Giving Up, Giving In: Questioning Depressive Surrender (Barrier Seven)

Today I want to talk about one of the barriers.

Barrier Seven, to be specific.

I call it “GIVING IN, GIVING UP”.

Failure.

Yikes. It’s unfortunately one of my mind’s favorite Go-To barriers to inquiry. I actually got a whiff of it this past weekend.

But first, what does this even really mean….”barrier” to inquiry?

For me, it means all the ways the genius brilliant mind can get tricky, get side-tracked, get serious, get certain that the way it is seeing and perceiving reality….is true.

There is no inquiry present. There is no beginner’s mind when a barrier is alive and running. There is no wonder.

Inquiry, for me, means having an open, flexible mind.

There’s a part of us that wonders, or is curious, or interested in contemplating, debating, looking, examining, investigating, feeling or sensing something new, something added, something different around What Is or anything we perceive.

We all recognize that we don’t know everything. We all basically know we have a limited perspective, and a unique one that comes only from what we’ve individually experienced during our lives.

Which leaves us also knowing we’ve got more to learn, and our minds are ready to take it all in like a sponge.

So in a barrier to inquiry, we feel like the innocence of wonderment and curiosity and humor have vanished into the background….almost as if this way of opening to the world in some stressful moment is not possible.

We’re closed, worried, angry, terrified, or suppressed.

If you’re like me, when inquiry fades into the distance, I’m either hyper-analytic and everything in the mind gets blown out of proportion into the Most Important Thing (Thinking) OR everything in mind gets whacked aside and there’s NO thinking and I’m All Feelings.

Which is where Barrier Seven comes in.

Barrier Seven: Giving Up, Giving In.

In short….Quitting. (Or, threatening to quit, because I notice, I can’t actually completely QUIT–more on that in a minute).

So this past weekend, I had this rebellious, pissy feeling after 3 days of errands, surprise schedule changes, medical concerns of family members, and a growing list of to-do tasks that weren’t getting done.

I felt like Doing Nothing.

In what felt like a “bad” way, not a fun, open-minded light way.

What does the voice within say when I begin to feel this stubborn sense of doing NADA, zilch, nothing?

Let’s quit.

Let’s give up. You win (whomever “you” is–the greater reality, life, the moment). I lost. I give in. Fine.

But it’s not that surrendered, on-my-knees sense of heart-breaking openness that comes from truly and completely being knocked down into a different reality….

….it’s more like a waiting in-between zone. Digging my heals in, like the donkey refusing to get up and walk.

So I knew I was in this barrier when my mind actually said “I’m not doing Year of Inquiry after all” and “this is my last year” and “I’m too old for this” and “I can’t even keep my own calendar straight”.

Yep.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the bathroom that added to my proof that this thing is going down. The hair is rapidly turning grey with all hair coloring having been ditched 3 months ago.

Like a balloon being deflated.

It’s funny that this belief “GIVING UP, GIVING IN” is sad, discouraging, even depressing. But at least you don’t have to work anymore, or “try”.

This is when people with compulsion issues might pause awhile, then say “let’s eat!” or “let’s drink!” or “let’s smoke!” or “let’s buy something!” (As you probably know, my favorite was always eating).

Instead, I lay silently flat on my bed in my quiet, empty house (all activity and people and family miraculously gone).

After awhile I felt the joy of silence.

And deep self-compassion.

Who would you be if you honored the Giving Up Giving In feeling, but didn’t believe it was entirely True?

A very dear friend texted me “it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, check in with how you feel.”

LOL.

Who would you be without the GIVE UP GIVE IN strategy for managing life, in whatever situation you notice you enlist this barrier?

Who would you be without that story?

I’d rest, and wait. I’d remember I feel tired and discouraged only for now, and only because I’m thinking it’s unbearable or impossible or too hard, at the moment.

I’d notice all is well.

Turning the thought around: There is no Giving Up, Giving In. “I” does not quit. I quit my thinking. My thinking quits.

Heart beating, lungs breathing, bed holding me, mind running, earth spinning, deep inhale, quietly nothing required. Life going on. Something continuing, persisting. Nothing required.

“Own all the beautiful parts of you. So many of us we just deny it. Reality is; ‘you’re good, and there’s nothing you can do about it’. And every thought opposing that feels like stress….Those of you who like to get high? Try this.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace