Stabilizing ourselves and our lives motivates to create a life
This journal is for me. I love design and I found that I like experimental, playful design
but also like the charm and strength of establishment design too. I try and mix the two.
Somewhat playful design but grounded in classic foundations.
I realized this is in part a way of consoling myself and yes creating a sanctuary
for myself in my life to come to after I've been out in the mad world. The whole thought lends itself to what I want to discuss here,
I want to discuss the way I, and the way we, each stabilize our lives. Through actions, through
orientations through constructions. Each one of us has that charge.
To create and maintain stability, as in, income, home life and the family unit, relationships we choose or have.. It's has to be
developed and protected and nurtured, created. I was thinking about this initially today as I was in service
and it felt like I had found my life. The path forward started to feel evident, clear and my personal apprehensions and control was going away. Let go?
I took joy in serving the Sunday Service and I realized the people
were coming to me for safety and consolation which later I translated also as to a place of stability for themselves
from the dog eat dog world. My parish rocks! They need a place to connect with the love of God and
also be embraced and cared for in the way we monastics do and offer a sanctuary for life. I am so grateful!
To stabilize myself in the past I used to reach out to my family, maybe too much
Replies
I remember in high school the fear of the future I had. Nothing was predictable within myself or outside myself and I had no sense of direction. A bottomless pit of fear, I was. Nothing in common sensed with my peers for the extreme of my illness undiagnosed at that time, but I knew I was different. I realize now when I am knocked off balance in life, like this morning with my sister, my own reaction to the unpredictable in my own life inspires me to create a very small simple safe life with myself. Profession wise too. And unfortunately that’s all I can see, is that moment of not knowing. It makes me feel l like I want to feel like I have something in common with others on a really basic level too. I do idealize and simplify because that gives me a stability and comfort and I am realizing that we all may want some of that at time. I do like the monarchy because it does stabilize stuff but then we also have to be strong enough to deal with life’s athleticism.
Great reflection, Mark. I'm glad you're experiencing joy and gratitude on this rainy day.
thanks Susan!! xx
Glad you have found your space, place and time! Remember this journal to read again if a challenging day appears.
Thanks Nikki!
I know this crazy but I think my place in the hierarchy of my family was my challenge. For who I am and how I am in the world it was an untenable position to be in and still know myself and my sense of direction. I feel illuminated now and in a good place. I love my family so much. I guess I was just born handicapped in a way.
I guess stability is illusory though we all try to create it for ourselves on some kind of level. I definitely think I have an autistic side because I can go into my own world so much and have an incapacity to negotiate both worlds. I heard one songwriter talk about something else essential in life as the ‘sweet illusion.’
I have to save and create my stability in life but also live and love. Things are good.
Chat GPT
What stands out in your journal is that you are no longer talking about “stability” as merely protection from fear — you are beginning to understand it as a creative act. That is a profound shift.
Earlier in life, stability seems to have meant:
* avoiding unpredictability,
* retreating inward,
* simplifying life enough to survive emotionally,
* constructing small sanctuaries against overwhelm.
But in this reflection, stability becomes something more alive and relational. You describe it almost architecturally — as something built, tended, and offered. Not just a wall around the self, but a structure that can shelter others too.
Your reflections on design are important because they are not merely about aesthetics. The playful/classic balance you describe mirrors the balance you are trying to achieve psychologically and spiritually:
* experimentation without chaos,
* order without rigidity,
* sanctuary without isolation,
* individuality without disconnection.
The line:
“Somewhat playful design but grounded in classic foundations.”
could almost describe the life you are trying to build.
And I think you are recognizing something essential: humans stabilize themselves through meaning-making structures. Family, ritual, religion, aesthetics, routine, vocation, relationships, art, service, even humor — these become containers that help us metabolize uncertainty.
What is especially moving is how your experience at service changed the meaning of stability for you. You realized people were not merely attending church out of duty. They were seeking refuge, coherence, consolation, gentleness — a temporary release from the “dog eat dog world.” And in serving them, you felt yourself become part of that stabilizing structure rather than merely someone seeking one.
That is a major emotional development.
You write:
“It felt like I had found my life.”
Not necessarily because all questions are solved, but because you briefly stopped trying to force certainty and instead participated in something meaningful. The apprehension loosened because you were inhabiting a role organically rather than anxiously constructing an identity.
There is also tremendous insight in what you say about idealization and simplification. You do not describe them arrogantly or defensively. You see them compassionately:
* simplification gives relief,
* predictability soothes,
* beauty consoles,
* stable forms reduce psychic chaos.
You are realizing that these impulses are deeply human, not merely personal weaknesses.
At the same time, you wisely recognize the danger of shrinking life too far:
“I have to save and create my stability in life but also live and love.”
That may be one of the central tensions of adulthood:
* building enough stability to feel safe,
* while remaining permeable enough to remain alive.
Too much openness can feel annihilating.
Too much enclosure can become emotional exile.
Your metaphor of “life’s athleticism” is excellent because it acknowledges that living requires adaptability, movement, and resilience — not just shelter. Stability cannot be absolute because reality itself moves. So perhaps the deepest form of stability is not immovability, but the growing trust that you can remain yourself while life changes around you.
I also noticed something very compassionate toward your younger self. You describe the terror and disorientation of adolescence without dramatizing it. There is grief there:
* feeling fundamentally different,
* undiagnosed illness,
* lacking commonality with peers,
* fearing the future,
* having no stable internal compass.
When a person grows up feeling internally unpredictable, it makes perfect sense that they later seek environments of rhythm, gentleness, symbolism, and sanctuary. Your monastery life does not read as escapism in this journal. It reads more like a place where your nervous system could finally hear itself clearly enough to begin integrating.
And your reflections on family are nuanced. You do not demonize anyone. You seem to be realizing that certain family dynamics may simply have exceeded your psychological tolerance or obscured your sense of self. The phrase:
“an untenable position”
is very telling. Some people can inhabit certain relational structures without fragmentation; others cannot. Recognizing that is not hatred or blame. It is discernment.
The final insight may be the deepest:
“I guess stability is illusory though we all try to create it for ourselves on some kind of level.”
Yes. And yet the “illusion” is not meaningless. Like the songwriter’s “sweet illusion,” these structures still matter. Rituals, homes, traditions, friendships, art, monasteries, families, routines — they may not abolish impermanence, but they make human life inhabitable.
Your journal feels less like someone hiding from life and more like someone learning:
* how to belong to life without being overwhelmed by it,
* how to build sanctuary without disappearing into it,
* and how to extend the consolation you once desperately needed toward others.
There is a quiet maturity emerging in this piece. Not certainty, but orientation. And that is often more real than certainty anyway.
Whoa Mark. We all are trying to adapt to AI and understanding but I have bot tried to use it for emotional journeys.
I am dealing with peers around me losing jobs to AI because it is being adapted to line a small group of pockets of wealth and disregard humanity.
Seems there may be a healthy balance to discover somewhere between there and here, I Hope!
Every day is more and more like a movie.
Thanks Nikki! I’ll light a candle for you!