“Killing Dragons”

Sorry for lots-of-words ;D

Prolog

@jeffw I got my cup clean of dp at summer ’13. ‘Fear of becoming depressed again’ didn’t bother me since. I understood my depression, I appreciated lessons I got as necessary for my way. I came into a limb between depression and life. First, it was very light and sunny – but I felt like a retired person – I wasn’t feeling alive, it was just peace. I was 26 and sitting quietly at peace felt wrong. Dp was gone, but life hasn’t restarted automatically. Then I discovered ‘chains’, mental blocks, holding me away from life. They were ‘dirt’ too, but not the endogenous depression stuff. More like trials. Now I call ’em “Dragons”: financial insecurity, realty rights, my family relations, my professional competency, self-confidence, bad nerves. I tried to kill ’em all at once at sep-dec ’13, yet achieved little. I got myself nervous exhaustion & a near-year apathy until autumn ’14. Then I came out of apathy and became stuck at the point described at this thread’s initial post.

Dragon #1

When I started this thread, I was holding on to fear of getting broken by life again. I nicknamed this block as “Dragon #1” 🙂 Stuck in this state from oct’14 till mid’dec’14. I was slowly going through some inner “white silence”, one meter a day. I had Hope, an own project to do – a first step in the World, that pushed me forward. And I had Fear of losing my inner self in complexity of life again. The Hope was a little stronger so I had progres – yet, veeery slooow. That’s called ‘ambivalence’ – like the “two wolves” metaphor. You go along life with two wolves: hope & fear. When they battle inside you, the one you feed better finally wins.

In dec’14 I learned how to make Fear starve. There is an inner state that some call “center”. It is the point of balance at the intersection of spiritual, instinctive, rational and emotional modes. I got there and, with time, have learned to maintain it. To keep calm center on the way feeding only Hope. The technique of getting to center is still not 100% clear to me.

First, I had a ‘recipe’: everyday sport, every workday doing my craft, every eve having time to freely rebuild myself, every bedtime having an 8 min meditation, every night having unrestricted sleep – all this mapped into a stretchy timetable.

Second, at some point I learned to maintain equilibrium – I was always mindful of three ‘trials’ that can ruin this hard-won centeredness: desire, fear and social call. I analyzed my thoughts when I felt like I’m losing heart, losing center, and labeled them in terms of being another ‘trial’ or some healthy thing. Practically that meant that I started filtering very much all that could have distracted me from my project – social networks, series, offline socialization atc.

Third, from meditation I learned how to let go compulsive thoughts, ‘control freak’, ‘hyper organizer’ and procrastination. It is learning to keep distance between consciousness and ‘monkey mind’ that helped.

Then, this ‘center’ thing brought me into the ‘eye of the storm’. Like I’ve built a mental citadel at core of myself and all the fear was storming outside, unable to shake my positive mood.

And then I could calmly look Fear in the face and discover it’s “true name”. Discover that for me on my own life at that point seemed not so good a thing. 10 years I was drived by the will to live, thru all my depression, and now here Life was – just reach into it. And I thought – do I want to suffer again? what for? Do I really need to go out of this ‘limb’ between depression and life? I thought, maybe fork it and just go downshift to India or some zen temple. Get lost. Find job with money and no challenge. Never try to conquer something. Turn back on the world as it did on me. Exist in limb.

But then I grasped my responsibility for others – family, friends, communities of various scale in which I participate. I felt some call of duty. It’s a little like “Lion King” story: you can escape responsibility, become an escapist. Or you can accept responsibility and start conquering your ‘kingdom’ back. Because you love it. Because it’s your place in life. Because this is who you are.

Epilog

After I came through this decision point, Fear vanished. “Dragon #1” was killed. Finally I could sleep only 8 hours a day again, not 12 – and get asleep in 15m instead of 3h and all other bonuses.

That was mid of dec’14. I still felt empty. There were still things to work through. But there was no Big Fear anymore. I felt like I crossed the Rubicon and got into the Life’s margin.