The weight and the mask.
Sleepless nights. Boxes of books. A hug.
I ripped up a book.
I ripped up a book and now I can’t sleep.
Something came over me, burst out of me.
A wave of anger. A tide, ancient, boiling, bubbling.
I took the book and slammed it against the wall.
I hammered it against the floor until it fell apart, until pages flew.
What the fuck.
I love books!
Not this one, I guess.
But this is not about books. It’s about weight.
The tyranny of ownership. Do I own what I own, or does it own me?
I love books and have many shelves of them. So much work goes into making a book. Someone writes. Another one edits. People publish and print and so forth. So much work. So much love.
But I no longer love them all. Some of them are memories that I hold on to — the fact that I was alive and interested at one point. If half of them disappeared tomorrow, would my life be any different? Yes. It would be lighter.
But the books are still here. And they weigh on me.
They. Weigh. On. Me.
Because they must be somewhere — and I am nowhere.
I am… nowhere going… somewhere. Somewhere that feels like nowhere.
Technically, I am and always will be ‘here,’ but this place no longer feels real. My lease ends in two months. There are many places I could go to. None feel real yet. Unreality is closing in.
What does feel real is the weight.
The weight of what I own. The weight of the past. The weight of what I avoid.
It isn’t much. Books, clothes, some instruments. A few pieces of art, a full octave of gorgeous singing bowls and scattered half-burnt candles.
But it is… mine and I don’t know who I will be without it.
I could swirl through the world with a passport and a suitcase. But the weight cannot swirl with me.
There is a lot going on out there. A lot. Politically, spiritually, economically, culturally.
Things were stuck, now the plates are starting to shift. We feel the first tremors.
Things shake. People shake. Cracks appear. People get hurt and who knows what’s to come.
And I’m lying awake thinking about boxes and books, probably half of which I haven’t even read! You buy a book as a bookmark, that’s how I used to excuse this behavior. Later, when you’re at a loss, one of the books will appear. Oh, I’ve always wanted to read that. The right words at the right time.
But now I ripped up a book.
I ripped up a book and can’t sleep.
I see faces.
Faces of men who wear masks.
I meditate twice every day. Twenty minutes each time.
I love my little meditations. I’m committed. Meditation, coffee, walks, trees, music, prayer, those are my anchors.
But I ripped up a book and now I wonder: when I sit there, all smug with my feelings of peace and equanimity, am I actually at peace or am I floating, am I floating while below the weight of my anger is waiting?
Have I locked away my anger, and my power, because it feels unsafe and toxic?
I’ve been having lots of calls lately.
Calls with readers and other people I met in online communities.
Do you feel stuck? Got a big goal but you’re stalling? Want to write better? Maybe journaling and a chat could help! Let’s hop on zoom!
Bullshit.
Bull. Shit.
Sure. We talk, the men and I (I would talk to women, but none reached out).
The men talk about business and money. The men are interested in interesting things. Things capture the mind. Mazed to walk, puzzles to solve.
But their faces, their faces betray them.
I see a mask that says, “I’ve made it.” I see eyes that read, “I am in pain.”
“I am in pain, and I cannot talk about it, not in all honesty. Not with you. Not with my coach or therapist. Not even with myself. For I am afraid of the weight.”
I know that feeling.
I know what it’s like to self-censor.
I know what it’s like to hold something big and heavy, so big and heavy it feels like it crushes the one who holds.
I know the paradox: that which feels overwhelming must be held for all could unravel if the holding stopped for even a second.
We spend our days in a silent vigil.
Because we must function. We must earn. We must show up. We must be strong. Now. Today. Tomorrow. And the day after that. Strong and stoic all the way, always. The alternative? Unimaginable.
Remember Roman in Succession’s funeral scene?
The words get stuck. The tears flow. The voice ‘fails’ (more accurately: the voice is honest but fails the social convention).
Watch it.
Feel the wave of shame.
That’s the nightmare haunting us men.
Fall apart at the wrong moment and you’re finished.
“One of the most reliable shame triggers for men is being perceived as weak,” Tom Morgan just wrote in The Most Important Word in the World. “The gesture most associated with shame is covering our face: we cannot bear to be seen in that weakness.”
Great piece. Great scene. But what a shit state of affairs. All that weight.
“Each unprocessed sorrow adds another brick to the load we carry,” Mona Sobhani wrote in Clearing the Ashes, “until eventually, the weight becomes too much for our body and soul to bear. Worse, it cuts us off from our intuition and our connection to something greater.
I found three ways of looking at those calls.
One. I am projecting. People are our mirrors and what I see is my reflection. These men are screens onto which I project my inner world, my emotional disconnect.
Two. They are like me. My offer to connect was most appealing to people who are similar to me in this respect. Unconscious self-selection.
Three. Because this is an area in which I have done a lot of inner work, I am sensitive to it. I’ve spent so much time in this space, I can feel it. Among the many things going on with any individual, this is just one I pick up on.
Maybe all of the above.
Or maybe I’m hallucinating.
But I don’t think so.
What happens is that I want to reach through the screen and grab ‘em and shake ‘em awake, shake ‘em until that weight starts to fall off.
It makes me want to scream.
I trust that impulse.
I don’t scream, but I trust the impulse.
Maybe I should.
Mostly though, I wish I could share a hug instead of a zoom call.
I see boxes and books.
I see weight.
“In the deep emotional work I’ve done,” Mona adds, “I’ve noticed that grief, sadness, or hurt are usually underneath anger. What that means: in the middle of releasing anger, one of these sad emotions suddenly breaks through, dissolving the anger — clearly showing you that anger was just protecting sadness, which is the true emotional root.”
So much pain, so much weight, so many boxes.
As long as the weight is there, it demands space. It weighs, it blocks.
I lie awake thinking of U-Haul trucks and self-storage units. I think of mountain cabins and trailers in the desert. An endless circle of places and spaces and thoughts.
I look at the boxes.
I know joy is hiding here somewhere.
I know the energy of life is here, hiding, asleep.
If only I could find it.
Shame. Anger. Hurt. Judgment. Sadness. What’s behind it all?
What lies beyond?
When does the resistance end?
What happens when we simply . . . allow?
What occurs in surrender?
I smell freedom.
I hear drums.
I spent last weekend at a workshop. Dancing. Eyes closed. Going deep. Letting myself be danced. Giving shape to what the body holds.
The practice is called 5 Rhythms. It’s an hour of different beats, an inner and outer journey, a map through the space of human experience. Sometimes I yell. Other times I break open and down. It can be ecstatic, therapeutic, mystical. By the end, I am drenched in sweat and not the same.
This was more than two days of dance and by the end, the group was exhausted. One of our last movement prompts was to let the body move with the breath through waves of opening and closing. Open, close, open, close . . .
And we could, if we felt called to do so, connect with someone else. Support them if the workshop was bringing up, you know, a lot of stuff.
Oh how I felt called to be the support!
Look at me: I’ve done my homework, my inner work. All the work.
I’m such a hard worker and now I’m such a strong supporter.
Look at me being of service . . .
And then I shared a hug with a stranger.
And, oops, I just fell apart.
I let myself be supported and shook and sobbed.
And I had the hardest time accepting that this was what my body needed.
My body just . . . wanted to drop the weight. Just for a moment.
Let all the currents of fear, frustration, confusion, and loneliness come together and be released in a moment of complete exhaustion.
And then it was over.
And there was peace.
I am back home and can’t sleep, thinking of masks and faces and staring at books.
It’s crazy out there. There’s a war going on for our soul. But what robs me of my sleep are petty thoughts. What to keep, what to throw out. What book to put in what box.
It strikes me this is my version of John Sarno’s back pain. I created one weight so I could avoid another. My exhausting reality as a welcome distraction.
Earth is shooting through space at 67,000 miles an hour and all I can think is: how can we drop some of this weight? What would that feel like?
The weight of expectations, of judgment, of shame, of guilt, of rage.
Emotional weight so dense it might as well be a straitjacket and boots made of concrete.
It’s time to shake things loose, dance them off.
It’s time to give things shape and voice.
It’s time to kindle fires.
It’s time to drop weight.
— Frederik
“The secret of life is to care, but not that much.” Herb Cohen
Keep going ❤️ Drop those weights!