Life is a projection

Life is a projection.

This is the first thing that I wrote in my notebook when I got to India last year. It is something my yoga teacher speaks on often. I wrote it sideways across a whole page and then circled it. It felt important even though it felt perplexing at the same time. It took up space in my mind over the past year, tumbling around inside of me, trying to figure out what it means for me.

I have been back in Colorado for the past few weeks, settling into a routine that is so very similar to the one I left a little over a year ago. Being back in a space that I have occupied before, doing the same things I did before, and being with people I know, has all been very grounding for my body. While also, being quite confusing for my mind.

As soon as I walked back into my clinic, I felt my mind click back into a different mode. As if the projection I had been playing before my eyes got turned off and a new one got put in its place. I am still unsure how to explain this switch that took place concisely. If you have ever taken extended time off of your normal life routine and then returned, you may understand this sensation.

My mind functioned differently when I was living the nomadic life. All of a sudden, the constraints around my life were lifted. So many beliefs that I projected onto the world dissolved and my mind had no other option but to alter how I viewed everything. Instead of needing to keep my attention narrowly focused on day to day tasks, my mind was free to explore.

You know those videos where they release animals that have only known captivity back into the wild?! When they are unsure if it is really possible that they can step beyond the narrow limitations that their captive home provided for so long?! That is what my mind felt like.

As soon as I walked away from my life in Colorado, my mind realized that a lot of the limitations I believed existed were simply projections of my own creation. I saw wide open fields as far as my minds eye could see. My potential became limitless in what felt like a snap of my fingers. I felt like the shocked captive animal, unable to discern if this was true or just another illusion my mind had created. I’m coming to realize, it is both.

It took me what felt like the entire year to cultivate enough trust within myself to fully explore the boundaries of this new world and feel safe in the wild. I had glimpses throughout my entire time off of feeling completely free and expansive within my mind. But because exploring all this new territory was incredibly effortful, my mind often felt more exhausted than I thought imaginable. It seems silly to think that having no limitations on my time, energy and space would be exhausting to my very being, but it was in a unique way.

It made me realize that the projections of our mind are always here to serve us. These projections, the constructed reality that our mind plays out before us, somehow know exactly what we are capable of tolerating at all times. We will subconsciously expand and contract our own limitations in accord to our present capacity. It makes so much sense to me cognitively but still feels like a clunky adjustment that I am currently wading through.

I have a few friends that I met this past year that are still moving through a sabbatical year. It is fascinating to hear their experiences and feel so aligned to them while also witnessing how different my world has become now. The beauty of having few external constraints on your time and energy is that the mind has ample ability to dive down every rabbit hole that presents itself. The amount of times my mind wandered down an unexplored part of my psyche and discovered fascinating new things last year is far too great to count.

I loved being able to do this kind of work. Again, I was exploring a newly projected world thanks to my mind knowing my capacity for this was high. I did not have to give energy to a job, a home, or any of the other energetic leaks that our current world often requires of us. It was a different type of tired for my mind and I loved it. I processed so many layers of so many things within my being. My mind became so used to having this freedom to wander in any direction on any whim.

And then I land squarely back into a life filled with a whole lot of constraints and hit the ground running. All of a sudden my energy was not only mine to use as I desired because I welcomed many external responsibilities back into my life. My energy moved from internal to external in a whiplash inducing fashion. To continue the analogy, my mind feels like as soon as it became fully confident and comfortable living in the wild, I got plopped back into captivity.

That sounds harsh and like a terrible thing, but it really is not all bad, just different. Somehow my subconscious knows that I have returned to a place that requires more of my energy to move externally. I no longer have the time, space and energy to explore the depths of my inner world at a level I have this past year. My season of aimless wandering through the landscape of my mind, intentionally giving my attention to every crack and crevice I come across, is ending. I inherently know that my capacity to continue this intense inner processing while also showing up as what some would see as a functioning member of society, is limited.

I cannot do both at once. I cannot show up fully to the internal work while also showing up fully to the external work. This is where the projections of my mind serve me well. This is why the return to captivity, as jarring as it may feel, is helpful in so many ways. While I am in a season of transitioning my energy towards my external world, my mind must place limitations on where it wanders off to. I can no longer dive into every rabbit hole I see and stop and explore every shiny object that catches my attention. If I did, I would drain myself so quickly.

This flip of focus from internal to external is simply a shift in my projected reality. It is also something I have known for a long time but clearly needed a few lived experiences to comprehend better. After this transition, from a year of freedom to returning to work, I feel more sure that our minds are always doing their very best to keep us safe and protect our capacity.

Before this time off, I had this understanding that it is quite impossible to do deep healing work on ourselves while continuing to live in our present reality. It is just too much for our system. We cannot show up and expend energy externally all day and then expect our mind and body to be willing to expend that same amount of energy deconstructing our internal world in our “free” time. We cannot live in captivity by day and expect to feel safe to explore the wild every night. It is far too much for our system to handle.

When we try to do it all, meaning, continue to live our busy lives while also doing intense inner healing, we quickly will run ourselves to the ground. Our energetic capacity will have to give somewhere. It either leads to burn out in our external world or giving up on healing our inner world. It is just far too hard to do both at once. Yet, we live in a world that is constantly telling us that it is our fault if we cannot do it all. We are fed this idea that we must do the inner work to make our outer world better, which is not inherently wrong. But we cannot do both at once. One has to be let go of to make room for the other. We cannot live in captivity and in the wild at once.

What I am understanding is that there are seasons for everything. A lesson that has been oh so prevalent in my life. Cycles and seasons are the natural ebb and flow of our reality. I am moving from a season of wild to a season of captivity. A season of inner focus to a season of outer focus. How amazing is it that my mind knows exactly how to create a reality that supports my shift from one to the other.

As much as I miss being able to fully process everything that surfaces within me in real time, I am also so incredibly grateful that I am in a space where I can give myself fully to those around me. Of course, this is not a black and white, one or the other paradigm, it is a spectrum. But we must honor that we cannot expect ourselves to do it all at once, every day. It is a simple reminder that when we are feeling drained, perhaps it is time to check where our energy is going. Consider that perhaps we are in a season where our focus must be more precise than we are used to. Our projections will guide us well if we allow them.

There will always be times in our lives where the wild calls to us. There will also be times where the security of an enclosure feels best to our being. I am not sure if one is ever more right than the other. They may both have a necessary place in our lives. But let me tell you, moving from one to the other is a unique challenge that I was ill prepared for in the past. Now that I know better, I can only hope that I can do better from here on out!