In our Year of Inquiry group, this month we’re looking at The Worst That Could Happen.
Nice and cheery. (Ha ha).
But here’s the thing. Doing The Work on events we’ve found terrible, tragic, horrifying, difficult….seems to expand the mind to include not only the sense of being shattered (no denial of the event in other words) but MORE than only this.
How does that work, being shattered and yet alive, even whole?
It’s the strange paradox of life apparently, part of the duality everyone is speaking about.
(I don’t think of duality as a terrible thing, by the way, and like we all must get to NON-dual ASAP, or else….)
When our Year of Inquiry group is investigating terrible tragedy, or frightening images and visions (the worst that could happen) we notice there’s a never-ending supply of ideas the mind can come up with.
That’s not what this work is about….accumulating scary pictures and scaring ourselves with them, like watching horror movies on purpose.
What this exercise is about, for me, is addressing fear, and noticing what’s actually really true.
Almost every time I’ve considered something “horrifying” or a really bad terrible experience, it’s not as bad as I thought.
Long ago, I was driving on a long road trip with my former husband.
We were in the very last week of our 3 month adventure, driving through tall yellow wheat fields in California on a small blue highway. Rounding a corner in the late afternoon/early evening sun, we saw a truck turned up on its side, and two bodies lying on the earth some distance from the truck.
We stopped.
The bodies were moving. Everything came into consciousness very fast.
Woman, bloody head, turning from side to back, calling out. Small boy, no blood, lying face down quite a few feet away. We’re both jumping out of the car, doors slam, I run to woman, he runs to boy. High alert. Woman talking, moaning, drunk. Boy shaken opening eyes. My husband getting a blanket, boy standing up, lots of blood coming out of a big cut in woman’s forehead.
Two other cars stopping on the road. Someone shouting they’re going back to store to call 911. This was before anyone had a cell phone (1990). I stay with mother of the boy, holding her hand which she’s squeezing, trying to keep a towel on her bloody head and it’s not working well since she’s moving around, worried about her boy, not thinking clearly. Her leg is in a crazy twisted position and must be broken.
In the dusk, a helicopter. First aid men running. We can leave now.
Back in the car, everything was back to normal motion.
We’re far later traveling to our destination than anticipated. My sister’s place where she lives while she goes to school at Berkeley. We hear her worried voice when we stop to call and say what happened. She waits up.
We arrive at 11:00 pm. At midnight, I can’t sleep. At 1:00 am. At 2:00 am. at 3:30 am. I basically stay up all night, adrenaline coursing through me AFTER the whole thing was over. I was entirely safe. I was always entirely safe, but my mind is seriously freaking out, seeing the pictures of what happened over and over.
During the whole thing, I was waiting, calm but extremely awake. I never thought once that time was passing too slowly. I had no reference for time passing at all as we waited for help, as I held this woman’s hand and tried to stop the blood from her head and wondered if I should try to move her twisted leg and decided against it.
I can’t sleep more than 2 hours for 3 nights.
Then I start telling myself I shouldn’t be so freaked out, it didn’t even happen to me, no one died, what’s wrong with me am I too sensitive?
The truth is, that was a traumatic, sudden, surprising situation.
Often, sudden surprises like this are shocking….and they are The Worst That Could Happen.
But what I see now, from here, from doing The Work on this very situation even though it happened 26 years ago, was how everything was present there, including peace: support (the earth), first aid, me and my then-husband, a beautiful California night, my sister’s home, a quiet landscape with soft wind blowing.
Maybe it was the end of drinking for the mother, the end of her driving while drunk. Maybe it was the end of them not using seat belts.
I really don’t know what it meant in their story, all I can know is what I assumed it meant in mine. My entire psychic, physical, mental and emotional system held the belief “this is the worst, it should never happen, there is no good that can come out of this event or any event like it, the world is a dangerous place.”
Was it true?
Could I absolutely know that situation was 100% entirely dangerous, and no good could come from it?
No.
I’m here. Nothing fundamentally permanently terrible really happened, to be honest.
How did I react when I believed it was terrible, dangerous, horrifying?
Surged like an electric fence with anxiety. Repeating the event over and over and over in my head for days, then weeks, and even now I can remember it vividly.
Who would I be without the belief it was the worst that could happen, a terrible event….dangerous?
Huh? Weird.
Although I see, it’s only dangerous to my mind. This body was untouched. There were many healthy bodies all helping out. The hurt bodies of the boy and his mother appeared to be intact (not dead, that’s for sure).
What was in danger? My mind! My believing! Threatened! Scared! Panicked!
Who would I be without the thought the world is a dangerous place, as I consider that scene?
Somehow…..empty. But a good kind of empty, like a light unknowable, unknowing empty. It’s almost funny for some weird reason, right now.
Life went on. I have lived for 26 more years past that incident, and had many, many good times and awe-struck moments, and love, and peace, and awareness and difficulty and loss and clarity.
It seems we’re all here temporarily, I notice. What if this is a good thing? What if I trusted Reality?
Without the belief the world is dangerous, I notice I’m sitting at a table in a quiet living room, writing. I hear a lawn mower in the distance outside, and the refrigerator humming.
“Who or what would you be without this story? You’ve already been living the worst that could happen. Imagination without investigation. Lost in hell. No way out….But there’s not dark hole you can go into where inquiry won’t follow. Inquiry lives inside of you if you nurture it for awhile. Then it takes on its own life and automatically nurtures you. And you’re never given more pain than you can handle. You never, ever get more than you can take. That’s a promise.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love, Grace