Naming the Cliff

I started saying this phrase recently, referring to spaces where I had been feeling a particular body response to some unknown threat or problem and was able to ultimately trace back to what the root concern was.  I call this "naming the cliff."

In those moments, I was a few steps away from overwhelmed, teetering on the edge of an invisible something.  Driving back along a particular path was causing a lot of physical symptoms from an extreme emotional space--however, once I connected what the emotional spark was, why those symptoms were there, I named the cliff.

Naming the cliff is a huge benefit unto itself.  I knew where I was.  I knew where the edges were.  I might even be able to start making tentative steps down from the cliff, talking myself down from the scarier areas with that actualized understanding of that space.  It does not make the cliff dissolve to know its name, but at least I have more tools available to me to tell someone where I am and techniques that I might used before, like places to attach my carabiner put in the wall by a previous excursion.  There is less "unknown" factor, which is a reassurance unto itself.  If this is a frequent cliff that I end up on, there might still be a level of frustration, at least until compassion enters, but not knowing is worse to me than wandering in figurative fog.  The cliff I'm standing on could be just a stump or it could be stemming from a trauma mountain--I know better what resources I might need once I know where it's coming from, after I have recognized it and named it for what it is.

New cliffs might not have any resources there yet, but at least I can survey the area clearly.  Maybe it's like another cliff I've been on before.  It takes practice.  I'm getting more and more practice in interpreting physical symptoms into what their emotional source might be--it has been and will continue to be a process.  The problem, the reaction needs recognition before we can carry forward.