It’s Just You…
There seems to be a feeling. A feeling that surfaces when we are trying to process, mentally, ourselves. The world of ‘internal reflection’ as we find who we are by learning it from ourselves. It’s difficult. Odd even. As you think about it, you are hit with this feeling of "what am I doing?", as you turn the light of your attention back onto yourself. "Does this make sense?" you ask your thoughts, "...am I thinking about this right?" you wonder about your wondering….
I remember one of my first yoga sessions. In yoga, usually you're ushered through various body movements. Downward dog. Cobra. Cow. Cat. Didn’t matter to me, as long as I was getting a good stretch in. It felt a little tiring as I pushed to bend an elbow past its normal pain point. But the slow movement made me feel…impatient.
I wanted to do more. Push harder. Stretch quicker and in some empowering way. Efficiency and effectiveness were my go to urges. Why waste time? If I’m here to stretch out the muscles, then by-golly I want to do it best as possible! “Why didn’t I just stretch myself”, my mind was already asking why I’m here.
Yet, there was something more to be had in this time spent. I was told by quite a few friends and gym goers that some yoga isn’t a bad idea. “It would help me a lot,” they would say as I talked to them about my sore shoulders and back. So, I obliged them, trusted them. Sometimes folks can offer some perspective I didn’t notice or think of.
What they wanted me to embrace wasn't just the stretches that could open up my shoulder blades touching together (they still can’t FYI). They wanted to encourage me to slow down on the outside, and to turn some attention to the inside. Yoga was meant to be, and is, a nice transitionary step.
At the end of the session, the instructor had us go into “savasana”, or corpse pose (really we would just lay flat on our back). This on-my-back time led me to the feeling of taking a nap. (What? I was tired?) But still mindfulness was tenacious, and I got lost in my head somehow…
I was adrift. I was feeling as though I was walking through a forest. The trees, green and luscious. I could almost feel the branches scratching at my arm. It wasn’t a cave, but it was chock full of these developed constructions. I was meshed within them, not stuck, but not free from…
I shortly walked, it didn’t take long for me to encounter a tremendous figure. Dressed in a black robe, eyes unseen…I found Death. Instead of being shocked with fear, we both smiled at each other. It was as if we both knew something. We stood there for a brief moment, as if at an accord. I felt no malice… No fear…
It was then the instructor prompted us to roll on our side into the fetal position. She said “from the corpse pose to fetal as a rebirth”. My heart skipped a beat. It was as if she knew about my thought, my dream maybe? Maybe a nap really did happen. I was already searching for a plausible excuse. I’ve had some odd dreams before, but this one felt oddly specific and detailed. It also seemed to match the prompts of the instructor… What is going on in here? In my mind.
It planted something. Something that sprouted and touched a profound thought buried deeply in the crevases of my mental corners. It prompted me to reflect on the 5-letter word we all know about, but sometimes refuse to examine until something near it happens, or it happens to someone we love. It was Death.
This was it. I was driven to internally reflect.
My attention wasn’t adrift to the smell of sweat in the room. The feeling of the foam yoga-mat beneath me. The soft whoosh of some air system. Just left with silence and a spotlight shining deep into the well.
Frankly, I didn't want to dive into these caverns to find my penguin power animal, I just wanted to get a good body extension after a session of weight lifting, but there I was...in silence. Wondering why Death and I were indifferent in my mind.
That all was before my motorcycle accident.
There is something to say about our expedition into internal reflection, our use of attention not focused on something external, but as something turned in on yourself. Attention is a powerful component in our heads. Research into the mechanisms within psychology highlight attention as something that routes our cognitive resources. Memory, emotions, decision-making, all of which depend heavily on our attention.
Here it is again. My attention wasn’t on the world around me. It was pointed inward. It was analyzing this ‘thing’. This tree of thought.
Why didn’t I notice this before? This strange comfort with Death...
Because it was too easy for my mind to be distracted by external stimuli. I needed to step back from being ‘on-the-ball’ with everything happening around me and I needed to just let my thoughts direct themselves.
It’s hard to strip off the outside. It’s what makes me human, right?
Maybe we need to appreciate the less complicated. The simplicity of just being a thing in this world. A disconnection feeling. It may feel odd, but there is nothing outside of you saying that internal ‘thinking about it’ is wrong.
Even yoga possesses some guides to stepping outside of a ‘person’. Animalistic, to some degree, drawing in the idea of opening up beyond this 'person' you are outside. Remember, Downward dog. Cobra. Cow. Cat. Your 9-5 self isn't wanted on the yoga floor.
As a society we participate more in experiences like meditation and/or yoga, we spend more and more time in this world of 'internal reflection'. We are asked to sit in our thoughts more and more. This 'cave of your mind'. And we seem to be drawn to it culturally. As if it is something we've needed but neglected for some time.
And in those moments of ‘internal reflection’, we can be more active arborists, or at the very least more aware of the trees growing within us.
That unique internal mental garden is only in your head. You’re the only one who can have access or even change it.
And sometimes we need that reminder to check-in on the garden’s status, there’s no one else that can really do anything, and that it’s nothing to be afraid of.
In you…
It’s Just You…
