TV DETOX-WK 3-CONFRONTING LONLINESS; WHY AM I DOING THIS?!

How’s it going? First, a quick recap.  Week one was “interesting”.  I faced the truth about how much TV I actually watched, observed those times I wanted to give in and turn the TV on, and was able to make better choices for myself in the moment.  Week two was a little more challenging.  Felt more lost and sad about this “experiment”.  Caught myself staying busy or searching for other things to avoid stopping and feeling the feelings. 

Two and a half weeks into this 30 day TV Detox and I know this is “where the rubber meets the road”.  This week is full out pain.  I actually almost turned on the TV.  Gave up.  Quit.  I felt like I was going to jump out of my own skin.  The feelings were so intense.  I felt so alone and “icky” and TV watching or picking up one of the other ”escapes” I have given up: excessive eating, drinking, etc. was looking good. 

Bottom line – I needed OUT from these heavy emotions.  What were these emotions?  Nothing had changed in my life except that I had eliminated TV.  What does that mean that TV did for me?  On some level, I realize it is a place I sometimes go when I don’t feel like feeling.  However, this confrontation of emotional “stuff” is exactly what I set out to explore. Wasn’t it the whole point of my embarking on this journey?  What was the point?

In my original post, I wrote “in my quest for more consciousness in my life, I want to see what come up for me when I close the TV as an escape from myself and my reality”.  “I have watched enough of those Oprah shows on families giving up all of the “escapes” ie electronics, dinners in front of the TV, etc. and have witnessed the bonding and levels of intimacy that open up for them”. “One of the inspirations for me doing this is to increase the level of intimacy in my life with myself, my daughter and the world.”  

Be careful what you wish for.  I am certainly getting more intimate with myself, which is part of my goal, but who’d have known it would be this confronting?  I keep saying “it’s just TV!” Shutting off TV, however, is opening up space that was not present before.  A void. 

When my marriage broke up a little over a year ago, I realized the universe had stripped me of everything.  I had no job, no marriage and even my home was sold.  I literally had lost all of these things and my life looked like a crumbled pile of rubble. Thankfully for me, I had been on my self discovery journey long enough to know that this was just the next level of consciousness for me and that the universe would gracefully (or not so gracefully it feels at times!) guide me.  

With the TV off, the bigger questions in my life have more space to appear: Who am I without all of the stuff I always deemed important?  Today, I have no marriage, no real “career”, and I no longer own my own home.  Who am I at my core? What is my life’s purpose?  This is my journey.  I am being challenged with discovering who I am by slowing down, and closing off outside stimuli to create more consciousness.  I have often joked, as I strived for this inner knowing, “this could be serenity but it feels sad, lonely and boring”. Stillness brings up these emotions. 

Today, I got the message to journal in the “ick”.  Like a soldier going into battle, I sit pen in hand and decide to document what I am feeling in this familiar “ick” spot from which I so desperately want to run.  The pen angrily moves across the paper and the words appear.  “Loneliness.  A deep ache.  A dark place.  I don’t like it here.  Oh wait. I’m supposed to embrace this. ”We can’t heal what we can’t feel”.  Is it even loneliness?  Is it fear?  I keep calling it fear – fear I won’t have enough money, won’t find a job, won’t find love again…but the truth is I honestly am not afraid of these things.  So what is it?” I stop trying to figure it out and decide to simply feel.

In my eyes, tears begin to emerge. I feel like throwing up.  Literally.  Yet I sit and my pen writes as my mind observes each body part call out the sensation it is feeling like play by play of a good ball game: In my lungs, heaviness, in my heart, burning, in my belly, nausea, in my throat, constriction.  Literally, chin to pelvis, my entire torso feels heavy, as this unpleasant and unwanted energy abounds. 

I know why I run from this.  It does NOT feel good.  In fact, it feels terrifying.  Denise Linn in her best selling book Soul Coaching says about emotion, “It’s just energy and it’s just being released”.  Why am I so afraid to feel this “ick”?  My mind answers – I am afraid it won’t go away.  I am afraid I will become paralyzed and go into a deep, dark place from which I will never get out.  

Yet, today I strive for aliveness.  Isn’t this being fully alive?  Feeling all of my body’s sensations?  Yet, most of the time, I want only to feel the “good” feelings.  Where’s the brightness?  The light I so desire and love.  This is dark and heavy and my body wants to reject it – get rid of it.  Poison.  My system feels poisoned.  By what? An energy? An emotion? 

I label it loneliness  Alone-ness. Why the need to label? Why the need to create a story?  Who cares.  It’s a place I know well and I am determined to get comfortable here.  I am reminded of Pema Chodron’s words in her book Taking the Leap that we must “Learn to stay.”  I am feeling this discomfort physically and emotionally and I am dropping the need to label it or explain it, I am just staying present.  Jill Bolte Taylor in her captivating book My Stroke of Insight sights scientific research that reveals true emotion last about 90 seconds.  So I continue to be totally present with the sensations these feelings cause in my body and guess what?  They subside.  Honestly.  I bring my big looking glass of awareness to the “ick” and it dies.  Dissolves. I actually feel better. Pretty Cool.

Bringing my full attention and awareness to this deep emotion causes a shift.  I wouldn’t believe it if I actually hadn’t experienced it myself.  Miraculously, after documenting my body’s sensations and fully experiencing these unwanted emotions I instantly feel lighter. 

As I write this post a few days later I am still in awe of the experience and the knowledge I now have about sitting in the discomfort.  By deeply observing my body and what was happening without creating a story or searching for a reason for my feelings, I was able to quickly release the emotion.  I closed off another “escape” and have survived confronting the emotion that boils up.  This is a huge gift of surrendering the TV. I have definitely achieved one of my goals of becoming more intimate with myself.  I love the acronym for intimacy which is “Into Myself I See”.  Deeply.  Made possible all by turning off the TV!  Incredible.

How about you? Have you ever given up an activity that wasn’t serving you and come face to face with the “ick”?  Have you been able to be,  as Eckhart Tolle says, “the watcher”,  and simply observe your thoughts and emotions?  I would love to hear your comments.