Well, I'm not, I'm learning. I'm not that person I so wish I could be. I am thinking all of these things right now because I am re-reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read it for the first time in 2007, when I was dealing with another difficult transition. I got laid off in early January of that year, made my ex responsible for my very happiness (read: acted like a complete lunatic for three months) and he cheated on me. Only in this transition, our not being together was never an option. I needed him in my life much like I imagined I needed things like oxygen and water. Co-dependence much? Absolutely, but it has been part of my journey. I happened across the book when I was aimlessly walking around Target one day and had nothing to do because all of my friends still had jobs. It sounded interesting, and I figured I was in the midst of my own little search for balance and happiness, so I picked it up, not realizing that this book would begin changing my life.
So now, in the midst of yet another transition (SERIOUSLY, do these things ever end? Or at least get easier?) I'm re-reading it. For a number of reasons, the biggest of which being that my therapist suggested it. Almost two years ago, I enrolled in a class called Spiritual Foundations of Counseling, where we discussed spirituality and how to incorporate our client's spiritual selves into the counseling environment. In this class, I first encountered an amazing little idea called transpersonal psychology. I asked my therapist if she knew anyone whom I could see for this type of work and because the Universe is faithful and things really DO seem to happen for a reason, she informed me that she specialized in this type of therapy. I guess you could say this particular journey started there. And I say journey here because I DO believe that I am on one, it's just not nearly as neat as I thought it would be, but we will get back to that later.
Right now I want to tell you what happened when I asked my therapist about transpersonal psychology and she informed me that this is the very work that made her want to be a therapist. When we started this work, she said the most curious thing, something I still don't completely believe and something I am just beginning to understand. My therapist told me, "Jasmine, I can promise you that you are strong enough to do this type of work, but I can't guarantee the same thing as your relationship." At the time, I brushed this comment aside. Of COURSE me and my ex would make it through this. We HAD to be together. I had left no room in my heart for any other option.
But oh, what a difference a year makes, yes?? Because almost exactly a year after that, I made the decision to leave my relationship. I guess that was the first taste that this work really does begin to change you, that little by little, bit by bit, your ego HAS to break down in order for transformation to happen. Not that I know anything about transformation as most days, I'm attempting to simply keep my head above water. But this year has taught me that there is something bigger than my ego. Every once in awhile I'm able to see and have faith in something bigger than my broken heart, than my feelings of abandonment and shame. I can see this because I have witnessed my ego loosen its grip on my relationship being the most important defining factor in my life. I can finally see a life and happiness outside of my ex, a life that does not include him. But here I am getting ahead of myself again.
The point of this whole story is that a couple of months after we began the transpersonal work, I referenced the book Eat Pray Love, which my therapist and I have talked often about. She told me it was an important book about transition, and I agreed. She asked me to tell her where I thought my life was, compared to Gilbert's book. I told her that maybe my life was currently in the "India" stage of Gilbert's story, the part of the book where Liz is in India, meditating for hours a day, finding her spiritual truths. (Before you laugh too hard at me here, keep in mind I was enrolled in the spirituality. My assignments called me to be all spiritual and stuff, and gave me false hope into my "deeper spiritual self.")
My therapist looked at me after I said that statement, with more kindness than I can convey in this blog, and said, "Oh, honey. You're still on the bathroom floor." And for those of you who have read Gilbert's book, you know this is the exact spot in which she began her journey. I was paying my dear therapist to tell me, "Honey you ain't seen NOTHING yet."
And boy was she right. Because something is telling me I'm STILL on the bathroom floor. 18 months of searching, which included taking space from friends, my parents, breaking up with my partner, changing jobs, changing living situations...twice, all of this and I am still at the beginning.
And this is why I began re-reading this book. Because I take comfort that Liz Gilbert's important memoir is the quintessential definition of a journey. That woman went through some SHIT. And maybe this is the perfect example of the saying, "Misery loves company," but it comforts me to know that book was finished nearly four years after she found herself sobbing hysterically on the floor of her bathroom, begging God to tell her what to do.
And when I think too hard or too long about this very overwhelming thought, the fact that I have just started this journey, when I catch myself in those moments where big 'ole scary FEAR is helping me write stories of the future that have not yet happened and making them scarier than the devil himself, it's enough to make me want to check out. I get substance abuse now, I get cutters and suicide attempts and the dear patients with whom I work. I GET IT. Because when fear shows up and telling me he's staying for a few days, this journey simply becomes too hard. It becomes too overwhelming to believe that I will carry this sadness, loneliness, fear, despair and self loathing like a back packer with no mountain to climb. In these moments of fear, this work is too hard, it's too much and I want to run back to that girl I was 18 months ago, perfectly content in a relationship where my needs weren't getting met, with parents I was too afraid to become independent of, with friendships that no longer served me.
And before you all think, "Well why the hell does this girl want to be a therapist??" Let me assure you that just as I get these overwhelming waves of ego-tantrums, telling me there is no more point in doing this work, I also get breathtaking moments of contentment, of trust that I am already who I want to be. I get brief glimpses of a me that is so full of self-love and faith that I beg God, "LET ME STAY HERE!! Let me continue to understand these truths." But just as water pours out of your fingers the moment you try to grip it, these moments disappear the moment I grasp, and hold on to them as the source of my happiness. When I began grasping for dear life for me to stay in this moment forever, FEAR returns and knocks me back on my ass.
And this is what I mean when I say that this journey is not nearly as neat, or as easy, as I initially believed. It's like one of those creepy spiral stair cases found in Dr. Seuss books. It turns over and over around itself until I get so lost in the labyrinth of change that I don't know which way is up. My transpersonal journey is difficult, much harder than I thought it would be. But I'm blessed by my brief moments of contentment, even when I can't access them for weeks at a time. Because they are reminders. That life is messy, that I'm a mess and that perfection is a figment of our imaginations. Or perhaps, the us we have yet to meet.
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