How natural disasters mimic the ego death of psychosis and other breakdowns
As I sit here in South East Queensland in the aftermath of Cyclone Alfred, rain bucketing down and nowhere to go for the last five days, I have been contemplating the similarities between this weather event and the episodes of psychosis and other expanded states of consciousness I have had in the past.
Such comparisons help us glean the profound lessons about life and death that we need to make sense of the world, like precious gold that is mined in the face of great adversity or transformation.
1. The force is bigger than you
With gale force winds, lashing rain and a girth of several hundred kilometres, a cyclone is an awesome force to behold, and it cannot be held back by any human.
Psychosis and psychological breakdowns are also forces – in the case of psychosis, the unconscious is the tidal wave that swamps the ordinary self. The waters of the dream world and the tremors of the body rush in, leaving a trail of destruction in their path. Logic and reason are uprooted like trees from the soil of the mind, inundated by dark thoughts, nightmares and terrifying beliefs. The nervous system creaks and groans, giving way to insomnia, voices and visions, palpitations, and a cascade of cortisol and adrenaline.
2. There is no choice but to surrender
Sure, you can sandbag your house, secure the windows and prune the trees. These things will help but they don’t stop the cyclone. At some point you’ll have to bunker down in the walk-in-wardrobe with a torch and a prayer while the winds swirl around you and the house shudders. If you’re unlucky, the roof will blow off and there’ll be no protection at all.
Somewhere along that journey, you’ll find yourself surrendering. You realise that you can’t change things and you are being swept along for the ride. When you surrender, your mind lets go of trying to control the outcome and you accept that this is happening.
And then something magical and unexpected happens; the space inside you that was filled with fear and resistance is now occupied by a sense for peace, relief, curiosity, awe and even profound joy.
There were many moments while in psychosis when I felt that bliss of simply letting go, as though I was falling into the arms of Life itself, or into the ecstasy of Divinity. It was a state of consciousness where I lived only in the present and felt deeply at home, and which felt more real than the flesh-and-bone world.
3. It is a rite of passage through destruction and creation
When the wind has blown its last gust and the rain stops falling, there is the shock of the destruction that one must face – crumpled homes and buildings, ancient trees toppled, beaches eroded, roads collapsed and perhaps even lives lost. Somehow we must take in these scenes and realise that the landscape is changed forever.
In psychology there is a term “shattered assumptions” which is used to describe great loss, whether physical or psychological. All too often our view of life is bound in assumptions that the world, people and our own identities are somehow absolute or static. Yet with one event, everything changes and we must then rearrange our worldview to encompass a more humble position of our own place in it.
There is nothing quite like the cyclone of psychosis to wash away assumptions about who or what you think you are. The inner world and personality comes crashing down, revealing itself for the construct it always was, and we are left with debris that often doesn’t make sense, or seems broken beyond repair.
But therein is the gift; as the ancient Vedic teachings remind us, destruction begets creation and thus the world is created and destroyed, created and destroyed, again and again for eternity. And so it is with us; the death of the old self is the birth of the new self, and the psychosis acts as a great purifier of all within the subconscious that needs to be seen and released before something new can immerge.
And so nature asks of you: can you surrender to the forces within and without, and allow that which is greater than you to unfold in its Divine wisdom? Better yet, can you surrender sweetly, with a deep breath and a heart wide open, simply present to what is.
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