Getting By: When You Don't Have It In You Anymore

A shadow work meditation about having less to give than you used to, and no idea when that changed.

You're still functioning. You get up, you do the day, and nobody has said anything. But there's less of you than there was. You take on less. You reach for less. Nothing is wrong that you could point to, and you couldn't say when this started.

For anyone drawn to depth psychology, Jungian work, and the quiet depletion no one around you has noticed.

Transcript

Start under yourself. But your eyes close. And go down past the base of you. Below where you sit. Below the floor of the body. Into the part that holds and doesn't move. Take a breath. And let it go out with nothing pushing it. Again. It's dense down here, Packed and quiet and closed over. And it's full. More in here than anywhere else in you. Feel the weight of it. Sitting low. With nothing moving in it. This came from above. All of it. It was up in the light for a long stretch. At where it could be seen. And has been coming down since. A little at a time. Into here. You did not watch it happen. There is no day you could put it to. And it isn't for now. It's put by. Whatever is down here is closed against something that hasn't come up yet. And it won't open for this. Or for you. Or for anything you could ask of it. Rest on it for a moment. The fullest part of you. And none of it available. Come up off it now. Into the low belly. There is water in you here. Feel it move. Find which way it's going. Down. All of it. Everything wet and new is running one direction. And has been for a while. And nothing is going the other way. Nothing is leaking out of you. It's being taken in and taken down. And put where you were just resting. Nobody is running this. There is no hand on it. It started on its own. At the right time. The way it does. Keep coming up. Into the middle of you. Under the breastbone. Where the ribs part. Here is the working part. The one that gets up and does the day. Feel it going. It's still going. And feel how much of it. Bless. It isn't failing. It is less than it was. And it is enough. Because you have been asking less. Nothing took this. No one came and got it. It went down the same way as the rest. While you were using it for other things. You'd have called it a slow stretch. A month where you didn't have it in you. You had a name ready for this every time. Up into the chest now. The wide part. This is the part of you that goes out. The one that puts something toward a person. It starts things at once. Feel how much room there is in here. Now feel how much it is in the room. This is where it shows first. It always shows first here. The place with the most reach. Is the cheapest place to take from. Because nothing stops when you take it. Nothing breaks. You go out less far, And the day still runs. And is quiet in here about it. It came down out of the top like everything else. And it went into the dark with the rest, And it's waiting. Up out of the chest into the throat. Everything you say comes out through here. Feel how little room that is. Now find what it costs. A sentence takes breath. And under that breath, It takes something out of the wide part. Every time. Or it goes out as a sound. And not as a sentence. Go back to the last time somebody asked you something and you gave the short answer. You had the long one. You could feel the whole of it sitting there. And what it would take to bring it up through a channel this size. So you sent the short one. It was true. It answered them. Nobody came back for the rest of it. Higher behind the eyes. There is almost nothing left up here. And you can see perfectly well. That's the strange part. Everything works up here. You can look at your own life and take the whole of it in and describe it to somebody. Seeing was never expensive. It was the one thing that never needed anything set up to it. So this is where you have been living. The top of your head now. And then passed it. Whatever was up here has gone. What is at the top of you is the shape of it. And nothing inside the shape. And it's still on. Nothing has come off here. The top of you is where it has always been. Doing what it looks like it's doing. It is held on by very little. Feel how little. That is the part people see. Stay at the top of you. The whole ladder is under you. Full at the bottom. And this at the top. One question. Let it go down the way everything else has been going. Ask it once and don't answer it. What did you stop sending up? Don't look for it up here. Stay with the whole length of you now. Four at the bottom. Thin the whole way up. The top of you dry and still standing. The store is closed. Closing it is the whole point of it. So stop pulling on it. There is nothing in you that can fill the top of you. You have been working at it from the inside your whole life. Out of a supply that runs one way. Let the place you are in come back by sound. The small noises it keeps making. Whatever the air is doing in it. Than your own weight going down through you into the floor. Everything that can go down, Goes down. When you are ready. And not before. Let your eyes open. You look about the same.