When the words of other people are thrown at me or when their actions are purely hurtful, all my projections get triggered so quickly,
and I am drawn so wildly that I’ve become their little puppet, their toy.
They are playing me…without giving me a single opportunity to observe the bolts in my heart that got locked one after the other.
In less that a second, communication has become impossible, and the air is suddenly so dense that it’s un-breathable…
All our inner energy is spent monitoring the door that has slammed so unexpectedly.
Our energy gauge is empty; we are left exhausted before we even had a chance to understand what has happened within us.
The light of mindfulness, inspired and sustained by our breathing, allows us to enlarge the walls tightening onto us.
We are creating space to observe these phenomena of protection. They occur at the speed of light and are all the more lightning that they are created out of habit.
Our energy is spoiled by this obsessional and over suspicious jailerr.
He’s watching out for the least twitch in the bushes ahead, ready to wave is spear, to yell words beyond his thoughts– that’s what all lonely jailers do when they want to appear as an army.
He is in need to justify his function. He wants to let go of all the pressure that has accumulated through hours, weeks and years of restless watch.
He gets his feeling of existence from this. He needs it. He has become familiar with himself, he ends up hoping he’ll always have something to watch.
Now he’s trapped in the jailerr’s snare, hoping for an intrusion to happen.
He’s wishing so bad he might even over-interpret the wind as it gently caresses the night leaves, only to make sure he gets an occasion to throw his spear at something, to be a « good keeper. »
-« Nothing to protect » says the neutral observer, opening thereby the first strangleholds of the heart.
The sheer power of his mindful vision, the mere patience of his breath can do that.
He knows once the strangleholds are tightened, once the gates of the ear are shut, once the walls of the eyes are sealed, he will have to take his shift, without even knowing it.
So he breathes…
Let’s breathe, aware we are being played by an age-old and self-destructing reflex, that our attacker does not exit as such but as a strange fruit ripenng in our own minds. The other person, the one we call ‘our attacker’ is himself trapped in his own -similar-defense mechanisms.
Let’s breathe for him as well.
Because if I wave my spear, he’ll wave his, and I’ll just strap another stranglehold, one more bolt to the door of my heart.
Strangleholds add up or disband,
Do I apply mindfulness or do I overlook my environment ?
Do I breathe consciously, or do I pant frantically ?
But, if I am not attacked by anyone, who is the attacker?
And who’s defending?
Let’s breathe a little further…
The other person is also an exhausted, restless wrestler, watching automatically, taking his shift, doing what he thinks he has to do, ready to use all available means to protect himself, his ‘self’ he believes to be in danger
If I observe myself, I’m observing him as well.
And I can turn a space for protection into a space for understanding, a space for trust.
It requires a lot of faith, a profound survival instinct, a serious dose of commonsense — as well as hours of exhaustion, spent self-defending for nothing, against nothing…
And it requires a lot of love towards oneself to open to the others, to disband the strangleholds of our hearts, patiently, one by one…or to break them all together at once..
Breathe once more,
The attacker and the defender are one person. The one who perceives threats in the other and turns them into attacks, so as to be able to protect himself.
These threats are exhausted attempts at existing.
The power of habit locks us in,
I am more profound than the power of habit,
I am calmer, I am larger,
I am from here, and from Eternity,
I am smiling, confident,
Trusting in Beyond,
In beyond myself.
Franck Joseph – ©FJ Jan 2017
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Notes & Silence 