The Present Moment is a Lounge Chair
"Only chaos creates the abyss in which we can recreate ourselves."
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In case it needs to be said, launching one’s own business does a number on one’s nervous system, and last week, I was counting down the minutes to an appointment with my reiki practitioner.
I’ve been seeing her for the past two years, and I always leave our sessions feeling present, anchored in myself, and basking in a general sense of well-being. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced. I was skeptical at first, and it took me a few sessions to relax into the experience and to put my thinking brain on the shelf for an hour. As a verbal processor, I could talk and write til every single last cow comes home about feelings, and my inner experience, so to access this level of groundedness without having to talk or think too much is particularly profound.
Last week, she peeled me down from the rafters and landed me back in my body. Towards the end of the session, she checked in. “What’s coming up for you?”
Sometimes, I know how to answer this question when she asks—there’s an image swirling behind my eyes, or a word, or some message come through. Last week I sort of mumbled something, I don’t remember what, and as I was speaking she interrupted me. “Dani,” she said, “you don’t need to figure out. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be.” With this validation and acknowledgement, my nervous system downshifted a few more notches: ahhh, first gear.
And then came the zinger: “Remember,” she said, “the present moment is a lounge chair.”
And with that, I landed on an image that’s been dancing in my brain ever since: there I am, careening through space, relaxed yet alert, cross-legged in a lounge-chair, cool as hell even as life swirls around, even as she continues to be life-y, even as she continues to do her life-thing.
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For so long, I tried to micromanage my life. I believed that this approach would keep me safe.
The thing that happens when you micromanage your life is that you start to miss your actual life. Your vision narrows, your body clenches, and anything outside of The Plan™ activates your whole nervous system. You miss signs, symbols, signals, serendipity, spontaneity. You gather evidence to reinforce everything you already know. Your beliefs calcify and what becomes available is the opposite of possibility.
You recede further and further into your brain. You replay past mistakes, obsessing over specific do-over scenarios that if granted—if only!—might finally redeem you. You fantasize about all the things you’re missing—people, jobs, ideas, careers, clothes, account balances, accolades—that you’re certain if you had would let you finally be happy. You grind over every possible outcome, behaving as if future tripping will protect you from the present moment.
One morning (ok, many mornings, over and over, over a long period of time) in the shower you are scrubbing your face a little too vigorously and the lightbulb goes off in your brain, illuminating everything: What is the point of doing all this self work, you wonder, if my lizard brain still has me by the tail?
Then comes the weird part: the part where you have to figure out how to change your brain. The part where you have to figure out how to cede control of your life, so that you might receive it instead.
I’m recalling a previous post both because it fits well with today’s rambling and also to show that I have been in this conversation with myself for a while. I knew that the way I was operating was not working, and that not only was it not working, but it was actively contributing to the low-grade sense of “is this it? Is *this* as good as my life will be/feel?” I was swimming in. I’ve worked with coaches and therapists and I have great support systems in place. And ultimately, I had to own that it was up to me to fundamentally change the way I thought if I wanted to change how I fundamentally experienced my day-to-day life. I had to believe—I had to practice believing—that I was worthy of having a life that felt good more often than it felt bad.
I knew I had to learn to relate to life in an entirely new way. But how would I actually do that?
One way I’ve been practicing releasing my death-grip of control is to study and apply the principles of Chaos Theory to my life and the way I see the world.
Now, I am not the most articulate explainer of high-concept science-y things but basically, all of the structures we westerners operate inside were created based off the principles of Newtonian physics, as developed by Sir Isaac Newton back in the eighteenth century. To say that science has come a long way since then is an understatement, and so much of what we know now about the nature of life and change is actually in total opposition to these earlier discoveries.
The difference between Newtonian science and the new science that’s since emerged is the difference between viewing ourselves as machines, able to be broken down into parts that we can control, versus viewing ourselves as part of a vast network of relationships that all work together to perpetuate more and more life.
If I view myself as a controllable machine, then when something bad happens, I believe that something is wrong with me or my life. I double down and try to manage, fix, eradicate. My vision narrows. Possibility is out of reach.
When I view myself as part of a web of relationships that require disruption in order to continue to evolve, I view bad things as part of the process, rather than an indication that something is wrong with the process. I can be with discomfort. I can trust that order will reveal itself, if I allow it.
From “Leadership and the New Science” by Margaret Wheatley (which yeah, had quite the impression and which I highly recommend - emphases mine):
It is chaos’ great destructive energy that dissolves the past and gives us the gift of a new future. It releases us from the imprisoning patterns of the past by offering us its wild ride into newness. Only chaos creates the abyss in which we can recreate ourselves.
Most of us have experienced this ride of chaos in our own lives. At the personal level, chaos has gone by many names, including “dark night of the soul” or “depression.” Always, the experience is a profound loss of meaning—nothing makes sense in the way it did before; nothing seems to hold the same value it once did. These dark nights have been well-documented in many spiritual traditions and cultures. They are part of the human experience, how we participate in the spiral dance of form, formlessness, and new form. As we reflect on the times when we personally have descended into chaos, we can notice that as it ends, we emerged changed, stronger in some ways, new. We have held in us the dance of creation and learned that growth always requires passage through the fearful realms of disintegration.
Being inside of a “dark night of the soul” is, um, not easy. I do not go out searching for these moments. And, when they arrive, which they will, and I am plunged into the cosmic transformation pot, reminding myself that this is LIFE having it’s way with me rather than something to be avoided or yet another reason to anesthetize myself is just enough of a reframe to release some unnecessary pressure.
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Now here’s the bridge I’m inviting you to cross with me: applying the principles of Chaos Theory to how I orient toward life is how I return myself to the lounge chair. It’s how I’m able to partner with life, to be with tumult and disarray, to be in relationship with the unexpected, without assigning unhelpful meaning to it. It is how I receive the way my life is being revealed to me, rather than fighting against its unfolding.
I can’t spend my whole life in the lounge chair. That would be a ridiculous aspiration. I exist in a capitalistic society that requires a certain amount of effort for me to sustain myself. There are demands on me, people and projects I am accountable to. Also, I’m a human, which means that every day I navigate things/thoughts/fears/stresses that seek to lure me away from the lounge chair.
What I can do is notice when I’m spiraling or squirreling, and then do my best to return.
This is not a bypassing. In my lounge chair, I am awake, receptive. I am not blind to the awfulness in the world. Indeed, the lounge chair is what makes it possible for me to stay engaged.
I just reread this, and I’m laughing! I’m laughing at the absurdity of being human, I’m laughing at our holy insignificance. I’m imagining all of us, a whole fleet, the chillest army in the galaxy.
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BASELINE, the theme of this past Monday’s THE PRACTICE, is a helpful tool to help us return to the lounge chair.
ALSO: EEP, in this month’s SELF MADE workshop I’ll be going into greater detail of how we might apply the principles of Chaos Theory to our recovery practices. Workshop is called “Chaos is a Friend of Mine,” and is scheduled for Wednesday, 8/24 at 5:30pm PST// 8:30pm EST.
This workshop is included in a SELF MADE membership. Tickets go on sale for non-members next week.
From the archives ~ this time last year:
⭐️ How to Keep Going: 14 things to do when you don’t know what to do
SELF MADE is a rebellious recovery community that empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and boldly step into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, founder, writer, coach, and recovery advocate based in San Francisco, CA.
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Thank you.
Thank you for this insight, ugh it makes it easier to sit back and just be! And thank you for sharing your experience with Reiki. I LOVE being a Reiki practitioner and want everyone to know how great it is!