my story
Rachael Hevrin, founder of Mind Theatre.
The hardest thing for me was knowing how to listen to myself.
To which thought?
Which of the mental wormholes looping
Compulsively, concurrently, continuously, conflictingly.
I had an infinite supply of them; these thought tunnels, their convoluted twists and turns, as well as the energy to dig more of them. Because each tunnel I dug promised that if I…
just kept digging, digging, digging
just kept thinking, thinking, thinking
I’d find something at the end of it. I never saw the light of day. You’d think that’d make me tired. It didn’t. It made me worse. It made me sick.
Maybe listen to how you’re feeling?
But feelings change their mind. And for the most part, they were threatening, scary and urgent. I didn’t trust them.
If you don’t move now, you are going to die.
But I couldn’t move. I didn’t know where to go. So I just kept thinking myself into a frozen numbness.
So as you can see, I had plenty of voices fighting to be heard.
But which one could I trust?
When I wasn’t distracted, I felt caught between these two combatants for my attention:
Compulsive thoughts. Triggering anxiety.
Outside of distraction there was no room for peace between them; and outsourcing for answers just added to the mental cacophony.
So what could I trust?
theatre of the mind
There was a space I remember dissolving into; beneath the layers of racing thoughts and reactive emotions.
It was very still.
A liminal space that hovered between wakefulness
… and sleep.
And here, instead of being the actor, I became the audience.
Safely removed from the theatrics.
stage of the subconscious
It’s a funny thing, safety. It spotlights a very different voice.
Not compulsive and looping.
Not threatening and urgent.
But quiet, consistent.
She didn’t grow larger with fear. She was a content knowing.
A knowing I didn’t need to outsource but was instead, my resource.
She didn’t always give every answer,
instead, she taught me trust.
