I’m Not the Church Lady | When I’m about to disappear

||| I’M NOT THE CHURCH LADY by ROSIE KUHN |||

People often describe me as an introvert, reclusive, and someone who simply reaches her social limit long before everyone else. They’re not wrong. Even after only an hour or two of being with people, I get antsy and my mind races to find the most convenient exit. I always assumed that’s just how I’m wired. But with this weekend’s big 4th of July Holiday, I began wondering if there was something more going on.

Opportunities to Be with People—Jeesh!

On Orcas Island, the Fourth is a community event. The parade. Music on the Village Green. Friends gathering. And this year, after several years without them, fireworks returned.

Some friends invited people over to watch the fireworks from their front porch. I said yes, even though they know me well enough to anticipate my disappearance long before the fireworks begin.

Because we are so far north and the sun sets so late, the fireworks don’t begin until after 10:00 p.m. My internal operating system starts shutting down around 8:30pm. Normally, I quietly slip away. Except this year, I invited other people to join us. Now, leaving wasn’t going to be so easy.

As I’m imagining all of this, days before the fireworks, I felt the angst and anxiousness of no way out. Here I was enmeshed in a mind of escape—no escape, again! But, in grand Rosie-like fashion, I got curious. What exactly creates the impulse to exit? What am I running from? And what the heck am I running to?

As I’ve shared in previous posts, I’ve been spelunking into old life themes and patterns that have quietly organized much of my life. Sitting in these question, another patten revealed itself.

I Cease to Exist

As a child, when I was around unfamiliar people, there was a moment when it felt as if I was about to disappear—cease to exist. As an antidote to that, I learned to exit the situation—going somewhere, anywhere to escape that sensation that felt so annihilating. As I sat with this experience, another realization emerged:

As a child, when I was alone, I also felt as though I was disappearing—ceasing to exist. As an antidote, I would seek out something or someone that would rectify this state of being. Yes, back and forth, attempting to manage my reality. This is how I knew I existed—through the impulse to stimulate myself with people, places and things.

I can give you plenty of examples of the ways I operated in order to feel my existence. Suffice it to say, it was a fascinating process, like looking through scrapbooks and photograph albums, seeing the tethering to the lifeline that I created and lived with, up to this very day.

Whatever stimulated me to feel myself as existing is what I learn to do, or use.

In imagining going to a party, my thoughts focus on food and alcohol—not the people or the venue. But since I’m not drinking, and have restricted my intake of sugary sweet things, now what?

I know this is very common. Unless you enjoy engaging with new people or old friends, you too, are most likely looking for a way to lower that impulse to exit quickly.

Alone
And the opposite of this, when there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do, so many of us want to do something that proves we exist, such as busyness, sexual stimulation, emotional triggers, talking, screen time, eating, shopping—anything that gives our nervous system a jolt, that says, “yes, you are here!”

I believe this is part of the reason so many of us are afraid of being still, quiet, alone. My own fear, as I mentioned above, is that I will, once again, experience “I cease to exist—I will disappear.”

Disappearing
Whether surrounded by people or completely alone, there’s a quiet, wordless experience of disappearing. If that’s the world I inhabited as a child, it makes perfect sense that I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to manage it.

Some of us seek achievement. Some seek approval. Some stay endlessly busy. Some overeat.

Some overwork. Some keep searching for the next spiritual high. Anything that helps us feel, if only for a moment, “I am here.”

Is this what we are doing most of the time— simply implementing ways to experience ourselves as existing

I exist because I exist.

As far back as I was able to search in this life review, I did not uncover a specific moment when I disappeared. Perhaps it was a past life event. Perhaps it was in that birth process I mention quite often. Perhaps it was that moment when I separated from Divine Union—when I ceased to exist within the sanctity of LOVE. Now, why would any of us put ourselves of such an experience—separating ourselves from Love?

In the book, Oneness, it says: “to avail yourself of the richness in the experience of knowing your Divine Connectness, it was necessary to avail yourself of the richly contrasting details of the experience of separation.”

Well, that sucks! I get it! It makes sense. And it sucks to experience this!

What shows up when I stop managing and organizing my life around some unrectifiable moment that didn’t happen?

Through this life-review process, I saw that, no amount of stimulation, or admiration, accomplishment, or approval ever fully satiated my need to experience myself in my existence. They maybe reassured me for a brief moment. But they didn’t, nor could they ever give me something that has never actually been missing.

What if existence isn’t something other people confirm? What if it’s something we gradually experience ourselves?

This is the untethering I find myself living these days. Not by withdrawing from people. Not by forcing myself to become more social. Not trying to become someone different…. I’m simply learning to remain present with myself—whether I’m surrounded by people or sitting alone in my yard. It’s all in service to experiencing who’s in here!

Recovering myself from all the ways I try to exist
Okay, so, we can’t not exist. So, now what?

It’s all about the moment when we stop. It’s all about the moment we experience ourselves in the moment of that stop. Rarely do we stop. And rarely are we willing to experience ourselves in that moment.

But, for me, the more I stop, and the more I allow myself to take a breath in the midst of the stop, the more I’m able to actually experience my existence. I don’t disappear! I don’t cease to exist.

I’m not back in Unity Consciousness. I’m not back in Divine Connectivity. I’m not enlightened. And, most importantly, I’m no longer in that unfathomable state of non-existence.

I’m me! I am. I always am.

And I’m good with that!