The Root of Overwhelm
La raíz del agobio
A student describes feeling able to open up to personal challenges but feeling overwhelmed and contracted when facing the enormity of world events. The teacher explores how this points to a deeper, more structural fear, and how trust and vulnerability offer the only true way through.
The Root of Overwhelm
A student describes feeling able to open up to personal challenges but feeling overwhelmed and contracted when facing the enormity of world events. The teacher explores how this points to a deeper, more structural fear, and how trust and vulnerability offer the only true way through.
I could relate immediately to what you were saying about noticing beauty and love in the midst of all of it. Before I say anything else, this felt like a totally different meditation for me. It felt like it was coming from a different angle, or it touched me differently.
She's saying yes, that's what she meant.
It really struck me. It touched a different corner of my experience, a different corner of something. I could relate on a personal level. That's exactly it, and it's so exciting. That helps me open up. I get the challenge and then I get the opening and the expansion. It's like, "Bring me more." I can't lose.
But then when I think about the macro, the political world, it feels like a different thing. And of course it isn't.
But that's going into thought.
You could say it's going into thought, but when I hear about things, it's so overwhelming. What I'm trying to say is: I understand that it's true. It fits everything, because everything just is. I get that. And everything is happening inside me too. I get that. I feel it. When I hear about current events, all the stories, all the drama, I realize, "Ah, that's me reacting to what I just heard." I see that.
But what I'm telling you is my experience. More often than not, when I hear those stories, it's a different experience for me. I don't open up the way I do on a personal level.
The pull of information vs. reality
That's what I'm referring to. When you say you don't open up, you're describing something I can only sense into. But what I hear is: there is too much focus on it. When you say you can't open up, it's because the focus on the reality of the world, the politics, all the chaos and wars, which is real, has become dominant. It's happening, but the information is something else. The reality of what's happening is different from the information we get.
A hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. Because the information will never capture all the reality. Even if I were there, I couldn't get all of it.
But then the information, which has a place, being informed and being in touch with that, when that becomes, as you said, something you can't open up to, and it becomes your reality, contracted, that's where there has likely been a loss. Because at a deeper level, you chose the reality of the information and the interpretation. The mind, your mind, wrapping around that information.
That's right. That's my experience. I've gone to a different level, a level of conceptualization, of judgment. That's mind. I see that.
And that's fine, and it's constantly going to happen. We will get these pulls from whatever activates fear or activates wanting to avoid pain, and then we can choose to take that path.
Following what is beautiful
What I'm proposing, and this is connected to the meditation, is that there are many ways through that, but one is the anchor: to find what is real here and what is beautiful to you here. Because what we find to be beautiful is like breadcrumbs on a trail. You find something very small that is beautiful, and if you follow that, it grows. You find more and you follow that. The more you choose it, the more you find it.
And then the reality of the world, the chaos, the pain, the suffering, can reverse, so that rather than you being inside the chaos, the chaos is appearing inside your anchor to what is beautiful and loving to you. These are just words, but it's something you will feel. Something that becomes a ground, in a sense.
That makes sense. Absolutely. And that's actually my experience. That is my path, or that's what I've come to see as obvious in personal things. More and more, that's taking over as the reality underlying all the surface stuff. And I'm seeing more and more that what I see out there is actually me looking at myself.
So maybe I'm answering my own question: I don't have to figure out how to deal with the enormity of what I see. I can just start here, with you, with this person, with that situation. I don't have to start with the enormity of it. It will just happen.
But I also hear you saying it's a choice. When I look at the drama in the world and don't realize I'm conceptualizing, the task is to notice myself conceptualizing.
Relating to your own mind
To see that what you're relating to is your own mind. And the limited capacity of the mind to understand and see truth. The mind processes information, presents interpretations, and then there's going to be a pull, a temptation, which you describe as a sense that you need to solve it, address it, or fix it in some way. You're looking at it as you having to do something.
I don't see it that way. What I'm saying is I feel overwhelmed, and I think the answer to the sense of overwhelm is just to look at the overwhelm. I don't feel I need to fix anything, except the overwhelm. I understand this. I see how I interpret, and I see how I feel the need to find a way to deal with it. But I don't need to find a way to deal with it.
You're talking about both sides. There's a temptation to find a way to deal with it. That's what I'm talking about.
And I'm saying I don't have to find a way to deal with it. What I notice is there's a sense of overwhelm. That's what's coming up for me when I hear you talk about this.
But what is the overwhelm?
The overwhelm is fear and pain. It's the same old, same old. It's much ado about nothing.
Overwhelm as the center of experience
That's what I'm trying to point out: that fear and pain are becoming central in your experience. They become the core of your experience because you are focusing on them.
I get that. I see it. But I can't do anything about it. I realize I want to do something about it because I feel overwhelmed, but the overwhelm is nothing. It's just fear and pain.
You can do something about it. Not the world.
I'm not talking about the world. I'm just saying: look at my overwhelm. That's what I'm saying.
Overwhelm happens because you are focusing on it to a degree that it becomes your core experience. Something that's core to you is overwhelmed because there needs to be a solution and you can't find one. And that is because there's a focus on an impossible problem.
It doesn't mean you try to ignore the problem or pretend it's not there. It's about what is happening that turns that into the core, that brings it into the center of your being. But it's mind.
I see that it's mind. And right now I feel the pain and the frustration and the overwhelm. That's all I'm saying. I feel the pain and frustration and overwhelm and it's enormous, and that's it. And it's okay. That's what I'm saying: it's okay. It's perfect. This is exactly what needs to be happening. And then, as you say, taste it. Even overwhelm is the same as anything. It's just another taste.
Something you can do
And also, when you said there's nothing you can do, I propose there is something, which is really to look at what's happening more deeply. There is an activation that is in your hands. To see that this is happening, this is perfect, this is as it is, that's great. And then you come to an edge where you can choose to trust more.
I don't know what that means.
I know, but I talked about that in the meditation. To trust, in a sense, is to let go. What you can trust is this: on one hand, something's pulling. There's a problem, and if only it were solvable, you would be okay. The overwhelm is "I'm not able to solve this, and it's now become the core of my experience." That is pulling, and it's very tempting.
That's it. It's the temptation.
If we don't look closely, we interpret that as happening to us. "The mind is happening to me, and it takes over, and the mind does this to me." It's pulling and it's tempting. And if we don't have any other path, the temptation will always win.
So what I'm proposing is that there is another option, and it's not about leaving this moment. It's about what's happening now.
What I'm hearing you say applies to everything I have ever experienced. I've experienced this in the past on what I call a smaller scale. I know "smaller" is a concept, but in my mind it's smaller: personal things. What you're describing is exactly what I have experienced. So I see that in my mind I have categorized this as different, as the big league. But it's not. It's the exact same thing. There's a concept that needs to be challenged. It doesn't mean I have to figure it out or overcome it, but just to notice: "Ah, I'm making this into a big thing as opposed to an everyday thing." It's all the same.
Branches and roots
You're trying to address it with more thinking.
No, what I'm saying is I understand that, but I'm looking at myself and realizing where I'm coming from now is something different.
In a way, it is a bigger league. Because as you work through things, you start to meet the roots. At first we are addressing the surfaces of the mind, dealing with small fears. It's secondary, like branches on a tree. We think we can clear the branches, but until we get to the root, and when you're close to the root, it is another league. It is more powerful.
What do you mean, closer to the root?
When you've seen through your beliefs, you've seen through mind, you've seen how it all is happening, but something at a deeper level still overpowers.
How is what I'm talking about deeper?
The energy of temptation is stronger.
Why? What's the difference? Why is there more temptation?
You've described two things. You've described being overpowered, and you've described how you see through everything. You're seeing through the mind. You've seen through it. But when you see through it and you're still overwhelmed, you're dealing with something deeper.
Are you saying that me looking at the enormity of things going on in the world, things that feel bigger than enormous, that that's inherently deeper?
No. I'm talking about your own experience right now. Not what your mind is focusing on, which would be the hugeness of the world problem. I'm talking about the fact that when you've seen through the way your mind works, and you've described that, you're not pulled into the stories. The stories are the branches, the waves, the secondary layer.
If you were talking about a certain political situation and then that specific narrative were pulling you, and to you that were real and that were the problem, that would be one thing. But you've seen through that. You've recognized that. Yet something still pulls. Something still contracts. That's what I'm saying: you are now facing something deeper, more structural than the branches. I'm calling it roots. It's more of a structure than what the structure creates.
Could you give me a personal example of when it was more the branches and then when it became the actual structure, the foundation? I get a sense of it, but I'd like a handle on what you're talking about.
For example, finding a way to feel safer in the world professionally. The fear of financial struggle, and then that becomes a lot of focus on work and the professional world. But once I worked through that, there was still a core fear that no matter how much I worked on the professional situation would not resolve.
In a sense, the fear had nothing to do with finances or professional life.
That's exactly it. It's a sense of overwhelm that's in me, has been part of me for as long as I remember, and then it gets stimulated. I'm very aware of that.
But that's hindsight. You now see that it was always there. Does that resonate? Underneath, behind all of it.
Absolutely. That's exactly what I see.
That's what I mean by root.
In other words, something that has been part of my way of being in the world. The fear and the pain have colored everything. Some things were easier to deal with, but now the things that feel like the big league are really about me. About the way I have felt handicapped in the world.
The nameless energy
Feeling handicapped in the world is a description, but the more you look at it and get close to it, it has no name. It has no description. It has an energy, an energy that holds and is tempting. There is a temptation to resolve it in some way. And the more you get close to it, the more that sense of resolving it becomes powerless. The overwhelm. It does not get fixed. It does not stop. And that can be very frustrating, very scary, and painful.
That's when we're addressing something more root, more fundamental. And only when we are close to that does the choice between contraction and freedom really become possible.
Say it again.
The choice between that contraction and fear, on the one hand, and freedom, on the other, becomes possible only when we have reached a certain depth. Otherwise we would think the solution is something else.
One experience I can open to. This other one I'm having a hard time opening to. So what you're saying is it's hard because it's more root in me.
And it's more painful because you realize: in the end, it was always me. That's part of the pain as well. It's not something in the world, unrelated to me, that I can fix or change. It becomes more: it's me. But that still isn't entirely true. It is closer, though, in that it is internal. It is more subjective.
And it's my experience. I own it. I don't want to project it. And I think not projecting it actually helps me get in touch with my own experience. But it also feels like it intensifies the experience even more. There's no blame. It's like, "Then what do I do?" I'm suspended in space. I get that the usual solutions aren't going to save me, but where is my salvation? It's a terrifying place to be.
The choice at the root
To use the political situation as a metaphor, so we don't go into specifics: it's the difference between blaming another and going to war. Obviously there are situations where going to war is the right thing. But when it becomes a chronic blaming of another and going to fight, what is not addressed is something chronic that is here, that hasn't been fully addressed.
But seeing that, which I think is what you have seen, you've seen it enough that you're saying, "Okay, yes, it's here. It's me. It's in me." That's a huge difference, a huge change. It's a miracle, in fact. And that's something you should recognize. It is a miracle.
And then there is more. Because there is a solution to that. But the solution is through it, deeply. Because if this has the nature of an illusion, it can dissolve.
What just came up for me as I listened to you is that this is exactly the same dynamic that comes up in different areas, different themes. It's the same thing: a leap. It's terror. "How do I get from here to there?" And then: there's nowhere to go. I'm already here. It's the same dynamic in me. This conversation could be about many other things, because I recognize it's in me, this sense of powerlessness. It's a deep, deep-seated sense of powerlessness, both out in the world and inside. "What am I going to do?" It's the exact same thing.
Powerlessness and trust
You're at that point where you are in powerlessness. You've come to a root, and now you do not see or find or feel a way through, a solution. There used to be an attempt at a solution: fix the problem. Basically, use or gain power to beat the powerlessness. Go into the world, use energy, force power into the problem.
There's another way, which is trust.
Do you feel a sense of vulnerability when you talk about trust? Because that just came up for me. It feels private, putting down my own personal sense of control.
It's exactly the word I used in the meditation: vulnerability. It is trust. It is vulnerability. It is openness. It is true faith, which is not a belief system in a book or any kind of doctrine. It's trust. But trust requires this openness, and it requires, in a sense, a letting go. Because it states: everything I've been trying to avoid, and what I want to protect the most, I'm willing to offer it.
What does that mean, "I'm willing to offer it"?
If there's going to be pain, I'm available.
That's revolutionary. That is absolutely beautiful.
That's the kind of trust I'm talking about.
I see. It's absolute trust. It's not holding on to anything. It's just free fall.
It's at a deep level, because if we were talking about a certain situation at the surface level, I wouldn't be saying this. In content, in a specific situation, sometimes it's really not the right thing to offer yourself to pain. I'm talking about something deeper.
You're not talking about an operational level. I get it. It's a being level.
Once you are in touch with that deeper level, then that offering becomes the only way.
Did you get in touch with this deep level before you had your final big shift?
Yes. I came to it many, many times.
It must have been excruciating, because there's still the identification of the individual. It's like...
You're in pain, yes. But the identification goes later, at least in my case. The belief in what I thought I was dissolved later, dropped later, after this offering.
I think it takes a phenomenal maturity or willingness.
It also takes having no other option. Everything else has failed. There's no other path. And then it's not up to you. You didn't do it. I take no credit or merit. There was a point where I had no option.
Because you were in so much pain, you'd tried everything?
Also all of the escapes. I couldn't believe in them anymore. All of the torture of the struggle of escaping. Walking around with a heart in pain, interpreting that the solution is in life, in relationship, in work, in situation. And then all of that fails. All the mechanisms of thinking how it's going to be resolved in that way start to fail to a degree where I cannot activate any more escaping.
The love for truth
I think it takes, maybe maturity isn't the right word, but an openness to seeing that. That's what I need.
It is the love for truth.
No matter what it looks like.
If you prefer untruths, you will stay in your suffering. And the love of truth is a journey, in the sense that we see more and more deeply what is true, what is not, what is real, what is not.
Ultimately, it is to see that everything the mind presents is not true. So it's about seeing what is not true. You don't find truth. You see everything that was illusion and false for what it is, which is false. You don't arrive at "now this is true." You can communicate it in words, and then it's very easy to know that those words aren't what it is.
The temptation is huge. The more dramatic things get, the more I hear people's takes, people's experiences, people's pain, and I find myself getting pulled. But the more I'm interested in truth, the more I see: "Ah, what I just heard is true for that person." And then I hear another person who says just the opposite, and that's true too. It's just the ever-changing reality. It's not it. I'm not going to find my salvation in any story or any event.
You will see that what's really at the core of that struggle is a pain and a fear that is not about that.
I've seen that for a long time. And maybe not just intellectually; I get that. Part of my pain is that I see it and I want other people to see it too. So again, I'm pulled back in through the back door: "I get it, so now I'm going to save everyone." No. So I'm sitting there and nothing is going to work.
I also wonder what it's like for you. You go around the world and see all of us running in circles.
What I see is beauty
When I walk around, I see beauty. I see beautiful people. I see struggle, but not at the core of what I experience. At the core, I just see beauty. Everything that is struggle, pain, fear is a very small part of my reality. It's not that the pain became small, but rather it's no longer what's in the focus.
Something shifted, and I don't really understand how or what it is, but something shifted to a degree where I can no longer focus on what is dark, on fear and pain. When fear moves, it's like, "Oh, there's that." It's like something painful in my hand. It's not my whole being in pain or in fear.
I feel that in you. It's the love, the reality of this that is so big you can't even imagine what could ever affect it.
It just reminded me of the name of my website, which is "Accepting Love." That, to me, was in words a realization: you don't get love, you accept it, because it already is. And all I was doing was fighting against that, resisting it. You can't have freedom and love, in the sense of what I'm describing, and at the same time believe in illusions. They're mutually exclusive. To believe what is false veils love, veils peace. It veils it, because love is actually there, but you don't see it.
There's something about accepting love that feels initially excruciating.
Letting go of the toy
It's excruciating because it's the end of illusions, and we're very attached. It's like a child who is promised a very big, expensive toy and then finds out they're not going to have it. It's very painful. They had projected a lot of happiness and well-being onto receiving this toy.
We've spent decades believing that all we have to do is this and that, and then finally we'll be okay, finally we'll be at peace, finally we'll be happy. And that always fails. But it's like a child learning that they can be happy without the big expensive toy. In their emotional and mental experience, they're in such distress that there is no happiness whatsoever unless they have the toy. In that sense, it is a growing up and maturing: to realize, "Oh, I don't need the toy. I can just play with sticks and it's beautiful and fun. I can imagine the same joy I was going to have with the expensive toy."
That's the shift: to trust that maybe I can be okay without this. It's a "maybe" because you don't know it until you trust and explore it. Maybe I don't need anything to be in any particular way in order to be at peace and have a deep well-being, a deep satisfaction, just because there is life, just because there is this. It is enough.
These are words, but I can offer it as: maybe just consider, maybe that is enough. I know for myself, I know the contrast. I've seen and known for thirty-five years of believing that all of what the mind was helping me imagine I needed was the truth of what I needed to be okay. And then I discovered that was all false.
It wasn't an immediately pleasant discovery. There's a saying from Jesus: "Seek and don't stop seeking until you find. When you find, you will be troubled." And then you will enter the kingdom. But first you're troubled, because you realize everything you thought you wanted, which actually defines who you think you are, is all imagined. It's not real. And once that surrendering happens fully, then, when the cup is emptied, the fresh wine pours in.
It reminds me of something I've come to, but I'm feeling it very powerfully right now. The biggest macro global problem I perceive is the most personal, and vice versa. All of the stuff out there brings up all of the stuff I've always struggled with inside of me.
And that has defined you.
Yes, exactly. I can feel the contours of my personality. It's such a turn-off. When I look at it, all the fighting, the struggling, the identification, it has nothing to do with anything.
That's just more of the same structure of mind. You define the thing you are, which you don't like, and then it loops. All of that is imagination. The emotional pain is imagination. That's why we can go to a movie and jump in our seats in fear at something that is just light projected on a wall. It's not real. None of it is real. You can cry. You can get your heart racing. It's all imagination.
Once you see through that fully, then when you look at the world, you're able to see with a different kind of eyes, a different kind of clarity, because you're not putting into it all of the personal imagination, all of the misinterpretations. You drop the need for that to be in the middle.
In the end it's the same: simply seeing and tasting.
There's another saying from Jesus: "Remove the log from your own eye, and then you will be able to remove the splinter from your friend's eye." Love your neighbor. That's really what happens. We see through all of our identity and attachment and all of our struggle, and then we look at a problem, but ninety percent of what we were looking at was an internal problem. There was so much noise in the way. We try to address something and it doesn't work. Once that is resolved, then you see, let's say, eighty percent of the actual problem and twenty percent is the interpretation. It's much more effective.