The Watcher

 

As vulnerable as the present moment, the beginning of the dark season all too often giving rise to dreadful nights.  An unbearable restlessness setting in as I try to sleep.  Tossing and turning, desperately trying to pry myself loose from this misery’s grasp.  Fear, anxiety or probably even both.  Paralyzing.  If I’m completely honest, autumn frightens me in many ways.  I yearn for summer’s protection, as if the easy season was really ever capable of keeping me safe.  What if my viral Pericarditis comes back again like it did last fall?  What if the second wave of Covid is worse than the first?  An endless number of what ifs?  The diminishing amount of sunlight slowly eroding away at my wellbeing.  Lying in bed, I’m smack-dab in the middle of it.  Unbearable.  Suffocating.  Buried.  I need space.  My reflex is to move out towards the periphery.  But with all this shit coming up to the surface, this outer standpoint only makes me feel worse.  I can’t run away.  The only option is to go deeper.  To feel it fully.  To let it break me.  Out of my head, into my heart.  Centered.  Observing.  Allowing.  Stepping back, out of the way.  Letting it pass.  Letting it leave me.  Resisting is what makes it hurt.  This dreadful human condition.  Our thoughts and feelings are not something that we can control.  Simply unstoppable.  Like the weather.  Thoughts suddenly appear in our minds by themselves and feelings arise mostly unexpectedly out of the blue.  Some pleasant, others uncomfortable.  Each and every one of them not me.  I am not my thoughts.  I am not my feelings.  I am not my mind.  I am not even this body.  All that I am is the watcher.  A witness to my mind’s madness.  A mere bystander.  And as long as I remember this, I am free.  Can you see the light at the end of your tunnel from where you’re standing?