We often feel that chaos is a general fact of life: small or dramatic, those chaotic moments make us lose our mind, our centre of gravity, our ground, our foresight, our calm and peace. Anything goes, and how overwhelming can this be?! Chaotic moments are peculiar in that we are usually aware there is much swirling around us, but we feel a strange numbness inside. We are not immune to what happens; rather, we feel so powerless, so taken by those movements we do not direct that we become just like a leaf carried left and right and up and down and up again at the will of a whimsical breeze. We know we are willful beings, but in chaos we become hapless puppets, unable to muster the strength to resist what is being thrown around and at us.
Who or what plays with us? Do we lose control to Someone or Something? Or do we simply think we lose control to hide away the shameful fact we did not stand up to the unexpected? Are chaotic moments a test of endurance, of courage, of bravery or temerity? Is chaos meant to try our wisdom and teach us a lesson? What of it then?
Perhaps we can start by recognising that the outside mirrors the inside: ‘as above so below’ said the alchemists. The chaos in my outside life is reflective of chaos inside my psyche, my own internal struggles coming to the boil and pouring out of its container. Perhaps there is something to attend to that I am neglecting right now. And this calls for a change – that is what chaos is for: a changing landscape, a changing pace, a changing attitude, sometimes a complete reversal of perspective even.
Perhaps, then, we can ponder on the invitation that Chaos brings us to re-establish a lost connection with our essence. Chaos is about creation at the beginnings: it is the upsetting of an old order which unleashes a greater energy to generate something new, completely new. Not something familiar which my ego can tolerate. No, we are contemplating here the emergence of an altogether unknown aspect of the Self: the destruction of the naive innocence that carried us until now, swallowed up to leave room for a more assertive, determined aspect of a maturing psyche. What this is exactly, we rarely know in advance. It is a scary prospect, for we have to walk around the ruins, the black holes and the shadows, the remnants of guilts and fears and longings, in order to spot signs of whatever is emerging eventually. And there is no guarantee we will understand fully what we find, let alone that we will like it. Yet this is the way of the psyche: never the expected, rarely a soft and gentle process of growth. One learns by biting the dust, bruising one’s skin, swallowing one’s pride and learning to welcome life in its many shapes and forms.
So, even in Chaos, we can make sense: we make sense through knowing it is ‘just’ chaos – and it is ‘just chaos’. We make sense through trusting that Chaos is unfolding for a reason maybe only It knows, but which will soon enough be revealed. We make sense through readying ourselves for something drastically different in our life: a new practice, a new attitude, a new habit, or an entirely new life perhaps. All we can expect is that this ‘new’ is coming, that it will upset the balance we grew so accustomed to, and that a conscious accompaniment will serve us better than a refusal to see the generative power of Chaos. Holding on to an image to contain the ego’s fears and anxieties provides good support: be it the leaf floating and torn apart by the wind, which consciously surrenders to the desires of the breeze; or a piece of wood swallowed voraciously by a stormy ocean only to be regurgitated moments later, and swallowed again, when that piece of wood consciously allows itself to go with the flow rather than anticipate an ending. Whatever our picture and our experience of Chaos, we can use it to help us in the moment, and to make sense of its purpose beyond the present moment.
Observe how your mind and your body react when you feel overwhelmed during those chaotic days in your life: what changes compared with other stressful periods or anxious moments? Where does the energy go? What do you hold on to? How successful are you at holding on? What does it cost you?
At the present moment, what room do you have in your conscious selfhood for something new to emerge? How open are you to a possible reversal of aspects of your life? How ready are you to allow Life to change you and to demand more of you?