That Sinking Feeling

Brushing Your Teeth and Embracing The Rollercoaster

“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” - G.K Chesterton in Peter Hollins’, Think Less; Do More

The quote inspired me to write this post, even though I didn’t feel like it.

The other quote, and I am paraphrasing here, is from Garrain Jones. It goes something like this:

“You may be an expert at brushing your teeth. You may have read all the books. You may have brushed your teeth for 35 years straight… but the day you stop, you will start stinking.”

Somethings you need to keep tending to, whether it’s weeding a garden or keeping your head straight, even if you are the worlds expert.

And I hope you agree with Peter (and Chesterton who he stole it from) that doing those things suboptimally is preferable to not at all.

Then there is that sinking feeling. I’m not sure if everyone has it, the rush you get when a rollercoaster drops. I get it a lot, I mean all day, everyday.

I used to call it depression, then my thinking evolved and it became “my problem”. After that I called it fear. Today, I choose to call it “my gift”.

Depression often leads to some type of self abuse. You stop caring about the world and then you stop caring about yourself. To avoid the sinking feeling you may turn to substances, over eating or other bad habits to numb the mind and brain.

I stopped meditating sometime ago because I couldn’t see the point in anymore. It seemed to be, days on end without anything happening, just sitting there, monkey-mind raging. No enlightenment, no realization. The weeds started growing with a passion.

Then I started doing more esoteric practices, complicated breathing techniques, channeling of energies, etc… but what I didn’t realize is that it was way too much. Sometimes, More is Less. Sometimes the house needs to be cleaned before bringing more furniture in.

Now to failure. The Vikid Fast started a few days ago with clementines as promised but after that there was an almond croissant, followed by a double espresso, then a sausage roll, followed by a pizza. The gorging didn’t stop there either. It just continued...

I was trying to avoid the sinking feeling.

So I started to meditate again. This time nothing too cute. Just sit and do nothing. I didn’t pay attention to anything, not posture, not my breath or any other object of interest. The monkey-mind raged, I appreciated it instead.

There is a small mantra that was given to me in a moment of silence,

“Ayamphree”

It can be used when the mind goes in a loop. It sets it phree. Unlike Transcendental Meditation, I just use it only when necessary. Brush your teeth.

And then there was the simple realization.

The sinking feeling was a gift. A gift I have been running from.

If you’ve ever fallen in love you know this feeling. The heart goes into the biggest loopa-de-loop. The world simply explodes with a joy that’s almost too hard to bare. A rollercoaster. That sinking feeling.

My heart has been trying to do the same now for years, but I mistook it for pain and stuffed myself with anything to avoid it.

Perhaps we all do, we’re simply misreading the cue…

And that’s,

The Vikid Truth.