I had been meaning to get new glasses for months and then the pandemic happened. With my screen time probably doubling during shelter-in-place my eyes have been miserable. The last time I got new glasses four years ago, the doctor said to me, “You may want to get bifocals,” and would you know that my pride just wouldn’t have it? Me! Young 34yo Walter with bifocals? I assured the doctor I’d consider it for next time. Fast forward to COVID-times when I haven’t been reading books for 3 months because of the eye-straining.

So I made an appointment two weeks ago when the eye doctors opened back up. My time at the office was miserable. Plastic shields were up, masks were on, tape on the floor told me where to stand. The frames were off limits to my touch! I told the worker what I was looking for and he brought me just FOUR pairs to try on. Normally, I’d spend hours in agony trying to decide what to select. Let me tell you—I have a lot of shit to keep in mind when picking out frames!

For example, do these glasses make me stand out in a crowd? (I’m insecure so I want to blend in with the background.) Might the glasses have the tiniest touch of femininity? (I’m a misogynist and a homophobe and need to look very masc.) Might the frames enhance the massive size of my eyeballs? (I have freakishly massive eyeballs and I’m ugly.)

Do I sound too dramatic?

I got my first glasses when I was 5 years old. The lens for my lazy eye was a quarter inch to a centimeter thick! One day, when I was wearing the glasses while they were still new to me, my mom and I went to the C&C Supermarket (where I’d later work as a teenager) and for a moment I was alone in the store with the very important job of watching my mom’s purse in the shopping cart. Two young girls were standing nearby and I looked up at one who exclaimed after seeing me, “Oh my god! Look! He’s soooo cute!” Cute!? Me!? I really beamed inside! The other girl turned and looked at me and exclaimed, “Oh my god! His eyes are SO big!” And they both laughed. They laughed at me! And that beaming feeling inside turned to confusion and to shame. I put my head down and felt miserable.

That was the moment when I began believing there was something seriously wrong with me, something freakishly wrong with my eyes.

On a later day, I was walking alone down a dirt driveway, and suddenly remembering I had those stupid glasses on my face I took them off, threw them at the gravel road, and I stepped on them. Immediately I freaked out! We didn’t have a lot of money and my mom had given me a stern “these are very expensive and you have to take good care of them” talk. What had I done!? I concocted a quick story, and, crying crying, I told my mom I had been running and they fell off and I accidentally stepped on them. While I waited for days for them to be replaced I reached a sad conclusion—I just couldn’t see well without them. My eyes were bad! And that was the moment when I accepted my spectacled fate.

But the poison of believing there was something seriously wrong with my eyes had already reached the core of my being. I was a broken boy; a defect; a freak with massive eyes. I believed that! And all that suffering came up last year in an ayahuasca ceremony. I saw very clearly the infinite mean spiritedness I had directed at myself for so long; that I had directed at young, innocent, sweet boy-me. How I hated myself, and hated my eyes, and hated how I looked! I cried and cried in that ceremony and I begged forgiveness from myself. I thought I had done all the crying I could! I’ll love my eyes and my glasses from now on! I promised I would.

And then I was at the eye doctors last week and the four frames were sitting on the table before me. My mask was on, my face was sweaty, and the worker was impatient and mostly unhelpful. My eyes were strained and hurting and my old scratched glasses were steaming up from the mask. I was so miserable, y’all. So super miserable! I was stressed. I just couldn’t wait to get out of there. I selected these new frames in about a minute! It’s always taken me hours to select frames before. “Cursed COVID!,” I was telling my therapist just an hour later when I got home. I was telling him about the anxiety that came up at the eye doctor’s office.

I barely said any words to the therapist when the tears and memories came. Oh, it wasn’t COVID that stressed me out! It was the eyes again! My freakishly big eyes! Did you know that on a first date once a guy asked me to take off my glasses so he could see what I looked like without them, and then he never responded to my messages after? Did you know the intensity of my fear when I was in high school that if I selected the wrong frames, with the tiniest element of girlishness, that I might alert the whole world that I’m gay? Did you know I’ve feared that I’ve been single most of my life simply because my eyes look big? All that nonsense came bubbling up, from some dark, forgotten place within. What a total bastard I’ve been to myself.

I know enough to know that I can’t promise to myself I’ll love my eyes and having glasses forever more, because it seems like the healing is never over. I know there’ll by more tears again some day. And more to learn and come to love about myself and all the infinite complexity within.

And for now, I just want to say
Thank you to the eye doctors
Thank you to vision, even shitty vision
Thank you to my freakishly big eyes
And thank you to these fancy new bifocals

It seems my anxiety peaked 10 days ago with that panic attack I had. Since then I’ve had a few stretches of fairly intense anxiety, I’ve dug up and processed some of the anxiety’s roots, and I’ve been upping my self-care game. My therapist’s helped a great deal and I’ve had several great discussions with very supportive friends.

While it seemed like the coronavirus was the anxiety’s cause, what was even clearer was how much more intense it became after dark. I even began panicking in late afternoons, fearing the arrival of nighttime’s anxiety. While the coronavirus was a big factor of course, darkness was the common denominator. So darkness is where I’ve been deep-diving.

What I’ve learned this week, and I feel some embarrassment saying this, is that it seems my childhood fear of the dark is the main source of the anxiety. In any case, that’s the place where I’ve been working it out.

The fact of the matter’s that there were times when I was a boy that I didn’t feel safe at night. Sometimes there were drunk adults around, acting unpredictably, and it really scared me. Sometimes I lay in bed at night, listening to my parents arguing outside my door, feeling intense loneliness. This week I remembered that as a boy I sometimes fell asleep whiling praying for the darkness to go away. During the sunlight, I experienced predictability, stability, reassurance, safety. On the other hand, I sometimes experienced intense fear when it was night.

What the coronavirus has made me aware of is that I absolutely love feeling safe and secure. I flourish in predictability. And I crumble in darkness.

And I can see now the ways I’ve leaned too heavily on others to make me feel safe.

A sense of safety can be an inside job. And this is an opportunity for me to sit up straight, strengthen my backbone, and shore up my inner resources. More and more I’m learning to lean on me. I’ve been watering my inner garden. The coronavirus is like a bad nighttime storm. And I can be like a wise farmer growing a rich crop of adaptability.

I can now recall the wisdom I knew as a child, the ways I soothed myself. And I’ve been learning new ways. I’m increasingly alert to the anxiety while it’s still small and I take action.

I get up. I walk. Barefoot, I go down the stairs and feel the carpet under my feet. I feel the textures of whatever’s beside me. I wash my hands and feel the soap slippery on my skin. I take a sip of cold water and feel it wash down my throat. I rock in my chair, listen to the creaking, and look out the window. I open the window and feel the breeze! I rub my rose geranium in my hands and collapse into the smell. I breathe so deeply that my belly rises big and falls. And I go outside when it’s nighttime, sit on the stoop, and make friends with the dark.

I’ve had a lot of pain in my upper chest and lungs this week. I’ve been breathing shallowly and sometimes feel like I’m not getting enough air. There’s been moments of light panic.

And I know these symptoms are connected to stress and anxiety. I know this because when I watch an hour of television I come out on the other side with no chest pain. And after reading an article about the virus the pain returns immediately.

Today I was working on this with my therapist. Before talking to him, I could intuit that the pain was a very tight ball of fear. When he asked me what the fear was about, I couldn’t get into it. It was too scary to look inside. With just a few more questions he helped me to unlock it. This old pain, which resurfaced because of the new virus, is the suffering, fear, panic, and loneliness I internalized as a teen, as I saw on the news gay men dying from AIDS.

I was so terribly out of touch with my body and emotions at that time. And that virus scared me terribly. All those unresolved emotions got tucked inside until this moment.

It’s grace that it comes up now. It comes up to pass away.

And my chest is back to being painful.
More lessons on their way.

I pray for strength and understanding. I pray that wisdom be born from this.

I started seeing a therapist a month ago and today was my fourth visit. I’m wildly impressed by the results so far and excitedly look forward to each visit. San Francisco’s low-income health plan matched me with my therapist after a phone interview. I’m very impressed by how good of a match they made. I’m so grateful that California’s Medicaid covers mental health 100%.

Honestly, I had no idea therapy could be this effective. So far, it’s been on par with the effectiveness I’ve experienced with Byron Katie’s inquiry-based approach to mental health healing. My experience using Byron Katie’s method has awakened my awareness to the images passing through my mind. This has been very helpful in therapy. When the therapist asks me a question, I close my eyes and just watch the movie playing in my mind. It shows me everything I need to witness. I’ve also recently realized that this practice is what the early Quakers referred to as “minding the Light.” My therapist is patient with my process and asks helpful follow-up questions that guide me.

The hours I’ve spent meditating has also proved so helpful. Years ago, before my first meditation course, I had almost no awareness of emotions below my neck. My existence had become so cerebral; I was cut off from my emotional state. Meditation has helped sew my awareness back into my body. I now can watch emotions flash across my torso like the colors splashing across a cuttlefish. Again, as the therapist asks me questions, and as I close my eyes, I watch the images in my mind and feel the emotions in my body.

The breakthroughs and realizations have been transformative. I feel like I’m being drawn together.

Lately my somewhat unorthodox multipronged approach to healing feels increasingly woven together. I’m uncovering the ways inquiry, therapy, Quaker meeting, ayahuasca, and meditation overlap and relate to one another. Like a firm table with many legs, I’m finding a stronger sense of stability.

For some two or three weeks I’ve had this growing sense that some big change has taken place in my inner world.

The last time I wrote about my process I told of realizing the source of the depression I had been experiencing for some time. It became so clear that the depression was an outer reflection of my inner sense of powerlessness. Since that discovery I’ve experienced no depression and there’s been this growing sense of feeling anchored inside. My inner world can be tumultuous. Even at times when I appear calm, my internal experience can feel angry, volatile. As late it’s been calm; some storm has passed. And there’s a sense that the calm feeling is growing; like the inner anchor grows stronger and more reliable. And there’s also a sense that some new chapter’s begun and I can’t yet tell what this chapter’s about. And I’ve also had moments in the last couple weeks where I’ve been grumpy and imperfect and embarrassed of my behavior. And then there’s the experience of a quickened returning to this calm, anchored space inside. Like there’s some inner lighthouse that no longer lets me stay lost in the storm for too long; that calls me back home again and again.

——

More and more I just notice that my power and my voice are simply there (where they weren’t before.) I just say what I say. The cork is gone, or leaving, and what I need said just comes out effortlessly. I just stand up for myself; it’s so simple. Before I needed bravery to do it, and now I don’t even need that. It just flows. And I’m also noticing the areas where my voice and power are lacking. It’s so obvious to me now. I see where to grow next.

To some this may seem like small potatoes, yet when I reflect on how I was in high school!? What a change has come! That poor, sad powerless boy. I love him deeply and work to liberate him fully.

When people have asked “How are you doing?” and I respond “Depressed,” the next question is always “Why?” And I haven’t had anything to respond with. Who knows why!? Depression is such a murky teacher. It can seem random, unfair, malicious.

Yet I’ve persisted in seeing it as a teacher. I’ve persisted in asking it, “What are you here to teach me?” And it’s been so damn silent. Over the last few weeks I’ve spent hours sitting with it. The exercise is painful and can seem so pointless. Nothing moves. At all. It seems. Nothing shifts. The stagnancy has forced me to question all my theories about depression, doubting it all.

Even just this morning, around 4:00 am, I was up with the depression and unable to sleep. I felt stuck and angry. And yet some pieces have begun to move in just the last few hours. Things are clicking. I took some action and the cosmic affirmation was immediate. “Yes,” it said, “this is what you were meant to do all along.” I can say now with full conviction that the depression desires I find my voice and realize my power.

This is a long process, of course, but I can see now that these twin elements already live inside me in some infant form. I’ve abandoned them for too long and they’ve been crying out. That’s the pain. That’s the depression! They wish to be seen by me, to have me respect them. They wish to grow properly in the light.

Now, if someone asks why I’ve been feeling depressed, I can say, “Because I’ve been believing the lie that I’m powerless and that hurts.”

I really love this poem I came across; nearly every word speaks to me. I especially love: “Do you have the courage to sit in the present moment as terrifying as that might be?” The other night I was walking down 24th Street and I recalled my good friend, who ended his life a few years back, and I immediately felt a dark, dark bottomless pit in my chest; just such a monstrously nasty dark empty feeling. It reminded me of the depression from two winters ago, when I laid in bed early one morning feeling on the verge of hyperventilating, feeling I might die from the pain. It reminded me of the sadness I’ve felt on the meditation mat 6 or 7 or 8 days into a silent retreat. I have never felt that kind of sadness out in the world, on a normal day, just walking down the street.

It was so intense it caught me by surprise. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so intensely in the middle of the day. I walked more mindfully, and I breathed more mindfully, and I put my hand on my heart and kept walking. And I quieted my mind and reminded myself, “Just breathe.” That’s my one task in the world. To just breathe. Do I have the courage to walk down this street in the present moment, as terrifying as that might be?

I have never felt so blessed to feel the darkness so intensely. I wasn’t alone on a meditation mat with more days of silence to come. I wasn’t alone, in bed, in a cold lonely manor in the middle of a Vermont winter. I was walking along a beautiful busy street in such a rich, vibrant neighborhood. And the darkness came up. Good that it comes up. It comes up to pass away. Can I welcome it? Do I have the courage to sit in the present moment, as terrifying as that might be?

By Caitlin Johnstone:

Can you sink below the burbling headnoise

and feel your flesh singing the sacred syllable?

Can you look inward with your original mind

and coo to the nest of angel eggs in your chest?

Can you turn your back on the neck-craning gossipers,

on the eels your parents planted in your mind,

on the crayon paper plate masks people hold over their faces,

on the HYUCK-HYUCK-HYUCK of blaring glowscreens,

on the tortured flailings of millionaire comedians,

on the emaciated rape husks in Pornhub dot com,

on the begging chirpmouths in Twitter dot com,

on the misty mirror mind maze in Google dot com,

and remember why you came here in the first place?

Do you have the courage to sit in the present moment,

as terrifying as that might be?

Do you have the sincerity to bring every part of yourself into the light

that you have labored until now to keep hidden?

Do you have the vulnerability to let the mystic fire rip through you

and purge falsehood from every strand of DNA?

Do you have the faith to let go

and let the river of life carry you where it may?

Awaken, sleeping giant.

Awaken, indigenous terrestrial.

Awaken, holy hominid.

Awaken, savage saint.

Awaken, coiled energy serpent.

Awaken, incinerator of untruth.

Awaken, devourer of patterns.

Awaken, primordial heart.

Awaken,

and begin your beneficent destruction.

-Caitlin Johnstone

These past couple of weeks I’ve been learning how to settle into the depression that’s made its home in me. I’ve been practicing dropping resistance to it. I’ve been learning how to walk the fine line between honoring my desire to do absolutely nothing and honoring the thoughts that say I should get up and go do things.

For the first time I’ve been finding moments when I love the depression; when I see and appreciate its lessons. There are moments when I feel caught under the surface and it feels torturous. But sometimes I find I’m able to stay on the surfboard, up above. During these moments it doesn’t feel like the depression is gone. It feels present and I’m simply alive with it. I see it and I let it be. I don’t confuse it for who I am. It’s like a very strict teacher who just happens to be in the room with me. I sit quietly and ask, “what are today’s lessons?” I practice listening to its silence.

A week ago I talked to a friend who lives a cluttered life. His mind is cluttered; his room is cluttered too. I suggested that if he wished to clean his mind, he might begin by cleaning his room. Perhaps the outward cleaning might stimulate the process that’ll begin an inward cleaning.

Yesterday as I laid in bed I looked around my room and realized my advice to him applied to me. My room was cluttered and dirty and my mind has been out of shape. Naturally, the thought arrived that I should clean my room! I also had the thought that I should simply lay in bed all day and do absolutely nothing. I had no energy and was feeling depressed. In the end I chose to give myself the freedom to do absolutely nothing. The complete freedom to be lazy! The freedom to lay in bed all day long.

And despite giving myself that gift, within an hour I found myself up and deep-cleaning and rearranging my room. The process took longer than normal. I took several breaks and had one long nap in the middle. But in the end I had a clean and better-arranged room. It’s been a joy to be in this space since; in this hibernatory nest.

It seems clear that the energy to clean came from surrendering to the thoughts that said “don’t do anything.” Had I resisted them, had I swirled all day in the storm of “you should” thoughts, I think I would have laid in bed all day long feeling miserable.

Surrendering gave birth to the action.

I’ve seen several posts online about the Fall and Halloween and how it’s a season of death and renewal, of lessons and the shedding of old skins. It’s a season for hard growth and looking inward. And I think this depression is right on schedule. I am learning to relinquish my resistance to it. I wish to be alive with the seasons, to honor and learn from them, to be excited for their arrival. I wish to move freely within all the cycles of life. I’m learning how to open my ears, how to open my eyes, how to open my heart.