Safe mode

“The only cure or recovery from overwhelm is actually nothingness.” - Brené Brown, on the Ten Percent Happier podcast

I heard this line this morning while driving to work, and (very unsafely) fumbled with my phone to rewind and replay it 3 times.

Nothingness is where I was living for the last two weeks.

But instead of something being wrong with that…what if something was actually right?

What if I didn’t consciously know that I was experiencing overwhelm, but my subconscious did? What if my mind and my body retreated and shut down to allow me the space and time I needed?

For the past couple of days, I’ve been slowly getting back to feeling like myself—like I’m able to reconnect to a sense of groundedness and self-compassion.

I’ve been able to access parts of me that were closed off for the last little while: patience, understanding, connection.

I spent time with my kids last night, playing a silly iPad game together for over an hour. I meditated this morning. I even…gasp!…looked in the mirror (with clothes on, but still) without making some kind of derogatory sound toward myself.

While I was in the dredges of nothingness, I felt like a failure (although that feeling was even somewhat numb). Like all of the internal work I’d been doing was a complete waste, because here I was, back in the shit again.

But in hearing that line from Brené this morning, something clicked:

“The only cure or recovery from overwhelm is actually nothingness.”

Maybe my nothingness wasn’t a failure, but a gift.

A reboot.

Operating in Safe Mode for a while to give my systems a chance to repair themselves.

It’s such a big concept to try to wrap my head around. Maybe that’s part of the truth of it, though. It’s so big that it’s actually incredibly simple, and the only way to embrace it is not to overthink it. Which is a really hard thing to do when you overthink everything.

I can’t argue with the fact that I’m in a much better place after my reboot, though.

Ya did good, subconscious self. I will try listening to you more often, but I can’t make any promises.