I’ve been seeing a psychologist and it’s been great. It’s been great to have someone hear me, and apparently know me and like me, in the flesh, uncensored.
It’s been amazing to have someone help me understand my thoughts and feelings and where they are coming from, much better than just going around in cirlces in my head.
Talking to you, lovely reader, is also one of life’s great consolations 😉
When things you never dared to put into words get said, it has a bit of an earth shattering influence.
I tend to discount my supposedly petty worries of my middle class childhood and largely happy family, and feel like I’m not allowed to suffer or make mistakes since I’ve been blessed with so much.
But the truth is, not everything is always so peachy, and my life has been difficult.
I’ve always felt rejected on account of my “weird” personality geared towards intellectual pursuits and being full of curiousity and open mindedness. My body grow up very fast and I was obese as a child, so that didn’t particularly help things either. And most painfully, even though I know I am loved and I love them, I still don’t feel like I fully belong in my family.
But that’s ok.
It’s not all or nothing, things aren’t blakc and white. There is complexity. THis is another thing I am working on.
And in addition to woes from my family, there is also society, which is not always such a sane influence. I don’t understand why we collectiely make te choices that we do.
For a long time I wanted to save the world, now I just want to live in it.
And I htink that by being true to myself, I liberate others.
I’ve seen it in action.
Thanks to me, people have realized there’s more to life than New Jersey, and the Iron Curtain has gone down. And no, Georgia is not a part of Russia.
And dreams do come true, the most dangerous and liberating and destabilizing truth there is.
God is on our side, no matter how petty and small and unimportant we may feel.
For a long time, I thought the events that precipitated my burn out/break down/high functioning depression/ existential crisis were a sign I was going nowhere fast, and the road to Hell was paved with good intentions.
Now I know that cause all your psychic defenses to go on high alert and that really change your life and your way of thinking of yourself are the way you find your treasure, the boon of your adventure which you get to bring back with you and remains part of who you are forever.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Joseph Campbell
I’m also a huge believer in the Alchemist of Paulo Coelho. I beat my breasts for years wondering why I was here in France and why I’d answered the strange call, wondering if I’d just made it up, but in fact I have found quite a lot of treasure. Not only in the form of living here, but also in the way of figuring out who I really am.
A long time back, someone locked the most powerful and magical part of me in a cage, to keep me safe from those who would call me a witch, and to spare me the discomfort of being different. They tried by grooming me to help me fit in better, but that only caused me to flee once I got a taste of real belonging. Then I realized that was more important to me than anything I’d left behind, but once I was there, the angels didn’t sing as loud as I expected in comparion to all the fear and worry and self doubt that followed me.
But now I am feeling magical again, and I realize tht no, I am not this person with such sadness and lack of energy and dark clouds and painful lightning over her heart.
I am not, and will never be, the perfect princess of a girl who would settle down for good in America with her all American husband and have three children and be content as an urban professional. That does not appear to be my path at all. I thought for a long time that was who I was meant to be, and then life intervened and destiny took over.
A few years ago I chose between working for a start up and being an English teacher in France. I think the joke is on me that they were more or less the same thing, with the same things at stake. All is one, right?
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”
Also I’m pretty much getting over the relationship and even the kids thing. If it happens, it happens. I also crunched some numbers, or really, just took my head out of my ass, and realized it could be possible for me to take a sabbatical sometime and go teach English somewhere far away again. But, besides running away from the complications of my life now and trying to shed them into bohemian wanderer identity, I don’t really see how that would give me much more freedom in the long run. I htink I need to dig deeper and see what I really want to do and do that. Travel is definitely a huge part of it, but it’s not everything.
But the treasure is not figuring it out and solving the equation for the various things I want in my life and finding a solution to get all of them at one time, or without pain or adjustment;
No the real treasure, is to realize who I am. It feels very crazy to say I of all peolle want to go trekking in Nepal. But I do. No I am not a hardocre fitness enthusiast, but I could be. I would like to be. And I would like to go vegetarian, like 90% of the time ish, too.
And maybe not eat too many grains or processed foods either, and go to CrossFit in the morning, and hike and do outdoor stuff on weekends, and manage my time and money and energy in keeping with my dreams goals and values.
Yes, that’s who I would like to be.
Not perfect, but fully engaged in my life, not watching from a distance.
Most importantly, wanting the things I want without shame, without being attached to them; free to be the person I’ve always wanted to be, full of everyday joy rather than striving for perfection and trying to control the future.
some good things I’ve just stumbled across: http://www.lifeintherightdirection.com/resource/finding-joe-lifes-adventure/
- “You could spend decades climbing to the top of the ladder, only to find it’s against the wrong wall.”
-
- The metaphor of the quest for the Holy Grail. If the path before you has been trodden, it is not your path, it is someone else’s path. If you follow someone else’s way, you will not realise your full potential.
-
- The metaphor of the golden Buddha. Each of us is born made of gold but a casing of stone develops over us and, by 6 or 7 years of age, we believe that we are, in fact, made of stone. One day something chips off a bit of that stone and we get a glimpse of the gold below it. We never turn back.
those things all hit home as I am writing this post.
So yes, I am and have been in the cave all long time. I adescended intoa hell of my own making of self inflicted suffering an and negative thoughts and self sabotage. I don’t deserve that and GOd would not want that for me.
I have to open the door because only I have th ekey to myinner joy and peace.
I think I need to look more into spirituality, not necessarily philosophy. And change my shoulds to wants.
THank you God.
And most of all,keep tearing back the veil to see the world, and myself, and God, more clearly.
Namaste,
MJ