Are You Bored Or Has The Chaos Ended?

Another gem of wisdom was shared by my therapist last week when I told her I was feeling unfulfilled and a little bored. She replied with the question “Are you bored or has the chaos ended?”, and sent me on my way.

Well miss therapist, I don’t know. I’ve been mulling this question over in my mind all week. What does it even mean? I sat with that for quite some time. In my present state boredom feels peaceful, or at least this is how I would expect peace to feel. Not high, not low, but balanced I guess. I’ve never had a bench mark to measure what peace might feel like. I’ve never really known it. Even in my sleep, I am plagued with distressing dreams….

….until lately that is. I enjoy my life very much. I’m always busy looking after my family and friends. I like my job most days, I love where I live and generally things are better than they ever have been for me. And logically I know everything is good, but there feels like there’s something missing. The feeling of loss or something not being quite right tears at my gut like the claws of a hungry wolf.

Could my therapist be right?

What is this feeling? I mulled, and thought and examined. I read some old diaries to compare my past to my present and there it was. My life in black and white, or green and white, sometimes pink and white; a different colour ink chosen depending on the mood I was in that day. Mostly though green wash chosen. Green is for abundance, it’s a magic colour for me, a colour to wish on. And mostly what I read was wishing for change, for peace for solution to endless problems.

I sat in front of the open drawer of my dresser, with volumes of my life hand written in pretty notebooks strewn across the top. I remembered the words from a documentary I watched where Dr. Gabor Mate spoke about the empty hole left where trauma was buried deep. When we no longer live in trauma and chaos, our nervous system needs quite some time to adjust. When we are healing or healed we can often feel like something is missing. Our nervous system has become addicted to chaos and it searches for the stress hormone, cortisol, in our bodies. It is looking for its fix and this is what I’m feeling. The loss of chaos.

This is a new point of recovery for me. I’m not sure how to exist in this new reality of peace. It is a very strange thing indeed. My need to keep moving, doing, fixing is all I know. Anybody know what I should do now? I’m looking forward to my next appointment with my therapist!