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A number of you have messaged or chatted me up asking to learn more about how we get ourselves back to normal after the impact of one of these large solar flares. This is pretty simple stuff, but I will share what I know about it. It may be too tutorial for some of you, so just skip over this blog.

Once in a while my "self" falls off the wagon, like after a push of change from a large solar flare. When I am out-of-phase with myself, there are suddenly two of us, the uncomfortable me that feels at a loss and the other "me" that I used to be, which I know is now only a memory of what I recently was when I felt "non-dual." My very conservative "self" would prefer to be that way again. But synching the two of us together is not always an easy task, at least for me. You can't go home again, as they say, or even step in the same river twice (or even once some Zen Buddhists say).

When our "self" stops working or just collapses, leaving us feeling outside of where we were, how do we get back together with it again? Before I give you my opinion on this, it is my duty to point out that these loss-of-self experiences, going "naked" without a self, are considered healthy and a great dharma practice by the Buddhists that I read. They should not be ignored. That being said, the reality is that most of us just want to get back into ourselves as soon as possible, so here are my suggestions.

The problem is the dichotomy or duality we experience when the self just goes empty or deflates. Most everything (as we know it) just stops and we can feel stranded or out-of-sorts. The common symptoms of solar flare impact on the self and consciousness are as follows: headaches, warm or hot feeling in the mind, fogginess and confusion, inability to focus on tasks, A.D.D., loss of direction, hard-to-think, loss of impetus and energy, etc. Self-related symptoms include a breakdown in the self, weakening or shattering of self-image, deflation, loss, plus an increased sense of vulnerability and emptiness.

The basic idea is that we have a breakdown of the self, and a loss of direction and goals compared to what we were, which is what we remember. The symptoms are identical in terms of change to those stemming from a tragic personal loss, but in this case they are not caused by life-changing personal events, but rather by the influx of change caused by large solar flares and CME events. The self is sensitive to sudden change or an increased rate-of-change and becomes the bottleneck in the equation, either adjusting to the change or losing control and self-destructing to some degree.

If you have experienced a deep personal loss where many of your attachments just evaporated and you didn't care about them anymore, then you have an idea of how the self reacts to a change-overload. It shuts down, vacates, and goes void or empty. The same thing happens when solar flares impact consciousness. There is a loss of direction and a general shutdown. We find ourselves standing outside what we would call our normal self. Most experience this as a "bad day," a day when we have lost direction, have trouble focusing, or just have low energy. There is general confusion. And this sense of loss may stretch on for days, weeks, or even longer. The remedy is a simple one, but not that easy to actually do quickly.

The very fact that we find ourselves at a loss is problematical, as mentioned earlier, because it points out that a separation exists between where we are now and somewhere we perhaps want to be, like back to feeling normal. However, it is already too late for that. We can't go back, but only onward.

Trying to return to the past, by definition, never works. It is gone. Trying to experience again what now is a memory is not where to put our emphasis. This effect happens a lot in spiritual disciplines when we have a very successful meditation or insight and spend the next three months trying to repeat it, and making no progress whatsoever -- that idea.

Instead, what works (albeit with some effort) is to accept things just as they are in the moment, uncomfortable, difficult, out-of-sorts, or what-have-you. In other words, embrace what 'is', warts and all. You know, "Love the one your with," so to speak, in this case whatever state you are in.

Everything we need is present now, but not if we are caught up in trying to repeat the past or demanding and looking for some future result, i.e. comparing. It is very much easier to create a new past and a new future in the present than anywhere else. There is nothing missing but our acceptance of how things are, however lousy, for starters. Even if they are not fun at the moment, we must first accept things as they are and rest our focus on that. That is the first step.

When we can do that, at least our sense of self is back in the present again and not yearning for better times or hoping for the future. More often than not, whatever schizophrenia or duality we originally felt subsides… and we can move on. With acceptance of whatever is, the self is restored or on the way to resolution. However, we may have to repeatedly dose ourselves with accepting things just as they are and resting in that present condition.

An image I used to use for myself is having a "death grip" on a baseball with one hand. The grip really hurts by now and the only way for it to feel better is to let go, relax our hand, and take a new and more gentle grip on the ball. In a similar way, we have to let go of the past or future and get a grip on the present, even if, starting out, it is boring, dull, painful, headachy, or what-have-you?

Just as with basic Shamata meditation 'practice', when we bring our focus back to the present and rest in that, sooner or later, with enough repetitions, by accepting our out-of-sorts self as a good place to start, it 'takes', and what was two is once again one. We start to feel like our old self or, more correctly, we have found a new normal and are no longer looking into the past or the future. We have stopped crossing our eyes and can begin again.

I find this method actually works and it beats twisting and turning in the wind wishing we felt differently or were somewhere else.

[Photo of the ubiquitous (and much hated around here) invasive "Autumn Olive," which actually smells great and is very delicate looking. It does, however, take over everywhere, crowding out native species.]