So I think he wants I think he really understands understands this. >> Yeah. No, that's a that's a good therapist. Like a good not I I I didn't mean what you thought I meant. What I was going to say was like a good therapist like a good teacher should do everything they can to put their self out of business. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to share a a pattern that I've um struggled with for many years that now I think I relate to it differently but I want to hear your thoughts. Often it happened that I would have some difficulty. It could be like a situation like in a personal relationship or at work um that would feel so overwhelming that my body and mind would shut down. Um then the mechanism was I would go into this super low energy to the extreme of not being able to get out of bed for a year. Um and and then avoid just avoid avoid avoid until the problem or the decision was not there to be made anymore because I I wasn't like I know the relationship would end. Um and um now I don't I relate to it in a different way. Um I see now if if that happens more of an opportunity to to just be instead of maybe it is a kind of warning sign that's telling me look now now you need to stop and you don't need to do do and um act out of fear out of the need to act just now you have the opportunity to stop to be once you once you can do that then you can act. Um I'm wondering how how you see this >> pattern. Invariably when you shut down emotionally in this way, it's because some um primitive fightor-flight mechanism has been triggered in you. The actual event that triggers that fight orflight mechanism in you is is often not very in itself it it it's it doesn't merit shutting down in the face of it's often can be quite a insignificant event but it triggers in you an old memory and um your subconscious is activated and and and and you shut down as a result of it where the the stimulus what what it was what she said to you or what he said to you or something it it was nothing. So ju just seeing that mechanism and and the fact that you've asked this question means that you already see you're already aware of the the shutting down mechanism in you. So just just seeing it um enables you in order to see it and describe it the way you have you have to you have to have already stood back from it and observe it as a mechanism that's taking place in your mind. So you just take that step back because whatever it is that is observing this shutting down mechanism which is which is you is not itself shutting down. It's just a habit of the it's just a habit of your mind. It's just been triggered and it's shut down and and there you are in the background watching this habit. But but because you tend to because we tend to live it identified with the mind rather than to live identified with awareness. We we feel I shut down. No, it's just this primitive mechanism that may once have served you well in childhood. Maybe it was necessary to ch shut down when you were a 5-year-old boy in the face of something you couldn't handle. But you don't need to respond like that now. So, so ju just the fact that you've seen this suggests that you're already aware of sufficiently aware of yourself not to have to repeatedly buy into this mechanism. It doesn't mean that the mechanism won't happen if you have a habit of of closing down. You you you may continue doing it for a while, but you no longer invest your identity in it. You you you somehow stand stand back for it from it. And in doing so, it it loses its power. You you're aware of this contraction, but you remain open to the person you were talking with. You can feel yourself um tensing up. And you can you can think, "Oh, in the past, I would have closed down completely and left. And now this contracting mechanism, I can still feel it in my chest, but I'm just going to remain open and keep talking." And and if you do that that you'll find very quickly that this this old habit of of closing down. It will it will it can quite quickly diffuse because you're no longer feeding it with your belief. I have to close down. I'm being threatened. What I am is being violated. And no, what you what you are is not being violated. It's never been violated. And therefore, you don't need to close down in the face of anything. Am I relating to your to your so so don't think oh I've got this habit it's been with me for since I was 5 years old and so it's going to take me it's been with me for three decades or four decades it's going to take me 10 years of that no it doesn't need to take that long you see it clearly you're free of it and you just do that two or three times and the habit can can leave you quickly you just laugh at yourself you just find yourself you're having a conversation with a colleague or a or a friend and they do something which which only 3 weeks ago would have caused you to to contract like this and go home and shut you and now you just think oh why would one do that it's so unnecessary I can just stay open and say they haven't hurt me they haven't violated me they haven't done any I I can still feel the old residue of of the impulse to contract but I don't buy into it anymore it can happen quickly >> I had already yesterday a situation where it arose where in conflict and first I just stopped. I was able to to respond from it from a place of love and it resolved itself very quickly and before probably I would have just avoided drag did not made any decision and yes ex my my dear sweet mother. Um, some of you, some of you knew her, few of you knew her. She was a wonderful, but to put it mildly, rather over over um, emotional, emotionally invasive and um, all consuming. Um, so as as a as a you know, young boy trying to dissociate and form my own identity apart from my mother, I had to it wasn't that she was distant and unloving, you know, she was completely the opposite. She was just all all over me all the time. So I had to keep her keep her at bay. So, I built a pretty good emotional actually a physical wall at one time between us, but but an emotional wall between to to kind of keep her at bay, to hold her out. I did not want her invading my my inner life, but at the same time, just as Jason said yesterday, I knew that this upset her because she could not she didn't understand anything about boundaries. You know, she said, "Why is it necessary to to shut me out? Why can't you share everything that's going on in your personal, etc., etc. you just you just didn't understand. And so um so maintaining this this wall but but between us I could see that it hurt her and and I I love her. I didn't want to hurt her but I knew that at the same time I couldn't give her what she wanted but but because I I was just completely emasculated by her and and so that was a conflict um for for a long time. It lasted and this this was, you know, going back to my early childhood, but I still felt this mechanism when I was 40 years old. And and then sometimes I moved away from her. That that was that was good. That was healthy. I no longer live next door to her. But when she would come to stay, I'd be so pleased to see her. I'd feel and I'd prep myself beforehand. I'd say don't don't shut down when mom come. Be generous. Be open. She's just coming for the weekend. G give and I would feel so well disposed towards her. And then we we'd start talking and she'd ask questions and I'd think, "Okay, I'll I'll I'll share a little bit more with her than I I'll just I'll just give her a little bit of and be open." And I would so I would open the door a crack and she would dive through it. She like, "This is my window of opportunity." And then I think, "Oh no, no. Why? Why did I do it? I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have. It always happens." And so then I would erect the wall again. and then we'd have this rather cold weekend together and I could see that she was on her best behavior trying not to etc etc. because it went on like this. But then I So this went on for quite a few years. But then I noticed that when she would come to stay and I would just open the door a little bit and let her in and she she would immediately come in and I'd feel this old childish feeling of being o overwhelmed, smothered in affection and and so on. And I would feel this impulse to to close the door again. But something in me said, "No, don't stay open. That otherwise you're going to go on for the rest of your life repeating this pattern. Neither of you want this." So feel I could feel it was visceral. I could just feel my body tensing up like this. But and and I would say to myself, "No, just it's okay. Stay open. She's not violating you. She she's not consuming you. She she stay open." And I would I over a relatively short period of time I I I learned to to be open with her to to share a little bit more with her and not to feel overwhelmed by her response. And the beautiful thing about it is that she immediately responded. She she was more respectful. I didn't feel that she wanted to sort of feeling of wanting to suck my emotional life out of me. it she she was and our relationship matured. And then for the last 20 or so years of of of her life, we had this beautiful relationship. It was more mature. I was able to be more open with her. I didn't feel invaded by her. She didn't feel shut out by me. And it it I can I can trace it back to the time when I for the first time when I felt this impulse to close like this. And something in me said, "No, just stay open. You don't need to close. you don't need to perpetuate the battle. It'll go on for the rest of her life if you do and you'll regret it when she dies. So that was an that was I was speaking from this experience when I when I responded to you. >> Thank you.