Ever since I can remember I have lived in two different worlds: the one of my days and the one of my nights. My dreams felt so real that waking up in the morning (or in the middle of the night) I would wonder which realm is which. While not every dream is a fairytale and not each and every production of REM studios is a telltale of what I believe or feel, some dreams are perfect metaphores of what I am living and have a hard time interpreting during daytime.
Last night I dreamt I was out and about with my beloved and in the distance we spotted our soul sister. My beloved called out to her and at that exact same time, I saw a tornado approaching. It was a dark spinning cloud, lifting rubble and spinning up everything it met in its way and it was coming our way. We started calling our sister to come quickly and the three of us grabbed hands, held tight and when the tornado cought us in its whirlwind, we were a triangle of humans holding on to each other in the storm.
Over two decades ago, when I had my very first encounter with a psychiatrist to explain what I felt during what I deemed to be a panic attack, he cautioned me. He explained that the brain had now learned “the way of the storm”. That a new pathway had been built and that even the smallest of worries or changes could put me on that path. That I needed to be careful. It took me years to understand and internalize the precious information that he had offered me. I wish I had understood it faster. I might have taken better care of my mind, to make it stronger when the storm hits. Because there is no way around the storm: I either live every smaller one as best I can and train my skills or let the energy compound into the perfect storm and I… potentially crash.
The lesson storms keep teaching me and the one I continuously forget is that the only thing I need to (and can) do in eye of the storm is to hold on. Breathe, connect to reality in any way that I can (as tornados uproot everything I thought was firmly grounded in my existence) and I wait it out. If I can, I remember impermanence: this too shall pass.
In the eye of the storm is not the place for me to make decisions, to create strategies. The eye of the storm is not a place where I decide to change my career, change my partner or invest in something major. The eye of the storm is a moment to pause, breathe (whenever I can) and protect myself. Once the storm passes, in the sunlight and the rainbow of the clearing I will be able to look around and see what remained standing, who is still holding my hand and what has turned to dust. And rebuild from there.
Photo by Henrik Hjortshøj on Unsplash
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