Don't Panic...

 

You know that fundamental thing, at the base of you? Whatever it is that makes you feel grounded and safe in the world? You got it from your nurturing; from your childhood; from your mother, perhaps…a safe base to explore the world from, a basic trust in other human beings.

  

You know what I mean, right? The thing that gives you a place of peace inside of you, that says it’s ok to wander away. It’s ok to roam and most things are safe to touch. And when they’re not, and you burn your finger, there’s someone, somewhere, to return to; to be held close and be comforted; and it’ll all be okay…it’ll all be okay…

  

It’s that thing that’s always grown within you, - go on, you can admit it, you’ve taken it for granted; didn’t know it was there, until I showed it to you – that thing that means you’ll always find the courage and the confidence to go back, to explore again, despite the thorns and the nettles that stung you.

  

Well, here’s the thing - I’m going to take that from you now. Not a bit of it. All of it. Every last internal attachment and scrap of core security – gone - in the blink of my eye, a single click of my fingers. Gone. Just like that.

   

And without it, see how nothing is true or certain anymore, how there is no feeling that anything is okay, or ever will be again, and how you will panic – oh, how you will panic, that you will not have to seek the thorns, but instead, they will come for you.

   

See now, how you hesitate at the menace of the first night of sleep in a strange, new bed, at the person who bumps in to you from behind, and sets a lump in your throat, a sea-sickness in your stomach…feel how your heart will hammer at the noises unfamiliar radiators stirring into life will make, at creaking floorboards on an unknown landing…not dangerous once, but now, horrifying - certain harm…see how sweat beads on your neck at someone walking behind you in the dark, at a firm knock on a door you cannot see through. Feel it grip you, like a claw to the chest, beyond any thought or rationale – nothing there to call upon to settle yourself, to soothe you – when the threats come close. And then, come closer... And they are everywhere.

    

I’m taking that part of you that knows, in those moments, that there is no danger, no peril. And you will not know, and you will panic so hard, and tremble with so many internal terrors that your core understands are nothing, nothing, nothing …but they’ll be everything now, everything that might…that WILL…get you, won’t they? Aren’t they? Every slow and sneaking thing that might creep up on you in the middle of the night, or on the bus to work, might pounce and grab you and back you up against stone prison walls, skin scraping, mouth suffocating, stomach nauseating…they might…they might…they WILL.

    

But you won’t be able to tell. No. No. Don’t tell. Don’t ever tell. Because all the world still has their safety, their nurturing, their born, human courage. And trust. And they’ll laugh at you. Laugh until you shake and sweat, and stand naked and terrified before them. And they’ll mock and pity you, all because of the things that I took from you tonight.

   

So, find a way. Find a way right now, to push it down, down into the dark, depths of where the safety used to be, where it dwelled in dead calm, inside you, before I had it. Yes, where something cold and shivering, now sits instead. That’s it. Push it there, and hold on to it. Live with it; right inside. The quaking, the churning…the fear. Yes…because I know, none of them mean you well now? Do they? Not without it. And I have it: I have it all for my own.