How to Be In a Tight Spot and Like It

You and I already know something about each other--we are both claustrophobic. Although we may have never met, this knowledge I have of you in no way implies that I have any extrasensory powers. I know this about you simply because everyone is claustrophobic. The only difference between us being that of degree.

Claustrophobia is a natural self-protective response to feeling entrapped in a tight confine. We are genetically programmed for it; we probably inherited it from our distant invertebrate ancestors. An insect would panic and flee when she senses an object descending close overhead, or even the shadow of an object so I suspect the initial claustrophobic response was associated with predation. It takes no stretch of the imagination to understand why animals would evolve an instinctive response to claws and jaws of a predator closing in around them!

In a secondary sense, the claustrophobic response serves to keep us from getting wedged in tight places. This is how we civilized humans primarily experience it, as we have largely extracted ourselves from direct involvement in the food chain.

In general, we civilized people often exhibit more extreme claustrophobic sensitivity than do Native people. This is because the response is seldom triggered in us so we do not know it well and have not worked out our bounds with it. It is similar to a non-swimmers extreme reaction to being in deep water as opposed to the reactions of a swimmer. Claustrophobia is but a shade of the flight-fight response. We can see how over-reactive some of us are by our extreme response to minor or non-existing threats, such as frogs, snakes, and bugs. Similarly we civilized people are accustomed to roominess. We live and work in big buildings with big rooms, whereas Native people have living spaces more akin to a nest or a den. And this is true of animals in general. They feel secure when their walls are close in, when they are in a round space that conforms to their body shape. Closeness keeps in warmth and walls are a known entity, large open spaces are not.

As a child, as many small children are, I was naturally drawn to small spaces. I would crawl under the table and set up a play area there. As I got older I would build a small “fort” for myself inside my larger bedroom. When we moved, my preference was for the smaller bedroom, and I once tried to get my parents to allow me to use a closet for my bedroom--to allow me to set up my bed in a closet.

But this nesting-denning instinct has been corrupted in those of us who are civilized. We have grown so accustomed to the feel of the nest that close confines, even though not threatening to our well-being, can trigger claustrophobic/fight/flight response.

For those of us returning to the Old Way our over-reaction to feeling in a tight squeeze, whether it be from imagined predator or a restrictive space, sometimes slows down our growth toward Attunement. I have watched people panic from feeling confined in sleeping bags, in small primitive shelters, and in snow tunnels. Occasionally a person will react to heavy winter clothing because they are not accustomed to this type of clothing (this type of reaction to clothing is apparently not uncommon with young children; I witnessed it in my own son).

I use two approaches to help people find their Balance with claustrophobia. To illustrate the first, I use the example of a young seeker who is new to my wilderness camp. He built a snow lodge for himself that had roughly the internal space of a 2-person domed tent. He spent most of a week building the lodge and was excited about moving in and making it his winter home, but as he finished the interior he started to have claustrophobic reactions and grew concerned as to whether he would be able to stay in it at all. I had him envision his bowl as being half full rather than half empty.

We do not need to be a victim to our feelings. We can guide and direct them and even create them. Our feelings are responsive to the diorama we create in our mind and our imagination. For example, if I describe a scene for you, such as a mountain waterfall on a warm spring day, you will create a mental picture, a mental diorama of the scene and feelings will flow from that.

I could take that picture, that diorama from two diametrically opposed perspectives, even though I might be talking about the same waterfall on the same day, at the same time. I could describe the spray from the cataract fractures, the sunlight into a broad rainbow, the kingfishers diving in the pool below the fall, and the meadow flowers leading to the water’s edge. Or, I could tell you about the chill I felt from the cold air sliding down the cliff side from the snow field above and the rotting deer carcass wedged between two boulders at the outlet of the pool, and the cans and wrappers that some previous visitors left strewn about. Each visualization elicits quite a different emotional response, which in turn would effect your visit to that place, if in fact you would consider going there.

So, that is what I did with the snow shelter builder. I guided him on a visualization, first on the lodge as an entrapment--a cold, restrictive place--and then as a sheltering nest, out of the glare of the winter sun and the deep chill of the night stars. I asked him to imagine his shelter as his center, his heart, from which he ventures to the affairs of his day, and to which he returns to gain the comfort and nourishment and security of The Mother Bosom.

I asked him to envision this throughout the day and allow the resulting feelings to flow. In a couple of days he began to feel within himself the gift his lodge was holding forth for him and he beheld it and moved in with no problem.

My second approach is to overcome the claustrophobia trigger with body posturing that maintains balance. When we are uncertain or fearful we will often enter a doorway or tunnel feet first. Or when we duck under a branch or go through brush we will lean backwards to do so. Because our sensory receptors--hands, eyes, ears--are at the opposite end of our body as we enter or go under we are likely to grow more fearful and panicky as we progress. Fear is a lack of knowing; our feet are not going to give us the information we need to know. We have lost our center of balance, which our body is designed to maintain when we lean forward and not backward. Our clothing ruffles up, which also designed to work along with our body by trying to avoid panic triggers we have actually set them off.

Claustrophobia is a gift. When we face our fear each time it arises with the envisioning method outlined above and maintain a posture of physical centeredness, when we recognize the fear arising we will take a step closer to Balance with this gift. With each step it becomes more our servant and we become less its victim. I suggest that you do as I do and be thankful when the feeling comes up, for another opportunity to restore our intrinsic Balance.