BLACK BOX

A few years ago, I realized that I have black boxes inside of me.

They are places that feel like secure metal safes, sleek and black, and are filled with nothingness if you’re looking at them from the outside. Invisible most of the time, they feel like a void in my mind when I come across one. Whatever is trapped inside is inaccessible and I’m afraid that if I open the box, I’ll be sucked into the abyss and the darkness, if I could even get into it in the first place.

When I tried to talk about them – or what was inside of them – to coaches and therapists, the best I could come up with is “I don’t know.” There is simply nothing to say or describe about them or whatever they are hiding.

“I don’t know,” became my refrain after the burnout. “I don’t know,” was where I got stuck. 

I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to market and sell. I don’t know if I want to teach yoga. I don’t know what my body needs. I don’t know how to accept my body. I don’t know how to show up as myself. I don’t know how to quit people pleasing. I don’t know how to ask for what I need. I don’t know…

I am amazed at the abundance of self-preservation tools my body and mind have in their toolbox. And I’m grateful that they used them to help me survive.

I don’t know is a type of powerlessness. It’s a type of protection, a way out of having to find the answers. By not allowing myself to know, I can stay safe. I don’t have to give up my safety and security for whatever scary, life-sucking thing lives inside of the black box.

If I don’t allow myself to know, then I don’t have to face beliefs that turn out to not be true. I can avoid reliving pain that I feel and that I’ve caused. I don’t have to open the wounds or grieve the losses. I can avoid wanting things that feel impossible to have – or that I’m “not allowed” to want.

I can talk about them now because I’m starting to learn how to work with them. They are a product of imagination, so that’s where I have to meet them. As much as I’d like to brute force my way into them, or dent the sides by banging against them with anger and fury, that has never been the way to get the black boxes to reveal their secrets.

The black boxes begin to soften and unlock if I sit quietly with them, sometimes for days or weeks at a time. They appreciate the community of other women who’ve treated them with curiosity and approval rather than admonishment. Judgmental spirits (including me) have to be removed from the imaginary room. Sometimes I can hear something inside the black box if I press my hands and an ear against the metal walls to listen. But until I’m ready to accept what lives inside, the black boxes will not open because they hold the truths that must be believed and held gently.

Maybe “I don’t know” isn’t quicksand but a compass, one that points inward to a sacred place deep within us. Maybe we do know, and we need space to allow ourselves permission to know, and approve what we know, no matter what we find.